Mission Yearbook: Pennsylvania church surrenders proceeds to the Lenape people

The congregation of the First Presbyterian Church of Lansdowne, Pa.

During worship on the final Sunday in Advent, First Presbyterian Church of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, formally surrendered 15% of the proceeds from the recent sale of its church manse to descendants of the Lenape people, the Indigenous stewards of the land on which the church now stands. The 74-minute worship service can be viewed here.

“It is important for us to frame this act as a surrender — an acknowledgement that these funds are not ours to hold,” said the Rev. Jonathan Britt, the church’s pastor. “We cannot separate the resources we have from the colonial history that displaced the Lenape people, whose stewardship of this land was sacred and enduring. Surrendering these funds is a small but tangible step in repairing a fractured relationship and honoring the humanity and dignity of the Lenape people.”

Britt said the approximately $27,000 that was surrendered during the service on Dec. 22 was determined in conversation with Restorative Actions, an economic equity initiative born from the intersection of theology, justice and economics. The 15% of the manse’s sale proceeds represents not only a financial acknowledgement but a spiritual and moral response to the harm done to Indigenous communities, Britt noted.

During his Dec. 22 sermon, Britt drew from a devotion by Dr. William Yoo of Columbia Theological Seminary published in “Boundless,” an anti-colonial Advent devotional published by Unbound. In his devotional, Yoo points out that abolitionists including William Lloyd Garrison lifted up Jesus’ ministry as an important reason for their advocacy. “When other Christians criticized him as an instigator of disorder whose activism imperiled the union of the Northern and Southern states, Garrison invited them to open their Bibles and read texts such as Matthew 25 and Luke 4,” Yoo wrote. “Garrison insisted that he simply sought to follow what Jesus taught.”

“It is in stories like these that we begin to see how white Presbyterians or white Protestant Christianity in America gets a reputation for being more concerned about the status quo than about Jesus’ call to liberation for the oppressed,” Britt said in his sermon.

“Friends, I will remind us that when we believe that things are too bad to even start to work on changing them, [the Rev.] Jermaine Ross-Allam reminds us that is a sin against the Holy Spirit and her power to use us to transform the world,” Britt said. “As today’s text reminds us, no one is too small or too powerless to be called by God” to make ready God’s realm here on Earth.

“By all accounts, Mary was a nobody from the backwater of Galilee,” Britt said, “and yet because of the son that she raised, the world has not been the same.”

The Rev. Jonathan Britt

“Mary and Elizabeth knew that God’s vision for the world was one that looked like it could be so much more than just the colonized world that they lived in,” Britt said. “Mary and Elizabeth leaned into the hope that the children they raised — and they themselves — could make a difference in how just their world was despite all the odds against them.”

While “we alone certainly will not right the wrongs of centuries of a nation, we can take steps in that direction,” Britt told the congregation. As part of the service of surrender, “We’ll be taking one small step along the path toward repairs for the injustices that have been wrought upon this land.” The church is about 30 minutes west of South Philadelphia.

“We acknowledge that this small act is not enough,” said Britt, adding the congregation had been in touch with nine Lanape organizations and was dividing the proceeds among them. “It is our hope this is a beginning, a small step, and that others will follow our example as we follow others who have done similar things before us. It is in this way we can lift up those who have been historically put down. It is in this way that even small congregations like ours — even people like us — can make repair for the harms and the sins of our country’s and our church’s past.”

Worshipers affirmed their faith near the conclusion of the service by reading a portion of The Confession of Belhar.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS story)

Let us join in prayer for:

• Mike Ferguson, Reporter/Editor, Presbyterian News Service, Interim Unified Agency
• Daniel Fernandez, Dishwasher, Stony Point Center, Interim Unified Agency 

Let us pray:

Gracious God, what amazing opportunities we have to learn about you through our experiences with each other. May we find remarkable ways to live out our call to notice your life shining in others. And in doing so, may we affirm in them that they, too, may hear your call. Amen.