Pennsylvania church surrenders part of the proceeds of the sale of its manse to the Lenape people

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LOUISVILLE — 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 the Rev. 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-Allum 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.” 

“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.” 

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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.” 

Britt invited church member Andy Farquhar forward to discuss some of the research and outreach he helped conduct to make the surrender possible. Farquhar, a retired teacher, helped pen the letter that went out to each Lenape organization: “We do this not as an end,” the letter states, “but as part of our ongoing commitment to justice and respect for the sacred relationship between our people and this land. In our worship this Advent season, we have prayed: ‘May this act transform us, O Lord. May it be the beginning of deeper repentance, faithful repair and shared liberation. Shape us into people of justice and peace, bearing fruits worthy of you kingdom. We offer this surrender in that spirit.” 

Farquhar explained that one Lenape group is recognized by the State of Delaware and two by the State of New Jersey. Another group stayed in Pennsylvania but has never been recognized by the Commonwealth. “To be recognized, they have to prove their ancestry. But this group had to hide their identity for centuries,” Farquhar said. “Runaway slaves and others came to stay with them, and they became intertwined. That’s one of the tragedies of settler colonialism, that those who stayed are not recognized.” 

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

The Lenape People, also known as the Delaware Nation, were the original inhabitants of the borough now called Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. Through colonization, treaties and forced displacement, the Lenape were removed from their ancestral lands and scattered across North America. Today, their descendants continue to preserve their culture, identity and communities despite centuries of systemic harm.