St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery, New York City

Please indulge me as I begin this sermon the  way I might back home in Victoria, British Columbia – adapted for local use!

• First, I want to acknowledge that we have gathered on the traditional lands of the Lenape and Wappinger peoples.
• I note that we have gathered in a church building whose origins were in a chapel on a farm worked by African-American slaves. I celebrate the role that these people had in the building of the colonies and the Republic, and affirm, as writer Jeffrey Blount recently said, that the father of this country was a slave.
• I give thanks for our forebears of the past two-thousand years who brought the good news of Jesus Christ from Jerusalem to this distant island.

Remembering these things I dare to preach boldly to you, my sisters and brothers, and humbly pray to God: May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen.