Author: Austin
We Shall Not Be Moved
Psalm 112
February 8
David A. Davis
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“For the righteous will never be moved; they will be remembered forever.”
Louise Goss was the most elegant and eloquent woman of faith. Her passion and gift for music, her life-long commitment as a music educator, and her deep and abiding faith, it all came together in her in a way that made her an absolute connoisseur of Christian worship. And she would wear that mantle of authority with such humility and a commitment to never say an unkind word about anybody. She was a member of this congregation for 69 years. She joined the great cloud of witnesses a few months shy of her 100th birthday. I once went to visit Louise after Easter in her room at the old Merwick Long Term Care Center behind the YM/YWCA campus. Seems strange to say it, but there was a heat wave that early spring. Only hot air was blowing out of the HVAC unit in Louise’s room. It was really uncomfortable in there. “Louise, can you believe this heat?’ I said with a groan. “David, I don’t think in all of my life I have seen a string of more beautiful days. They’ve just been stunning, haven’t they?” There in a room with barely a view outside to creation, the words were said with such joy, and fulfillment, and contentment, and gratitude, and affirmation, and it was so clear that her words went far beyond the weather! It was her summary statement of life: a string of more beautiful days.
I remember an Advent Sunday at the church door. Louse Goss just beamed with joy, and as I bent down to greet her, she took two hands off her walker and put them on my cheeks, and said, “David, that was the best Advent service I have ever experienced.” I teased her and said, “Louise, you told me that last year!” She didn’t miss a beat. Right away, Louise said, “I know, and it just keeps getting better!” It occurs to me that she was talking about more than a hymn, or a prayer, or a worship service. Louise was sharing her affirmation of faith and life in the Body of Christ. No one could greatly delight in the Lord like Louise Goss.
“For the righteous will never be moved; they will be remembered forever.”
Bob and Helen Duncan moved into the Glen Acres neighborhood in the early 1960’s. Established by the Princeton Housing Group, Glen Acres was an intentionally integrated neighborhood right off Alexander Road, just this side of Rt 1. Bob died in 2019, and Helen moved not too long ago to Reston Va to be near family. After Bob died, a church member wrote to tell me of the conversation he had with Bob when he was a relatively new member of the church, and Bob and another elder came to see him on behalf of the nominating committee, asking him to become an elder. Bob explained a fundamental part of Presbyterian Church governance that maintains that each elder is not expected to represent or vote the will of the congregation. No, each elder is to discern the will of God and vote their own conscience as led by the Spirit. Bob said it better. He told the much younger church member that “each elder is to ask themselves ‘what would Jesus do’”. Of course, Bob Duncan wasn’t referring to some kind of pious, self-righteous morality. He was referring to leaders in the church committed to welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, showing mercy, and speaking for justice and righteousness. Few embodied this congregation’s commitment to justice more than Bob Duncan.
Several years ago, Bob and Bill Wakefield were invited to speak at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in NYC to share Nassau’s ministries of immigration and refugee justice. They told the story of John Nasir. Along with others, Bob and Bill worked tirelessly to get John, an undocumented immigrant, released from the Elizabeth detention center. During the question and answers up there in the adult ed class at 5th Avenue, a member of the church asked them about all the time, effort, and legal fees spent for just one person. They both shared with me later how stunned they were by the question and the tone of the questioner. It was Bill Wakefield who responded, “Well, how else would you do it?” Bill Wakefield also told me in no uncertain terms that his passion for social justice and the gospel and Matthew 25 was inspired by Bob Duncan. A light rising in the darkness shining for mercy and justice.
“For the righteous will never be moved; they will be remembered forever.”
Just the other day, I asked at a staff meeting if folks remembered the Sunday morning when Ruth Wyatt called into worship from the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge. We didn’t have the technology we have now in this room, but John Baker, our sound engineer at the time, made it work. Ruth had brain cancer. Ruth and her family joined a walk to raise awareness and money for research. What I remember most about that moving morning, as I stood here at the pulpit talking to Ruth, was how Ruth just kept saying “thank you” over and over again. Like so many of the followers of Jesus I have visited over the years who were enduring horribly disease, one always came away from a visit with Ruth being humbled by what she gave to you, even at her sickest.
Ruth died almost 20 years ago, but I still remember the visits. Ruth always said thank you, no matter what was being done for her or who was doing it. Ruth was more inclined to enjoy every conversation and to crave the laughter when a friend would bring some stories rather than wrestle with questions that had no answers. Ruth would rise to the occasion of a visit so others could feel a bit more comfortable. She craved intentional conversations with those closest to her. She basked in the unquantifiable love of her family, her friends, her church, and her God. She was content to relish the treasures of life even in the midst of illness. She never let the brokenness of her body take away from the God-given treasure of her life and the treasure of her hope for the life to come. Her heart was firm and secure in the Lord. Her heart was steady and not afraid.
“For the righteous will never be moved; they will be remembered forever.”
I watched Jim Fitzpatrick sit in a pew over by that window and shed tears during at least one hymn every Sunday for pretty much sixteen years. The son of a Methodist preacher, Jim craved the hymns and preaching of the church like the food we eat and the air we breathe. In April of 2014, Jim wrote a note to the Session of Nassau Church.
“I will never forget the time when I was listening to David Davis as he was at the peroration pitch of deliverance. I was so engrossed to the extent of not watching my speedometer and ran right into a Maryland speed trap for a cost of over $200. I was not dangerous; I was just enthralled with what David was saying. It was worth the fine, but I could not persuade the state trooper that this fine should be better put to use in our hunger offering. When I sayeth unto him verily, verily that was the case, the cop sayeth back to me in clear, definitive terms that I could my verilys and Maryland would keep the money.”
Jim was a man of many words, both in his speaking and in his writing. That might be a bit of an understatement. To listen to him tell a story at a dinner party in his home was to often feel like he would go on for eternity. He once told me he got an F on a three-page paper in college because he wrote one long sentence. It was grammatically correct, he insisted. It was so striking to me that when Jim Fitzpatrick talked about his faith, especially the older he got, he would use very few words. One afternoon at their home on Palmer Square, Jim started to tell me of the debt and gratitude he felt toward God. It was a level of gratitude, he said, that came with a profound sense of responsibility; responsibility to give back, to try to be faithful, to contribute to the common good, and to offer thanks and praise in worship. But he had come to the conclusion that his entire relationship to God could be described by gratitude.
We had another conversation one day over lunch, sitting at two TV trays in the apartment down on Palmer Square. Jim had more beverages in front of him than he could drink in a week. There was a glass of water, a can of Ensure, a mug of something I guessed was coffee or tea and a glass of what I assumed was apple juice. A bit later, he offered me a sip and told me it was scotch. It was during that conversation we talked about eternity, about heaven. “I know people get all worked up about what to believe, and they have trouble with this scripture or that”, Jim said. “It doesn’t seem to me to be all that complicated. For me it all comes down, the gospel all comes to down to love. The promise is God’s everlasting love. That’s enough for me, he said. I don’t need any more than that. God’s everlasting love”. Blessed are those who entrust their lives now and forever to God’s steadfast love.
“For the righteous will never be moved; they will be remembered forever.”
Louise, Bob, Bill, Ruth, Jim. I remember them and so, so, so many more. How about you? Who do you remember? They will be remembered forever. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus…” They will be remembered forever and we shall never be moved.
Abiding in God’s Tent
Psalm 15
February 1
David A. Davis
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O Lord, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill?
Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right
and speak the truth from their heart;
who do not slander with their tongue
and do no evil to their friends
nor heap shame upon their neighbors;
in whose eyes the wicked are despised
but who honor those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
who do not lend money at interest
and do not take a bribe against the innocent.
Those who do these things shall never be moved.
Live free of blame. Do what is right. Speak the truth sincerely. Do no damage with your words. Harm neither friend nor neighbor. Call out wickedness. Honor those who honor God with their lives. Keep your word even when it hurts. Don’t take advantage of others to make money. Live like this and you won’t stumble.
That is the psalmist’s answer to the question: “who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?” Who can live in your tent? Who can dwell on your holy mountain, Lord? Eugene Peterson poses the leading question of Psalm 15 like this: “God, who gets invited to dinner at your place? How do we get on your guest list?” But Peterson’ cozy paraphrase misses the reference to the holiest of places. God’s tent. The Lord’s holy hill. The tent is reference to the traveling tabernacle housing the ark of the covenant. The holy hill is Jerusalem and the temple. The holiest of places. Places made holy by the presence of God. Abiding in God’s tent. As one scholar described these holiest of places; “it is the place where God comes to dwell with God’s people and the place where God’s people come to dwell with God.” Who can abide, who can dwell in the holiest places, the holiest moments with you, Lord?’
Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right
and speak the truth from their heart;
who do not slander with their tongue
and do no evil to their friends
nor heap shame upon their neighbors;
in whose eyes the wicked are despised
but who honor those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
who do not lend money at interest
and do not take a bribe against the innocent.
Those who do these things shall never be moved.
Interestingly, the same scholar I just quoted digs in the Hebrew verbs, “to dwell” and “to abide.’ They make the argument that the verbs and the tense used in the Hebrew connote a brief stay; a lack of duration to being in the tent, to being on the holy hill. There was no mention of what that grammatical observation might mean. What the take away might be of the ancient language indicating what the writer describes as “remaining in a place for a short period of time.”
I have only been inside the lobby of The Graduate hotel down the block a few times since it opened. Some of you know that the bar and restaurant are to the right as you enter from Chambers Street. To the right is a beautiful lobby area designed to look like a library. A beautiful library with tons of books on shelves, big leather chairs, and a long library table that stretches the length of the room. Each time I have been there that long table is full of students studying on their laptops with headphones or earbuds and their own water bottle there on the table. Students working there for the long haul, some for the day, others perhaps for the night. It is either a warm policy of hospitality to the community or an unwise or anticipated business model. I would imagine the room was designed and intended for briefer stays.
Maybe the implication of the short stay in the holy place is less about duration and more about a vitality, a freshness, an active, day in, day out, each moment experience between God and God’s people. You don’t go to the tent to rest on the laurels of your piety. You don’t experience the holy hill as a place to linger apart from the world where God has sent you to serve. As one writer observed, perhaps Psalm 15 is less about a moral test for the priests who can enter the tabernacle or the temple and more about the “longing for the kind of community the psalm describes and the kind of God who would be in the company of such people”.
O Lord, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill?
Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right
and speak the truth from their heart;
who do not slander with their tongue
and do no evil to their friends
nor heap shame upon their neighbors;
in whose eyes the wicked are despised
but who honor those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
who do not lend money at interest
and do not take a bribe against the innocent.
Those who do these things shall never be moved.
Old Testament Professor Beth Tanner, is a graduate of Princeton Seminary and on the faculty at New Brunswick Seminary. In her book The Psalms for Today (2008), she references the use of the psalms during the Reformation and tells of something I never. Dr. Tanner points out that the psalms were song in public during the Reformation. Songs of praise sung in public as songs of protest. And in their singing, Tanner suggests, the psalms became prayers for strength and for seeking God’s presence.
I first heard of “Singing Resistance” in Minneapolis. It began with small numbers singing songs of protest in the frigid streets of Minneapolis. It has grown into a movement. Andrew and Len Scales shared with me that Slatz Toole is a leader in that movement. Slatz was nurtured in faith through the Breaking Bread community. I watched a video of a Methodist Church full of 1,5000 singing and lighting candles. Prayers for strength and for seeking God’s presence.
I can’t tell you how many people sent me a link to the Ezra Klein Podcast with James Talarico. Family members, church members, neighbors, colleagues near and far. Talarico is running for office in Texas. He was raised in the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin and is a seminary student at Austin Presbyterian Seminary. His popularity has grown, in part, because of his willingness to talk about his own faith and his willingness to challenge the Christian right. The interview reminds me of our January inter-generational series on sharing faith stories. It was Talarico’s faith story including his impressive knowledge of scripture. At one point in the podcast Ezra Klein asks James Talarico about his faith and his progressive views on being pro-choice and for full inclusion of the queer community. His answer to that question alone is worth the listen. He criticizes both the obsession and the reductionism of the two issues as it relates to the gospel. He concludes by saying there are over 3,000 references in the Old and New Testament to economic justice and yet the story is as old as time, he says. “The powerful and those in control pervert religion and use it make more money and to control people.”
O Lord, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill?
Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right
and speak the truth from their heart;
who do not slander with their tongue
and do no evil to their friends
nor heap shame upon their neighbors;
in whose eyes the wicked are despised
but who honor those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
who do not lend money at interest
and do not take a bribe against the innocent.
Those who do these things shall never be moved.
“The place where God comes to dwell with God’s people and the place where God’s people come to dwell with God.” That sounds a lot like the Lord’s Table and the promised real presence of Christ here with us as we gather around. But we don’t stay long, do we? Here at the Table where we eat, drink, sing, and pray. Christ meets us here at Table made holy not just by his presence. But by his promise. His promise that he is with us out there too.
Come to the table this morning longing for the kind of community the psalm describes and be nurtured by the grace of the of Jesus Christ to who longs be in the company of the people the psalm describes. Not just here today. But Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and Saturday. Nurtured for faith in here. Doing faith out there.
Free Choral Concert from Westminster Choir
Saturday, February 14 · 5:00 pm · Sanctuary
The world-famous Westminste
r Choir will be joined by the early-instrumental ensemble, The Sebastians, for a free concert (in-person only). Celebrating 100 years of the choir in New Jersey, they return to their original home in our church, where the college was located while their Princeton campus was being built. You won’t want to miss this spectacular concert!
The Unconcealed Love of God
Psalm 40:1-10
January 18
David A. Davis
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Each year, as the holiday to honor the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. approaches, I reread Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. The letter is dated April 16, 1963, and it is in response to a public statement signed by 8 clergy people published on April 12, 1963, in The Birmingham News. Four bishops. Three ministers. One rabbi. I realized this week that I while I have read The Letter from a Birmingham Jail more times than I can count, I have never read that published statement. So, I read it this week. The statement reads in part:
“We the undersigned clergymen are among those who, in January, issued ‘An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense’….We are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.” The statement also refers to the protests for civil rights in Birmingham as “technically peaceful”.
Near the end of Dr. King’s lengthy letter, he offers a stinging, timeless lament for the white moderate church. “So here we are moving toward the exit of the twentieth century,” King proclaims, “with a religious community largely adjusted to the status quo, standing as a tail-light behind other community agencies rather than a headlight leading to higher levels of justice.” He writes of traveling the length and breadth of the south, looking at the plethora of beautiful churches “with their lofty spires pointing heavenward” and pondering the people who worship there. “Where were they when the lips of Governor Wallace were calling for defiance and hatred?” he writes. “Where were their voices of support when tired, bruised, and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?”
It is impossible to read The Letter from the Birmingham Jail and not see the compelling relevance to these days. Impossible to read a letter from Birmingham and not think of Minneapolis. “A headlight leading to higher levels of justice” when an epidemic of injustice spreads. Nassau Church. I believe that is who we are. That is how we are. That is who and what the God we serve is calling us to be. Jesus Christ is calling, empowering, guiding each one of us in our life of discipleship to pray for, yearn for, work for higher levels of justice. The faithfulness of our lives is our letter. Each Sunday being sent from here to live our faith every day in the world. “To do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with our God” Or as adapted in the vision statement of this congregation, “By God’s grace in our lives, we engage with the world, yearn to do what is just and fair encourage what is kind and helpful, and seek to walk humbly before God and alongside our neighbors.”
As we go to Psalm 40 together this morning, I invite you to reflect with me on the theme The Unconcealed Love of God. The Unconcealed Love of God. Because as I have read and reflected on the first several verses of Psalm 40, it touches me as a prayer. My prayer. Our prayer A prayer from each one of us. A prayer for these days
We have waited and waited and waited for God to hear our cry. And we’re waiting again, Lord! You have heard. We know you have heard and we ask that you hear again. Our urgent, fervent prayer for these days. Hear us again, God. As in days passed, when you pick us up from the lowest of points, from what felt like a foggy chaos. Each of us can point to the moments, Holy One, “when the Lord lifted me.” When God lifted me. God really lifted me. We remember. We know, O God, when you lifted us high upon the Rock of our Salvation. When you drew us close, O Rock of Ages. Draw us and your world close again, Mighty God, you who are our rock and redeemer.
We cling to those moments when we felt like we could sing again. When you put a new song on our lips, in our hearts. When we could again praise you, O God of everlasting peace and righteousness. When you lifted us, each one of us at some point. When you reached all the way down, O Emmanuel, God with us, and with your everlasting arms, you lifted hearts unto you again. On that one Sunday, when our mouths could again join in with those singing next to us, in front of us, behind us, in these pews. How could we keep from singing your praise, Wondrous God of mercy and grace? Hear us again, O Lord. Hear our cry. But we’re not going to lie, Lord, we could use a lift again. Today. Right now. Lift us again from the fog of chaos all around us, O Light of the world.
Surround us afresh with more and more people who will see you and the world you desire. Who will be filled with the wonder of your magnificent beauty and the beauty of the world, the creation, the kingdom you intend? Assure us of the multitudes of your beloved children that put their trust in you, and you alone. Those who surround us here in this place. Those that you bring into our lives out in the world. Keep helping us to find our people, Lord Jesus. For before they were our people, they were your people. Your children. For that is who we are.
Blessed. Blessed. Blessed are those who put their lives in your hands and their hearts in you, Ever-present God. You who know each of us by name and the number of the hairs upon our head. Blessed. Blessed. Blessed are those who rest their heart in you rather than the allure of wealth and power and winning at all costs and vengeance. Blessed. Blessed. Blessed are those who turn to you, the Suffering Servant who stretched out your arms on the cross to embrace this broken world, these your broken people. Those who turn to you rather than those who boast of their own pride. Those who become disciples of the false gods fired in the world’s furnace of greed, and violence, and hatred, and bigotry, and evil. The false gods of this world that are legion and tempt us like Satan in the wilderness.
Loving God, you who created this vast universe and called it good. You who created each one of us and called us good. The more we ponder all that you have done for us, the more wondrous your work, your love, your kindness, and your faithfulness for and to us becomes. It’s not science. It’s not math. It’s not philosophy. It’s not even theology. It’s life. Our life in you. When it comes to life, nothing compares to you. Truth is, the legion of your goodness is always stronger than the legion of false gods that confront us. And at the end of the day, trying to find words, trying to explain, trying to shout it from the rooftops, trying to go tell it on the mountain is not enough. It’s never enough. Not enough words. Never enough when all you desire is the faithfulness of our lives in here and out there.
Here’s the wonder of it all, God. Here’s the mystery of your plan for our salvation. It’s never about what we do for you. It’s not about how religious or pious we can be. You already have us in the book of life. You already have our names on the class roster of abundant and eternal life. You have us. You got us. Here I am, Lord. Here I a,m Lord. Here we are, Lord. All of our broken, frumpy lives, all of our hard edges and wounded, aching limbs as the body of Christ. Here we are for you. That’s all. It’s that simple for these way too complex, frightening days. You are the purpose of each of our lives and for our lives together. You are our joy, our delight. You have imprinted your desire, your intent for this crazy, out-of-control world within our hearts. And today, right now, right here, we claim your promise once again, that you are greater than our hearts. Thanks be to you, O God, of steadfast love and faithfulness.
We have told of your good news, the good news of our salvation, with our lips, with our songs, with our praise, in here and out there, Magnificent Lord. We have not kept your saving grace to ourselves. And you know, God knows, we can’t keep your saving grace to ourselves these days. We have spoken of your every -present faithfulness and told stories of your love over and over and over again. And you know, Jesus Christ knows, we have to tell them more and louder these days. We have to tell of your love not just with words, not just with songs of praise, but with the nitty-grittiness, the everydayness, of our lives.
Your love and faithfulness are utterly concealed these days by those who pervert the gospel to their own end. Your love and faithfulness are concealed these days by those who threaten the stranger rather than welcome them, those who create orphans rather than care for them, those who create enemies in order to hate them, those who seem to want a world where the hungry and poor are demonized rather than fed and lifted up.
So yes, Lord, words aren’t enough. By your grace, and with courage drawn from Jesus himself, and only by the power, guidance, intercession, and advocacy of the Holy Spirit, we are going to live lives that reflect the unconcealed love of God, especially these days. The unconcealed love of God for the living of these days, for the living of these days. Because to be honest, Heavenly One, to open our heart and soul to you this morning, Lord, it’s really hard to wait and be patient for you these days. Really hard. So hear us. Hear our cry. Hear our plea. Our urgent, fervent prayer for these days. Hear us again, God. Hear us, now. Hear us, O Spirit ever on the loose among us. Hear us and so use us. Headlights, not taillights.
And Jesus, hear us, hear our endless pleas. Because of you, because of our life in you, because you have told us that you shall, you will be with us even to the end of the age. Well, then, Jesus, we’re going to trust and never doubt, Jesus will surely bring us out. Because you, Jesus, you never failed us……yet.
Amen.
January 11, 2026
January 4, 2026
When The Manger Overflows
Luke 2:1-20
December 24
David A. Davis
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“This will be a sign for you.” One morning this fall, on my way to the church office from our home in the Littlebrook section of Princeton, I ran into four detours for road closures. It took me 40 minutes to get to the office. We live 3.3 miles from here. The frustration was that there was never a “road closed ahead” sign. Arrive at the intersection, and a police car is blocking the road where you intend to go. A sign would have been helpful. When you find yourself traveling on an interstate, have you experienced those sometimes misleading blue signs that list the gas, hotel, or food options at the next exit? I know I am not the only one to experience this. You see a little icon on the sign for the gas you need or the food stop you would like. You exit a mile or two later. Drive slowly down the ramp. Come to the stop. The more honest sign says gas or food to the right in another 4 miles. The better sign at a highway exit is the huge fast food or gas sign towering up in the air with the destination right at the base of the sign. There is a refreshing clarity in that signage.
“This will be a sign for you,” the angel said to the shepherds. The angel of the Lord who stood before them with all that glory that terrified them. The angel was not the sign. The heavenly host of angels that appeared praising God and singing “Glory to God in the highest” had to have been breathtaking. But the heavenly host was not the sign. The shepherds, though they “returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen,” had nothing to do with the sign. For that matter, neither did Mary and Joseph, post-partum, post-swaddling, post-lying the babe in the manger. “This will be a sign for you; a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger…So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.”
The preacher in the Book of Hebrews tells us that some of us have probably entertained angels unaware when showing hospitality to strangers. Most of us, however, have not come upon an angel with the glory of the Lord shining all around. But we have all seen a baby. We haven’t had a band of shepherds come and preach the good news of great joy for all people. But we have seen a baby. “This….will be a sign for you.” Not a burning bush. Not a cloud by day and pillar of fire at night. Not stormy sea brought to a dead calm. Not a withered hand healed. Not a few fish and loaves of bread feeding thousands. Not a lame person walking. Not tongues of fire falling from heaven and everyone hearing the gospel in their own language. Not prison chains falling off of their own accord. “This will be a sign for you.” A sign we have all seen. A sign we can all understand. A child is swaddled and lying there in front of you.
Generation after generation of students down the street at Princeton Theological Seminary have worked on their worship leadership skills in the required Introduction to Speech Class. Those classes are currently taught by faculty very familiar around here at Nassau Church: Michael Brothers and Nancy Lammers Gross. I am absolutely certain that they continue to carry the mantle when it comes to how to properly read Luke 2 before a congregation. It is the most common example used to teach a pastor the importance of a pause and the purpose of a comma when it comes to oral interpretation. I can still hear the speech teacher in my intro class after a student read “So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger.” “No, no, no! The three of them are not in the manger.” “So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph….., and the child lying in the manger.” “The manger is not overflowing”.
Of course, it is overflowing. For that which is divine, “the one born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord”, is swaddled not just in bands of cloth but wrapped in all that it means to be human. God and flesh. Divine and human. God with us. Look for a sign. The manger is overflowing both with the presence of God and the flesh of our humanity. A child lying there in the manger. Swaddled for warmth and security like a parent wraps every newborn before and ever since. Eyes yet to open. Skin color is yet to recover from the trauma of birth. And therein lies God. This so an understandable and relatable sign of our humanity; this newborn baby bears in this tiny flesh the awesome holiness and otherness of God. All of the mystery of the transcendent Creator of all now nurses at Mary’s breast. It is the scandal of the incarnation, God in human flesh. The manger cradles the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. It overflows with the very humanity of God.
I was meeting a new friend for coffee one morning last week. We met at the place where he works, but over a period of only a few weeks, we kept running into each other. We both took it as a sign that we should grab coffee. He suggested meeting at Sakrit coffee, which is always too crowded, but I kept that thought. That morning, there was no place to sit. I suggested we go back to my office in the church. He said, “How about we take a walk?” For the next hour, on a brisk but sunny morning, we walked all over campus, up and down Nassau Street. As we walked and sipped, we shared our lives, our hopes and dreams, and complained about traffic in Princeton. We both ran into people we know and introduced each other. I introduced him to Len Scales, a few blocks down Nassau Street. We said hi to John, the unhoused man who spends a lot of time in the seminary library and on a bench in front of the Nassau Christian Center. We both know John. Wished him a merry Christmas. We split up, and both went back to work at 10. I found it to be a God moment, even a holy one. A reminder to me of God’s presence in the everyday, earthiness of it all. That’s when God still comes.
“This will be a sign for you.” It is a simple sign; the child, the manger, and the fleshiness of it all. The earthiness, the smelliness, the prickliness of humanity’s manger still receives the presence and promise of God, God with us. Because it is here, not “here” of this room but the “here” of our lives. Here in humanity’s stable of heartbreak and grief and disappointment, where God still comes. Here, when you and I are trying to keep our heads above water with the flood of the news of the world and the daily drenching downpour of humanity’s sinfulness, God still comes. Both in joyful family gatherings and in family struggles, in the realities of college admissions or difficult job searches or increased job stress or dignity torn away by unemployment, God is still there. As weddings are announced and new babies met for the first time, and medical tests shared and empty places at the table scream too loudly, God is there. Here, as parents seek wisdom in raising children and children seek wisdom in caring for parents, as young people search for courage in adulting or discerning what’s next in school and life, here, as someone we love is being treated for cancer, or struggling for a peace of mind, or a relationship now broken and over, God still comes.
“This will be a sign for you… a child lying in a manger.” Not a throne, not a cushy bed, not a bassinet crafted for royalty. A manger in a barn surrounded by animals and night air. Just so God rests in the rickety frame of our lives, and all of creation stands ready to burst into song. For the manger overflows with the humanity of God. And on nights like tonight, as the world groans with the suffering of God’s people and the darkness of the powers and principalities seems to be darker and heavier, our hope for peace and goodwill again rests in the scandal of God’s love. Out in the darkness, surrounded by other than the fleshiness of our humanity, the night air, and the world’s chaos, God is still with us. God is still for us.
My favorite children’s Christmas pageant story tells of the director deciding to mark the places for the angels and the shepherds. A circle for each angel and a cross for each shepherd. Unfortunately, there was no rehearsal in costume. When the angels took their places during the pageant in their flowing robes and halos, they covered up the marks for the shepherds. “The shepherds, driven by God knows what demonic impulse to indiscreet obedience,” William Muehl writes, “began looking for their places. Angels were treated like they had never been treated before. And at last one little boy, who had suffered about all such nonsense he could handle, turned toward….the teacher in charge…and announced angrily, ‘These damned angels are fouling up this whole show…They’ve hidden all the crosses.”
“Needless to say,” the writer continues, “his mother and I were greatly embarrassed.” But then offered this reflection on the life of faith. “We are, indeed, ‘damned angels’, possessors of gifts and insights which we turn to works of destruction, victims of burdens and infirmities which become occasions for glory. The rich pageant of life is often fouled up by our rigid moralism, and the cross is hidden beneath the flimsy fabric of our piety…Our flesh drives and afflicts us from birth to death. But we have the gall to affirm that it once sheltered the Eternal.
Or said another way, we dare to believe and affirm that the manger still overflows with the humanity of God.
“Do not be afraid, for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people, to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you.”
World Without End
Luke 1:46-55
December 21
David A. Davis
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Basking in the glow of last week’s Christmas Pageant, Ingrid Ladendorf (our director of your and children’s choirs) and I were reminiscing about Christmas Pageants in general and Christmas Pageants here at Nassau Presbyterian Church. We discussed the gift of creating Christmas memories here at the church that our youth and children will carry with them forever. How each year the imperfections of the pageant make it perfect. That Christmas Pageants embody the theological affirmation of the incarnation. The perfection of the pageant is in the fleshiness of telling, acting out, performing the story of the birth of Jesus. Ingrid said to me, “I find it very moving to think of all the Marys here at Nassau over the years who memorized “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant.” Year after year, decade after decade, a young woman memorizing the Magnificat and likely never forgetting at least parts of it. That image Ingrid offered helps to cleanse my palate of the image Lauren McFeaters often shared of when she served as an associate pastor at the Ewing Presbyterian Church. The interim pastor who served after David Prince stood in the pulpit on Christmas Eve while wearing a purple scarf on his head with his bearded face, and began his sermon, “I am Mary”.
Growing up in the Presbyterian Church, I never heard much about Mary. I am sure that Luke 2:47-55 was read every Advent and Christmas Eve. But I don’t remember hearing about Mary in sermons. I don’t remember my own sermons, but I am pretty good at remembering others’ sermons. It must have been part of what some biblical scholars have called “The Protestant silence” when it comes to Mary. I do remember hearing those voices of grown-ups around the church talking about Roman Catholics, “you know, they pray to Mary,” which was far from a compliment or an unbiased observation. I heard more about Mary my first week of football practice in college when one of the assistant coaches, who likes to yell a lot, avoided salty language by invoking the name of Mary with one of those memorable Boston accents. “Holy Mary, mother of God.” “Or Mary, Joseph, and Jesus….can someone make a tackle today?” I heard Mary’s name more in those weeks than I ever did growing up. I grew up Presbyterian. Our text for today from the Gospel of Luke, and sung by the choir in just a moment, is the Song of Mary, the Magnificat. Mary, the mother of God. Mary the theotokos. Mary the God-bearer.
In those days, as the bible has it, Mary “went with haste” to see Elizabeth. Like the shepherds who “went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger”, Mary went with that same kind of expectant intention to find Elizabeth. You know the story: when Mary greeted Elizabeth, John the Baptist saluted with a kick. Elizabeth’s response to Mary comes as she is, according to Luke, “filled with the Holy Spirit.” Just like her own baby John, described by the angel as “filled with the Holy Spirit”, like Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah after he named the child John, he was “filled with the Holy Spirit”. Like all the people on that day of Pentecost who began to speak in other tongues, like Peter rising to speak after his arrest to the elders and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, like Stephen as he was being martyred and he was looking up to heaven, all of them, according to Luke, “were filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Elizabeth was “filled with the Holy Spirit,” and she said with a loud voice, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb….And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to Mary, “Blessed, blessed, blessed”. Bless your heart Mary, that you would believe that God will fulfill all that God has spoken to you.” Or as it says in the King James: “And blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.”
That’s when Mary speaks, she prays, she sings. That’s when Mary offers her recollection, her rendition of Hannah’s Song from the Hebrew scriptures, those lines so memorized in the collection of Christmas pageants throughout history. “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for the Lord has looked with favor upon the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will be blessed.” Blessed. Blessed. The Mighty One. Great things. God’s mercy from generation to generation. Strength in his arm. Scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. The Lord has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted the lowly. Hungry filled. Rich sent away. All of it according to the promises God made to Abraham and his descendants forever.
Mary believed. She believed God would do what God promised. She believed that God would fulfill what God had spoken to her. That there would be a performance of what God had said. You have found favor with God. You will conceive and bear a son. He will be great, called Son of the Most High. Of his kingdom, there will be no end. She believed what God said. The Holy Spirit will come upon you. The child to be born will he holy, called the Son of God. Nothing will be impossible with God. She believed in the promise of God. God’s mercy for those who fear the Lord from generation to generation. Strength is shown with the arm of God. Scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. She believed in the performance of God’s promise. The powerful were brought down from their thrones. The lowly lifted up. Hungry filled. Rich empty. All of it according to the promise of God.
If I were to list the most often asked questions of me as a pastor over the last forty years, a few would be at the top. My granddaughter Franny asked me not long ago if God ever sleeps. But a few of the most frequent: “Do you believe in the bodily resurrection?” “Why does the Apostles Creed say ‘he descended into hell’?” “Do you believe in the Virgin Birth?” I confess that I don’t think about the Virgin Birth all that much. When I find myself before the throne of God’s grace in the great bye and bye there among the communion of saints, the great cloud of witnesses, if the Risen Jesus said to me, “Now about that Virgin Birth” thing. My response would be something like “shocked, I say, shocked!” If the whole story of Mary and Elizabeth and Gabriel and the promise of God can be reduced to an examination of belief in the Virgin Birth, one sort of misses the point. As Cynthia Rigby from Austin Seminary pointed out in an essay on the matter, our questions, our thinking about Mary, all have a way of being “unacceptably inattentive” to the divine artistry of it all. It is not about who does this, who does that, it is about who we are in relationship to Go,d who fulfills, who we are in light of God who is faithful, who we are in response to God for us, God with us.
Rigby pointed out that Protestant thinkers have long identified Mary as the model Christian believer. But Mary was more than that, she argued. For as God-bearer, Mary pushes, gives birth, cradles, nurses, nurtures, rocks, burps, bathes, changes, comforts, the one called Son of God. A believer indeed, as Elizabeth exclaimed. Yet one who also somehow participates in the very work of God. Partnering with God who fulfills. Mary reminds us, Rigby wrote, “it is in particular concrete actions undertaken in particular moments that finite creatures realize their participation in the artistry of God….What is impossible is made possible: we are capable, creative, willing, irreplaceable companions of the God who claims us in Jesus Christ. We are included….in the artistry of God.” Or in other words, we too are God-bearers.
When I think of Mary, the mother of God, Mary, the God bearer, I wonder what was more difficult for her to believe, that she would have a baby without being intimate with a man, or that both she and her baby would survive beyond childbirth, or that her life was not about to be ruined, or that the weak would be made strong, and the first would be last, and the hungry filled, and the proud scattered? Of course, a virgin birth is impossible. A virgin birth is impossible, but apparently, so is the powerful of this world being brought low, and all the lowly lifted up. Impossible. And the hungry are filled with good things. Impossible. A virgin birth is impossible. So, it would appear, is peace on earth, and poverty being wiped away, and so is doing justice, and loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. Impossible. And forgiveness that expands seventy times seventy, and a Samaritan called good, and turning the other cheek, and giving your coat also, and eating with sinners, and doing unto the least of these, and life rising from death on the third day. Impossible. Because there is nothing on our own that we can contribute to God being faithful. It is God who fulfills.
Years ago, I attended a choral concert that included the premiere of a piece from a composer who had died years before. The conductor turned and explained to the audience that the piece of music basically sat on the shelf of years after the composer’s death. But he said a composition is never finished until an audience hears it, receives it, and experiences it. Until it is performed. The conductor then thanked the audience for completing the piece of music. “And blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.”
I told you last week about the Hunger Offering in November. When the government shutdown was threatening to take support from food insecure people, families, and children, we invited you to not wait until the traditional last Sunday of the month to contribute to the hunger offering. Locally, our Hunger Offering currently supports Send Hunger Packing in Princeton, the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, and Homefront. The November Hunger offering was double what it typically is. $15,000 in November alone. And yes, your support of the ArmInArm food pantry downstairs has increased significantly as well. “God has filled the hungry with good things”. A performance of the promise of God.
I see it Sunday after Sunday, week after week, Though the proud and powerful and empire continue to run amok, the people of God at Nassau Church hear and receive the very promise of God and are sent out into this cold-hearted world of darkness to not simply bear witness to that promise but make a difference, to participate in that promise, to participate alongside the God who fulfills. “It is in particular concrete actions undertaken in particular moments that finite creatures realize their participation in the artistry of God.” Mary, you, me. God-bearers, hearing, receiving, experiencing afresh the promise of God and somehow, by God’s grace and power of the Holy Spirit, partnering in the very work of God. Pushing. Cradling. Nurturing. Rocking. Proclaiming. Living. It is what it means to be claimed by the gospel promise of Jesus Christ.
A promise not heard is not a promise. A piece of music not heard by an audience remains incomplete.
Mary, you and me. Blessed. Blessed. Blessed. Bless your heart that you believe in and so live for the God who fulfills.
Transitional Associate Pastor
Nassau Presbyterian Church
Transitional Associate Pastor
ABOUT NASSAU CHURCH: The people of Nassau Presbyterian Church celebrate and demonstrate God’s love through worship and service in Princeton, NJ, and through our lives and work in the world. By God’s grace, we engage with the world, yearn to do what is just and fair, encourage what is kind and helpful, and seek to walk humbly before God and alongside our neighbors.
POSITION SUMMARY: This position shares leadership with the pastoral and program staff to serve our faith community and strengthen the church and congregational life, with a focus on pastoral care. The Transitional Associate Pastor is accountable to the Pastor and the Session through the Human Resources committee.
PRIMARY MINISTRY RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Assist in worship, including leading liturgy and preaching
- Participate in various teaching opportunities (adult education, small groups, workshops)
- Maintain a pastoral presence and offer pastoral care with members of the congregation
- Provide staff support to the Deacons in their robust ministries of compassion and care
- Provide and model strong and warm pastoral care
- Lead efforts for ministry and care to older members in the congregation
- Share with pastoral staff in visitation to hospitals and care facilities
- Provide staff support to the membership committee
- Provide staff support to the team leading a Mission Study for the congregation during the transition
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS:
- Ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the PC(USA)
- Minimum 3-6 years of pastoral experience serving in a congregational setting
- Pastoral experience serving in a multi-staff setting
- Attended the Transitional Ministry training provided by the PC(USA)
- Ability to be a calming presence in a time of change
- Experience in confidently moderating session and congregational meetings
- Strong leader yet a collaborative team member
- Highly motivated and effective in motivating others
- Well organized, punctual ,and plans ahead
- Clear and persuasive in oral and written communication
- Good balance of creativity and practical common sense
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS:
- Sustaining faith in Jesus Christ
- Empathetic, sensitive, and compassionate
- Self-assured, yet humble
- Even-tempered, good-humored, and energetic
- Understands and practices healthy self-care
- Exhibits care for and awareness of the faith journey of others
PLEASE APPLY BY MARCH 6, 2026.
Interested candidates should submit a resume, CV, or Personal Discernment Form to .