Saturday, September 7, 12:00-1:00 pm, or 1:00-2:00 pm
These non-partisan events are intended to educate and provide assistance to eligible New Jersey voters, including how to: a) register to vote; b) request a mail-in ballot; and c) update your voter registration if you have changed your name or moved since you last registered to vote. Registration deadline is October 15 to vote in the general election on November 6.
For more information, contact Bill Creager (email), Arthur Hui (email), or Pam Wakefield (email).
Nassau Presbyterian Church
Thursday, April 25, 6:00-9:00 pm, Assembly Room
Saturday, April 27, 1:00-4:00 pm, Front Portico (weather permitting) or Assembly Room
Nassau Presbyterian Church is working with its sister congregations at Westminster Presbyterian Church and Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church, along with members of the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville, to conduct voter registration/services events before the May 14 deadline to register to vote in the June 6 New Jersey primary election and before the October 15 deadline to vote in the November 5 general election.
These non-partisan events are intended to educate and provide assistance to eligible voters, including how to:
register to vote;
request a mail-in ballot; and
update your voter registration if you have changed your name or moved since you last registered to vote.
To kick-off this initiative, Nassau Presbyterian and Witherspoon Street Presbyterian churches are co-sponsoring these two events at Nassau. Please spread the word! Volunteers will be able to help individuals register to vote or update their registration details. A representative from the League of Women Voters (Princeton chapter) will also be present to help answer questions for voters from any state. Light refreshments will be provided.
Westminster Presbyterian and the Lawrenceville churches will be co-sponsoring similar events in the greater Trenton area at dates and times to be announced. Check back here for more details.
Contact Bill Creager (email), Arthur Hui (email), or Pam Wakefield (email) for more information and/or to help volunteer at these or other upcoming events.
June 30, July 28, August 25, during 10:00 am Worship
This offering supports the following mission partners: HomeFront, Presbyterian Hunger Program, Send Hunger Packing Princetons, Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, and Uniting Reformed Church in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Thank you for giving until all are fed. Use the “Hunger” fund when you give online (“Give Now”) or in the memo line of your check.
Providing supplies for success. We are once again joining with Westminster Presbyterian Church (WPC), our partner church in Trenton, to provide backpacks filled with school essentials for local students. Our goals are 150 backpacks and $5,000 for the supplies to fill them. Bring backpacks to the Narthex on Sunday mornings; use the “School Supplies” fund when you give online (“Give Now”) or in the memo line of your check.
Join us for our 32nd year of service. Volunteering for Loaves and Fishes, whether it’s donating food, money, or time, is an opportunity to be fed and to join our community of faith in action. Use the “Loaves & Fishes” fund when you give online (“Give Now”) or in the memo line of your check. Use the Sign Up button below to donate food or time.
Restock the PTS Coat Closet. To help prepare international students at the Seminary for the New Jersey winters, donate gently worn men’s and women’s winter coats, fleece pullovers and winter accessories. This year we are also looking for donations of new socks for both men and women. Bring items to the Assembly Room on Sunday mornings; contact the church office to drop off during the week.
HomeWorks Trenton is a free, community-based, after-school residential program designed to provide a supportive and safe space where high school girls learn to self-advocate, become leaders, and achieve academic success.
Four aspects define our program:
Residential Boarding: From Sunday evenings to Friday mornings, our scholars live in our dorm with three staff and spend weekends with their families. Residential boarding creates a structured, stable environment for scholars to focus on academics and personal growth. It provides an immersive community experience for scholars to collectively grow in ways traditional, non-residential programs do not allow.
Core Curriculum (Academics & Identity-Driven Leadership): Our academics programming focuses on daily tutoring, skill development, and college preparation. Additionally, scholars engage in Black and Brown girl-centered workshops, social justice discussions and readings, and a public service capstone and internship. This curriculum equips scholars with the tools and confidence to become leaders that ultimately creates systemic change in their communities.
Career Readiness: Third and fourth year internships and electives allow scholars to explore their academic and career interests, making an impact in the community while gaining valuable work experience.
Wellness, Field Trips, and Travel: Group Therapy offer spaces for scholars to develop mindful habits and practice self-love. HomeWorks also sponsors group travel to local organizations (like local theater productions) and cities such as New York and Washington D.C. to further supplement their public education and offer experiential learning opportunities outside of the classroom.
HomeWorks offers the support girls need to graduate from high school, attend college, feel confident in their discovery and evolution of self, become effective leaders, and create change. Our mission is to inspire and equip young women from marginalized communities to achieve their potential and positively transform the world around them by providing a supportive and educational residential environment.
9:00 a.m. | Assembly Room, with coffee and breakfast snacks
In this five-week series through June, we will learn from activists and historians as they seek justice and point the way toward a better future for us all. We will listen and learn with advocates for a humane criminal justice system and an expert on Princeton’s fraught history with race. A scholar on church hymn composition will close the series with song and the history of Lift Every Voice and Sing.
Thank you to the Mass Incarceration Task Force for organizing this month’s leadership.
Audio recordings will be posted below each class description.
June 2 | Sean Washington
Wrongful Conviction to Exoneration: My Journey for Justice
Wrongfully convicted of multiple homicides, Sean Washington served twenty-five years before his eventual release. Come hear about his experiences in prison and the work Sean has done and continues to do since his release to help incarcerated people and their families.
Unfortunately the audio for this class was not captured.
Sean Washington, born and raised in Camden, NJ, dropped out of school to work and help support his family. Earning his GED while in prison and studying to be a paralegal helped develop the skills to prove his innocence. He was also a tutor helping other prisoners complete their high school educations. Since his release in 2020, he has worked as a paralegal, served as a youth mentor, spoken at legislative hearings, and advocates for prison reform. His mission is “to make a difference in this world and leave it in a better place.”
Advocating and mobilizing in New Jersey isn’t enough to truly transform the harmful conditions too many families face. Come learn how relational faith based powerbuilding is the key to building beloved community and living into who we are as people of faith. We’ll take the first steps toward our own internal revolution and begin answering the question of who we need to become.
Charlene D. Walker, Executive Director of Faith in New Jersey, is a New Jersey native and a powerful woman of faith with a consistent record of fiercely advocating for racial, immigrant, economic, and social justice. She challenges leaders and institutions to better unite our social movements and to work towards dismantling systems of hate and oppression.
Rising from the Ashes: A Journey of Redemption, Advocacy, and Education
Come hear the life story of Donte Hatcher, Sr., founder of Knowledge is the New Currency, a non-profit that assists at-risk youth. Learn about his deeply personal journey through incarceration and his transformation through education and his research to reform the system that once held him captive.
Donte Hatcher, Sr.holds a degree in psychology and advocates for mental health awareness. He founded a non-profit organization called Knowledge Is the New Currency which empowers justice-impacted individuals and at-risk youth through education, mentorship, and community support. He is currently researching ways to reform the mass incarceration system.
Hear from lifelong Princeton resident, teacher, historical guide and advocate, Shirley Satterfield as she discusses our town’s segregated history through the lens of her life, her ancestors and descendants, including justice denied and achieved throughout her career.
Shirley Ann Satterfield, the fourth of six generations of the VanZandt Moore May family in Princeton, was educated in the Princeton Schools during the segregated years and graduated from Princeton High School. While a student at Bennett College for Women (Greensboro, NC), Shirley participated in the 1960 sit-ins with the Greensboro Four, students from A&T University. She earned her Master’s Degree in Guidance/Personnel Services from Trenton State College (now the College of New Jersey). She taught English and history for many years and was a guidance counselor in Hightstown and Princeton High Schools.
James Weldon Johnson and his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, wrote this anthem in 1900 and also devoted their talents to preserving the tradition of the “spirituals.” Now known as the “Black National Anthem,” join us to learn about its place in the history of the Black Church and its impact on the global church’s quest for social justice.
Paul E. Rorem, Princeton Theological Seminary’s Benjamin B. Warfield Professor of Medieval Church History Emeritus, earned an MDiv from Luther Theological Seminary, an STM from The Lutheran Theological Seminary, and a PhD from Princeton Seminary. An ordained Lutheran minister, he is interested in medieval church history and Pseudo-Dionysius. His courses covered the confessions and influence of St. Augustine, the Christian mystical tradition, medieval Christianity, and the spiritual and theological legacy of the Pseudo-Dionysian writings. He is editor of Lutheran Quarterly and Lutheran Quarterly Books.
His new book, Singing Church History: Introducing the Christian Story through Hymn Texts,published in May 2024, is available for purchase in the church office through June for the discounted “author event” price of $18 (retail $34). Contact Lauren Yeh (email) in the church office.
On behalf of Bending the Moral Arc Courageous Conversations (BMA CC), Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church’s Christian Education Committee, and Nassau Presbyterian Church, we are thrilled to invite you to our virtual meeting on May 15th at 7:30 pm honoring the legendary Tuskegee Airmen. This BMA CC meeting will feature Princeton graduate, Gordon Smith. Gordon will tell the inspirational story of how his father, Captain Luther H. Smith of the fabled “Tuskegee Airmen,” fought racism in our country’s armed forces, and served heroically as one of the “Red Tail” fighter pilots in the skies above Germany in World War II. We hope to see you there!!
Help save lives in the impoverished villages of Malawi!
This spring, the stakes are perilously high: Disastrous droughts in southern Africa have triggered a hunger crisis for millions in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In Villages in Partnership’s 29 partner villages, the drought has caused failed crops and widespread hunger.
In response, VIP has dedicated their 2024 Water Walk fund-raiser on Saturday, May 4, to bringing clean water to the villages, not just for drinking, but to irrigate farmers’ fields to replant and replace the crops lost to drought.
Walk with Us! Join the Nassau Church Water Walkers who walk to raise funds to bring clean water to Malawi, both during the VIP Water Walk on May 4 in Allentown, NJ, and in the weeks leading up to the Water Walk in their own neighborhoods. For information, contact Liz Beasley (email) or Larry Alphs (email).
Support Us! Donate what you can to the cause. Just click one of the Nassau Church Water Walkers Team member’s fund-raising links below to make your gift:
Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), a mission partner of Nassau Church for many years, will be returning for post-worship conversation regarding the ongoing crisis and suffering in Israel/Palestine. CMEP has consistently been calling for a permanent bilateral ceasefire, the allowance of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and for the release of all hostages.
Speakers include members of CMEP staff and peace-builders from the Middle East. Understanding the geopolitics, social considerations, and other aspects of the conflict demands that we look beyond the headlines into the daily realities of people living on the ground. Churches for Middle East Peace is pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, pro-peace, and pro-justice.
Join us to learn what it means to be someone who pursues peace, while also advocating for justice in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and beyond. Please make your reservations by Wednesday, April 10 using the online form, or by contacting Lauren Yeh (email) in the church office.
Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon, Executive Director
Cannon received her first doctorate in American History with a minor in Middle Eastern studies at the University of California (Davis) focusing on the history of the American Protestant church in Israel and Palestine and her second doctorate in Ministry in Spiritual Formation from Northern Theological Seminary. She is the author of several books including the award-winning Social Justice Handbook: Small Steps for a Better World and editor of A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land.
Tamar Haddad, And Still We Rise Coordinator
A full-time And Still We Rise Coordinator based in Jerusalem, Haddad was hugely impacted by her involvement in leadership programs like MEPI – Student Leaders Program, International Women Leaders, and the Clinton Global Initiative University. While she previously served as the Project Manager for Gender Justice at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL), Haddad currently serves at the UN Commission on the Status of Women and volunteers as a Regional Coordinator at the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).
Destiny Magnett, Programs and Outreach Manager
Magnett joined CMEP following an eight-week Middle East Fellowship where she helped to bolster and expand CMEP’s relationships on the ground in Israel/Palestine. Prior to joining CMEP, Destiny worked in the U.S. Department of State, USAID, Search for Common Ground– Jordan, and Harvard’s Office of Religion and Public Life. Destiny is also an MTS candidate at Harvard Divinity School and holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from Grinnell College.
Please make your reservations by Wednesday, April 10 using the online form, or by contacting Lauren Yeh (email) in the church office.
Three social entrepreneurs and authors will appear together in the Princeton area and share uplifting stories and lessons learned in their journey to justice.
The “Three-Authors” events will be held Friday, April 26 from 2-4 p.m. at the Mercer County Library Lawrence Headquarters, 2751 Brunswick Pike, Lawrence Township, NJ, and again on Friday, April 26 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Nassau Presbyterian Church Assembly Room, 61 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ. Both events are free and open to the public.
Local author and activist Sam Daley-Harris will discuss the 2024 edition of his book, Reclaiming Our Democracy: Every Citizen’s Guide to Transformational Advocacy, released January 9, 2024. His recent interviews on NPR’s Here and Now and 1A outline why the ideas in the book are an antidote to the despair many people will feel during the elections and beyond. Publisher’s Weekly BookLife called his book a “rousing guide to advocacy, movement-building, and enacting change in cynical times,” and named it and Editor’s Pick.
Another of the authors is Alex Counts, who started and ran Grameen Foundation (GF) for its first 18 years. GF is an international poverty alleviation organization working to advance the approaches pioneered in Bangladesh by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus. His three books include Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind (Revised Edition) which Forbes magazine called one of twelve “must-read books for nonprofit leaders” and was the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s “Editor’s Pick” from its best nonprofit books of 2019.
The third author is Debbie Frisch, who, in 2017, opened HelloBaby, the nation’s first free-standing, free-of-charge, drop-in play space for babies, toddlers, and their caregivers located in the struggling Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago. Her book, Hello Baby: Building an Oasis in a Play Desert, tells the story of her life journey and her roadmap to spurring community development in urban play deserts. Publisher’s Weekly BookLife said: “Frisch addresses with insight and sensitivity the dynamics of a white woman working with [communities of color in this] valuable resource.”
After the discussion the authors will sign copies of their book.
Two large crowds. Great crowds. A large crowd went with Jesus and his disciples to a town called Nain. Another great crowd was coming toward them along the way. That crowd was surrounding a widow who lost her only son. In the Gospel of Luke when Levi the tax collector gave a great banquet for Jesus in his house, there was a great crowd of tax collectors. When Jesus preached the Sermon on the Plain in Luke, it was a great crowd of disciples and a great multitude of people. When Jesus tells the parable of the sower in Luke, he tells it to a great crowd. When Jesus, James, John, and Peter come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, a great crowd is waiting for them. You heard earlier this morning about “the whole multitude of the disciples” who shouted praise to Jesus on the colt as he headed down from the Mount of Olives. After Jesus died on that cross, Luke tells of the “all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle”.
It is as if Luke tells of a great crowd to make sure we are paying attention to what happens. As far as I can tell, the only great crowd surrounding anyone other than Jesus in the gospel of Luke is the crowd surrounding the widow who just lost her only son. Pretty much the whole town must be surrounding her as she heads out to bury her son. A great crowd sharing her grief. A great crowd embracing her at the time of unspeakable loss. A great crowd coming to support her in her now pressing cultural and economic vulnerability. Death comes and a great crowd gathers.
It is what people do when death’s relentless interruption to life comes. It is what people of faith do. It is what the church does. I know that because I have seen it over and over and over again. I have told you before that my then 21 year old brother was killed in a car accident when I was 7 years old. It was a Saturday night. When I woke up Sunday morning and looked out the window, the cars lining the street looked like my parents were having a party. My brother and I had not been told yet about Bobby’s death. It was announced at the early service of worship at church that morning. All of my parent’s friends came to the house right from there. It is kind of an act of our faith really. When death comes that great crowd no matter how small, embodies (hopefully with as few words as possible) a witness to life and our eternal hope.
When the two great crowds meet there at the town gate, one assumes it became a really great crowd. Luke wants us to pay close attention. When Jesus sees her and the whole town coming alongside her in that procession of death and grief, he has compassion for her and tells her not to weep. Here in the text, she says nothing. She doesn’t identify him as Messiah. She doesn’t ask him to do anything. She is doing the only thing she can do. She is weeping. Like the account of the man being lowered from a hole in the roof by his friends to be healed by Jesus, the only expression of faith here to be found is in the gathering of the neighbors that surround her. “ ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’. The dead man sat up and began to speak and Jesus gave him to his mother.” Jesus gave the gift of life both to the man and to his mother.
The gospel of Luke tells of another procession of death and grief. The procession begins a few days before they made Jesus carry the cross they would use to murder him. The procession of death and grief began at the Mount of Olives. The difference between the two processions is that nobody on that downward path knew about the death and grief part. Instead, it was parade full of shouts of praise and joy-filled acclamations. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!” The Pharisees in the crowd didn’t tell Jesus to stop the shouting because they knew it was death march. The whole multitude of the disciples haven’t figured out coming death and resurrection part. Jesus knows where this is all headed and so do we.
Professor Eric Barreto points out the life of Jesus in Luke is framed beginning and end by his mother Mary. Mary, of course, is the first one to be told about Jesus by the angel Gabriel. At the time of his death, Luke tells of “all of his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood a distance, watching these things.” It was “the women who had come with him from Galilee” who followed Joseph of Arimathea to see him lay Jesus in the tomb. The same women who went back the next morning. Mary isn’t named but wouldn’t a mother go to her son’s tomb? In the opening part of the Acts of the Apostles, Luke tells of the disciples gathering together after the Ascension. Luke lists them by name. “All of these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer” Luke writes, “together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.”
Dr. Barreto also points out that in Luke’s gospel, Jesus never reprimands his mother. Neither does Mary try to get Jesus to stop teaching, preaching, and healing in Luke. That’s in Mark. So it is not a stretch to conclude that when Luke tells of great crowd, Mary the mother of Jesus would be there. When Jesus rode that colt down the path from the Mount of Olives and started up the other side of the valley toward Jerusalem, Mary would have been there too. But I can’t imagine Mary was joining in the shouts of praise and joy-filled acclamations. No, she couldn’t have been filled with joy because Mary knew. Like Jesus, Mary knew. The old man Simeon told her way back in chapter two. “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” Mary knew. I have always sort of thought that Gabriel told her too. That when Mary “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart”, she knew. Maybe, maybe not, but when Mary joined that procession that began at the Mount of Olives, for her it was a procession of grief and death.
Don’t you think when Jesus looked into the eyes of the grieving mother surrounded by a great crowd on the way to the cemetery to bury her son, he was filled with compassion, and he saw in her eyes his own mother? At some point when the two great crowds met and made a very great crowd, can’t you just imagine that at some point amid the woman’s complete silence, Jesus and his mother saw each other and exchanged a profound, heart heavy, knowing look? There must be a special place in heaven for parents who must bury a child and there along that procession of death and of life, Jesus and his mother shared a knowing look with another mother. And by grace and the resurrection power of God, Jesus, foreshadowing his own death and his own resurrection, turns the procession into a miraculous witness to life. Jesus transforms a really great crowd staring at the reality of death. With very few words, Jesus turns that crowd into an embodied witness to life and our eternal hope.
You and I are part of a really great crowd today, in the coming days, and next Sunday too. The tradition labels Jesus’ process as the Triumphal Entry. But you and I, along with the whole multitude of disciples, we know where this is headed. We offer our shouts of praise and joy-filled acclamations this morning but soon we will surround Jesus in the Garden and weep. We don’t rush to the tomb and until we join Jesus’ acquaintances, including the women who followed him from Galilee, standing at a distance watching the spectacle of the imperial principalities and the power of darkness torture Jesus and beat the life out him. We are part of a great crowd called together by his suffering and death and a mother’s grief doing what people do when death calls, doing what resurrection promise-filled neighbors do. We offer an embodied witness to life and our eternal hope.
I don’t remember much else that happened on that Sunday morning when I was 7 years old, and a great crowd came to our house. My parents told me more of the details over the years. The friends who sat with them. A few who said things stupid things like “it must have been God’s will.” But more, many more who nothing and only wept. A few started cleaning the house without saying a word. The pastor came from the church after the second service of worship. And of course, all the things people did in the ways, weeks, and months and years that followed. Even though my memories are blocked by the trauma of it all I can see it deep down in my heart. Yes, because my parents, my sister, my brother, and some of those friends described it to me. But I can see it deep down even more because I have seen it over and over and over again. And so have you.
You might have noticed in Luke’s account of the procession from the Mt of Olives to the city of Jerusalem, there were no shouts of “Hosanna” which means “save us”. I figure those in the crowd still shouted it even though Luke doesn’t record it. It’s in the three other gospels. Save us! Save us! Save us! It’s always described as a joyful shout! But it’s a prayer-filled plea as well. Save us, dear Lord!
When that great crowd gathers around death to embrace the broken-hearted, amid that embodied witness to life and our eternal hope, there is a prayer-filled plea as well that defines that crowd. A prayer that rests way deep down in the soul. It dare not come in a joyful shout but in silence. It’s the same plea as the Palm Sunday one.
Save us! Save us! Save us! Not with a shout of hosanna but with prayer. Lord Jesus save us in our grief and point us to the hope of resurrection life. Join our procession here and now and forever lead us to the very heart of God.
