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The Cross: A Good Friday Reflection

One of my favorite features about this church building are the crosses. Before we enter the sanctuary, a large cross hangs over the doorway. Above the altar space, another large cross looms silently but still speaking volume. And then, from a distance, we can see the large roof slope upwards, forming a crown with a cross on top. These crosses do more than provide a nice place for birds to sit. Each cross proclaims this is where Christians are.

But in the words of Sharon Ringe, professor emerita of Wesley Seminary, “With its exalted status as the focal point of our faith, the cross has lost its power to scandalize.” In the years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, crosses did not show where Christians were. Crosses were located at the edge of cities marking the palaces where people died. Crosses were used to execute slaves or those accused of committing treason against the Roman Empire. Crosses were symbols of pain and suffering. Each cross proclaimed this is where the Empire won.

Our reading from Hebrews is an attempt by the early faith community to “articulate the religious meaning of the cross in imagery and language powerful enough to transform the immediate horror it represented.” The cross is never plain. The cross always points to those who used it. The Roman Empire saw Jesus as a threat during the yearly Passover celebration. Pontius Pilate used the cross to eliminate the problem violently and completely. Good Friday remembers this violence and the world that uses violence to punish others.

But Good Friday also remembers what happened next. The cross was the Roman Empire’s ultimate symbol of pain and death. Yet in the least likely place anyone would reasonably looked, God showed up to save the world. Jesus did not run away from death. Rather, Jesus confronted it. Jesus saw the violence, pain, and love of power inherent in the world. And he lived, taught, and died showing there is a different way to be. The cross is a symbol of horror that became a symbol of life because God does not let death triumphant over hope and love.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for Good Friday, 4/14/2017.

A Good Friday Cross Walk Reflection

My church joined with two local churches to host a Cross Walk through Park Ridge, NJ. We walked through the eight stations of the Cross from Jesus’ condemnation to his death. We began in a church sanctuary where I preached the first part of the manuscript. We then ended in a church graveyard where I finished off the service. There is no audio since I was outside.

Also, preaching in a church graveyard next to the grave of a 1 year old (died in 1816) while my two young kids are playing in a pile of dirt in the distance is…it’s compelling.

At the Start

One of the books that’s supposed to be on my kids’ bookshelf, but is usually on the floor of their bedroom, is called “Subway.” The story takes place during a dark, rainy day in New York City. Two kids and their parent are bored. They need to get out of their apartment. They need to have an adventure. So they grab their metropasses, run out their front door, and head to the local subway station. After hopping down some stairs, they’re out of the rain and on the platform. It’s there, while standing under some florescent lights and safely behind the yellow line, that everyone waits. And waits. And waits. Since the kids are New Yorkers, they know which way the train is supposed to come from. They know which side of the platform they should be standing on. They know their adventure is about to start. So they wait for their Subway story to story.

And here we are – waiting for Good Friday story to start. Many of us are here because we know how this Jesus story works. We know that Jesus, the Son of God, lived a human life and died a very human death 2000 years ago on the other side of the world. This is a story some of us know well. It’s also a story some of us might not know yet. Today might be our 90th Good Friday or it could be our very first – or at least the first we might remember. The story of Jesus’ journey to the cross is an old one. But it’s a story God asks us to always see as new. Today, we gather together, connected to the believers who have gone before us and to the believers who will come after us. We are here to tell and experience this ever-living and ever-present adventure one more time. We will walk what has traditionally been called “the Stations of the Cross.” To me, a station is just an episode; it’s one small scene in the larger act of Jesus’ journey. We will start with Jesus’ condemnation by the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate. We will hear about his torture and his long walk through city streets. There he will see women, friends, and a stranger will be drafted by the Romans to carry his Cross. Soldiers will mock him. Passerbys will torment him. We’ll be there at the foot of the Cross when Jesus strengthens the final bounds between his community. And we’ll hear his final cry. As we tell Jesus’ story, we will reflect on our own social realities, like we did last year, on the places in our world where too many people experience brokenness and pain.

So, here we are. We are at the start of the journey. We are on the platform, knowing the story that is coming. We are looking into the tunnel, into the shadow, into the darkness. As the story comes near, we will feel a wind of foreboding and fear. We will experience the rumble caused by words and prayers. We will walk Jesus’ journey – knowing that the shadow of the present, no matter how ominous, can never overcome God’s precious and eternal light.

At the End (graveyard)
We started this journey, waiting for the rest of the story to come. Like the kids’ waiting for the Subway, we stood on our version of a platform, looking into the shadow of a dark subway tunnel. We started today by looking into the abyss. And then the story came. In sacred spaces surrounding First Congregational UCC and Pascack Reformed Church, we retold bits and pieces of Jesus’ story. Along the way, we walked together, singing songs, and stopping in a very public place to remember that Jesus’ live in a very public way. We shared prayers and remembered that the suffering of the cross is a story too many people experience every single day. And now we end like we began, standing together, but in a new place. A different kind of place. A place where Jesus’ story was supposed to end.

So what comes next? We hear in scripture that, after Jesus’ death, his body was taken down. A man named Joseph, a disciple of Jesus, had recently paid for a tomb to be dug for himself and his family. Instead, he gives it to Jesus. Jesus is placed hurriedly in ancient Jerusalem’s graveyard. There isn’t time to properly prepare his body for burial so the disciples make plans to visit the tomb and finish the rituals that help people mourn and grieve. Jesus ends up in this kind of sacred place – a place where stories about people are remembered, recorded, and sealed in graves and tombs. Over time, the stories of the lives buried in places like this one, usually fall out of memory. But the echo of their lives still reverberate throughout time and space. Each generation is an heir to the generation that came before it. Each person, through their actions, their love, their successes, and their failures, impact the people around them. In ways we can not fully articulate, we stand here as people who contain the legacy, the stories, and the realities of everyone who has come before us. Jesus died because the Romans wanted to end his story and his influence. But God had other plans.

At the end of the children’s book Subway, the children beg and plead to stay on the train. They want to keep riding. They want to stay on the adventure. However, in the story it’s half-past-eight. It’s long past bedtime. The kids turn out the light, close their eyes, and fall asleep. But they make a promise. Their adventure and story they just lived through will live on, even in their dreams.

I invite us today to hold onto the story of Good Friday. We know how the story turns out. We know Easter will come. But there are times in our lives and in our world where Easter can only be spotted in our dreams. There are times when the Cross is all we feel and all we know. But the Cross is a story Jesus does not run away from. Instead, he challenges it. He faces it. He struggles through it. Because sometimes the only way to Easter, the only way through Holy Week and only way through our lives, is to just live through it.

Benediction
And now may the God who was born,
Who had siblings and knew what it was like to grow up,
Who made friends and lost them, who felt joys and shed tears,
Who brought good news to the poor,
And showed the world what God’s kingdom, God’s future, God’s hope, and God’s love actually looks like,
May the very face of that God shine on you, be gracious to you, and give you and this entire world – peace.

Amen.

Companion: Looking for what’s Hidden

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.” After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:1-17,31b-35

My sermon from Maundy Thursday (April 13, 2017) on John 13:1-17,31b-35. Listen to the recording at the bottom of the page or read my manuscript below:

One of the nice things about having cats again is that, when I’m eating, I’m never really alone. When I pull out a chair and take a seat at the dining room table, I notice the tips of cat ears sitting patiently on the other side. Pretty soon, there’s a cat on the table, hoping that today will be the day when I let him drink all the milk in my cereal bowl. It’s adorable and annoying, especially when they try to grab the spoon right out of my hand. Cats and dogs, are some of the most persistent, patient, and fuzzy dining companions we get to have. And even when we think we’re alone, we’re not. They’re there, lying in wait under an ottoman, or a chair, or the table itself. These hidden companions are part of the story that unfolds when we sit for a meal. And if we forget that they are there, we risk having our lunch swiped from us when we’re not paying attention.

Paying attention to our hidden companions isn’t just something to do at dinner; it’s important for tonight’s reading from John as well. These verses from John 13 are heard every Maundy Thursday. And they make us uncomfortable because Jesus does a really strange thing: he washes feet. And even if we don’t know why foot washing was a thing in the ancient world, there’s something inside us that knows that foot washing is just – weird. In the words of one of our high school youth at our youth group meeting last Sunday, foot washing is… “Gross.” Feet are in shoes all day long. They get dry and cracked. They literally carry us around, and we barely think about them, until they stop working the way we expect. Feet are also beneath us. When we look down, there they are. So when Jesus gets up, removes his clothing, wraps a towel around his waist, and kneels at the feet of his students – he, the Master, the Teacher, the one who was there before the world was, is suddenly beneath them. He’s below. He’s serving the ones who are called to serve him. And when we imagine what footwashing actually was like in ancient Jerusalem – a city without indoor plumbing, or paved streets, or people owning closed-toed shoes – gross doesn’t even come close to describe it. The one usually assigned to wash feet would be a slave or a servant. A teacher shouldn’t be a footwasher. And yet…here is Jesus…being gross.

So if our feet are washed, what does that bring? I mean, it feels nice when our feet are in good shape and look good but Jesus is doing more than giving his disciples pedicures. We need to pay attention to the hidden companions, the hidden verses, that accompany this text. And those verses are…everywhere. They show up in the very first verse, in the word “hour.” That one word pushes us back to the start of Jesus’ ministry in John, when he is at a wedding and the party is about to end prematurely because the wine has run out. Jesus’ mom informs Jesus and he says “my hour has not yet come.” So he makes some wine out of water. It’s a wedding party full of food and drink that starts Jesus’ journey. And it’s tonight, when his hour finally comes, that his ending begins with a dinner party. The foot washing is more than one act of service we’re asked to replicate and ritualize. The foot washing, in the words of Rev. Karoline Lewis in her commentary on John, “is somewhat of a microcosm of God becoming flesh, God dwelling with us, now no greater than we are” (page 181). When Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, he summarized his entire ministry. The foot washing is a capstone to the life that Jesus lived. It completes his narrative, this part of his story, and becomes“a pattern of being….that the disciples will now need to take on” (page 181).

And this pattern of being is hard. There are moments when we’re asked to love those we don’t even like. There are moments when we are asked to serve people we do not understand and people we don’t want to even try to understand. The life of love Jesus embodies upends our expectations of what’s normal. Even if we hear the call to serve all people like Jesus did, there are still some people we don’t want to love. There are some we don’t think deserve to be loved. And that’s why Love is hard; love is difficult; because love messes with our expectations and reveals to us what God really wants us to see.
And there’s another hidden companion to tonight’s text that we need to see. We need to hear what happens to that evil, hidden in the room and explicitly declared in verse 2. Among the disciples, sitting in the room, is Judas. He watches as Jesus washes their feet. He feels the water that Jesus pours over his toes. His feet are dried by his teacher, his friend, and his rabbi. And, in verses we do not hear tonight, after all of that, Judas leaves. He heads out, into the night. Now, Jesus knew Judas will do this. He knew his hour had finally arrived. And yet…Jesus still served. He still washed. He still loved everyone, including the one who will deny him, the one who will betray him, and the ones who will run away when the cross finally comes.

The hidden companion to Jesus’ command to “love one another” is Judas. In the act of footwashing, the disciples are confronted with the entirety of Jesus’ story. For some, that sparked confusion. For others, hope. And for Judas…well…he left. In front of the entire group, he just walked out. The fear and tension and confusion around that dinner table must have been palpable. And it’s in the middle of all of that when Jesus said “love one another.” Love. In the face of betrayal, in the face of fear, in the face of uncertainty and our unrealized expectations, just love. Jesus doesn’t tell his followers to be a hidden companion in a world that doesn’t always know him. He tells them to love like he did, in all the different ways he modeled throughout his ministry and in the many other ways God will inspire them to see. Foot washing was just the capstone to the story of love Jesus lived out. And as he served, so should we, being visible companions to each other, to our neighbors, and to the One God sent to upend the world through love.

Amen.

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Red: Blood in Exodus.

Our First Reading is Exodus 12:1-14.

It was my first year in college. I was picking up some lunch while on campus. I don’t remember why the glass Snapple bottle slipped from my fingers but I do know what happened next. I caught the bottle but I was too late. The bottle shattered on the ground while my hand was around it. A deep gash tore through one of my fingers. A trip to the university health center was in order.

At the health center, I was prepped for stitches. The nurse asked me if it would be okay for a student volunteer to watch the procedure. The student was thinking about a medical career. I said, “Sure. The more the merrier.” The physician assistant invited the student (and me) to watch the simple procedure. The finger still bled but I was fascinated. I tried to get the best position possible to see my finger put back together. The pre-med student looked at the still bleeding finger. She then ran out of the room. The sight of all that blood was making her nauseous.

In our reading from Exodus tonight, blood is central to the text. The ancient world did not have the medical knowledge we do. How the body functioned was a mystery to them (and is still a mystery today). But the ancient world did know the importance of blood. Blood flows. Blood is pumped through the body. Blood makes life happen.

And life is what the blood on the door is all about. Each family gathered together to take the life of a lamb (its blood) and make a sign on their door. The angel, checking each household, would see the sign of life and passover their house. The life of the lamb does more than keep the family safe. The life of the lamb also invites the family to experience the entire Exodus story. A story where God’s people are moved from slavery into freedom; from suffering into abundant life. God doesn’t want God’s people to just survive. God wants God’s people to thrive.

The story of Maundy Thursday is what a thriving life looks like. A life that thrives is a life that gives. A life that thrives is a life that serves even those who betray it. A life that thrives is a life that sees Jesus, serves everyone, and always loves.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for Maundy Thursday, 4/13/2017.

Collision: Two Parades Enter Jerusalem

Our First Reading is Matthew 21:1-11.

Broken branches. Dirty cloaks. A road covered with whatever is at hand. Today is Palm & Passion Sunday. We are beginning our journey through the center of the church year. We will spend this week re-experiencing Jesus’ final journey into Jerusalem. Jerusalem is flooded with visitors and tourists. The festival of Passover is about to begin. We can imagine every home, hotel, motel, and campground is bursting at the seams with guests. People can barely move through marketplaces jammed with merchants selling souvenirs, knick-knacks, food and more. Jerusalem is full.

And then Jesus comes. A crowd celebrated his arrival by putting cloaks and branches on the ground. By covering the road, dust and dirt stay on the roadway. Jesus’ donkey stays clean. The crowd treats Jesus like a king returning home from a victorious military campaign. He should have gold banners, soldiers carrying swords and shields, and prisoners of war and booty to show off. The entire city should be in their Sunday best to welcome him home. But, instead, we have a crowd full of tourists, the poor, and the sick. The crowd gathered at the last minute so they cut down palm branches from trees in the city. The crowd of almost inconsequential people meets a king who comes with “an army” of only a handful of disciples.

According to Matthew, the crowd that welcomes Jesus was large. But there’s a larger crowd that did not know who Jesus was. It’s probable that, at the same time Jesus is entering the city, another procession is entering Jerusalem from the other side. With so many people in the city, the Roman Empire needed to make an appearance. The Roman Governor Pontius Pilate arrived in the city at the head of his legion. His soldiers would keep an eye on the crowds during Passover and serve as a reminder that Rome is in charge. Rome’s procession would have banners with gold eagles on top. Every soldier would have their swords and spears ready to use. Pilate’s procession would inspire awe and fear, reminding Jerusalem that the mightiest empire in the world is in control.

Jesus and Rome are on a collision course. The might of the world is about to meet the might of God. Even 2000 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, we still place our trust in our ability to force others to do our will. We still celebrate power. Our power is about to encounter God. And, for a moment, we’re going to think we’ve won.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for Palm Sunday, 4/9/2017.

A Wide Saddle: Jesus has a sidecar in Jerusalem

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, “Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Matthew 21:1-11

My sermon from Palm Sunday (April 9, 2017) on Matthew 21:1-11.

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4 days later: a sermon on messaging Jesus.

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

John 11:1-45

My sermon from the Fifth Sunday in Lent (April 2, 2017) on John 11:1-45.

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Rattling Bones

Ezekiel is having a moment today. In our first reading (Ezekiel 37:1-14), “the hand of the Lord” sets him down in the middle of a valley. Ezekiel is having a vision which might be happening only in his mind. For him, this could be a very vivid dream. But I like to make this story real. I see God physically grabbing Ezekiel by the hair and carrying him into this valley full of dried bones. When he lands, I imagine his feet touching the bones. The bones rustle, clang, and clatter as he kicks them around. His religious concern about being unclean is overwhelmed by the sheer number of bones he sees. The visual overload he is experiencing would stop him from even processing what is going on. In that moment, he wouldn’t know what to say. His brain would just shut down. He could do nothing but look and see. And, in the process, he would be as still and dry as the bones around him.

God commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones. Prophesy is more than a prediction of the future. Prophecy is a life-giving word for right now. The words Ezekiel shares are words of promise. As he speaks, life takes hold, even among old bones. The bones start to move. The bones start to rattle. And if I was there with Ezekiel, I would be terrified. It’s sometimes easier to stay among dry bones than to see those bones rattled. It’s sometimes easier to stay with the status quo or keep things the way they are than to see the chaos and unpredictability that rattling can bring about. As the bones rattle, fear grows. But the rattling of bones is not the end of the story. Change happens. The bones turn into something new. As the vision evolves, God’s own breath comes into view.

When Ezekiel experienced this vision, he was living through the destruction of Jerusalem. Waves and waves of people were being deported from the city. The Babylonians would burn God’s Temple to the ground. The dry bones Ezekiel sees are not only metaphorical. They point to a community feeling hopeless because their sense of who they are is coming undone. Their world felt like it was coming to an end. But God promises God’s presence even when conflict, loss, and fear are all we feel. God’s Word makes a difference. And the final chapter of the story God is writing is a story that includes hope, life, love, and us.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 5th Sunday in Lent, 4/2/2017.

I Met a Sitting US Senator

The Adult Choir and Music Director at my church is the NJ State Teacher of the Year. On Sunday she was recognized by Senator Bob Menendez at an event in honor of Evangelina Menendez (the Senator’s mother) and Women’s History Month. I was invited to the VIP reception before the ceremony. It was my first time talking to a sitting US Senator face-to-face.

They also caught me in my natural pose.

Photos provided by the office of Senator Bob Menendez.