This sermon was preached on June 8, 2025, at Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church.
My body, and my spirit are beginning to feel yet again tired
Of being under the weight
Of an all too familiar star-spangle bannered boot sole
Supported by an all too familiar American boot strap.
Now since this is a diverse crowd, thanks be to God,
Let me be clear that my tired isn’t your tired,
And your tired isn’t my tired, but nonetheless there is a weariness that enough of us are experiencing.
Ya’ll turn to your neighbor on the left with the tiredness you feel and say, “I’m tired”
I know my tiredness from my body and spirit
Comes from my life experience, my epistemology or way of knowing,
And so this morning I can only articulate my experience from who I am
And the histories of the people from whom I come.
As expansive and as limiting as they may be,
They are yours for strong consideration,
And I ask you to consider, maybe the reason why DEI is so threatening
Has as much to do with the accessible knowledge of diverse people
Who are able to articulate, identify, and out of necessity, already have
Strategies of overcoming, and ways of being to combat American Fascism
Because they have already lived under it within the borders of this country.
And they are betting on, us bringing the xenophobia,
Standing silently with and on the caste systems from
Our own cultures to be in service of the White Christian Nationalist Agenda
Which they always already act upon with the loudest silence possible.
So this morning when I talk about my experience, my culture, my knowledge,
Don’t get it twisted, I’m not here to deny your people or experience
I’m not here to put the experience of Black people, specifically African-Americans, above the experience of others.
As a Good Christian I know and truly believe the Gospel is rooted in solidarity with all people, all life
And yet I can only share what I know through the experience of
This Black, queer, cis, female, body.
I’m tired.
And I come from a people who for the past 400 years have been sick and tired.
In 1936, Langston Hughes, wrote, “We [Black folks] in America do not have to be told what Fascism is in action. We know. Its theories of Nordic supremacy and economic suppression have long been realities to us.”
What we are seeing today, right now in our country, is not new, it’s quite old and painfully familiar to more than enough people,
So, for the sake of honoring the sobering historical context of the birth of the church this morning,
Which I will get to in a minute, I will go ahead and say the quiet parts out loud.
Yes we are at spiritual war.
And yes we are fighting a fascist government.
Yes, many people will disappear.
Yes, too many people will die.
No, you are not as safe as you would like to be or thought that you were.
Separating yourselves from this first wave of people who are being targeted, Latino immigrants, trans people, native americans, black people, queers, the disabled, poor women, and women of color,
Will not save you.
And let’s be honest.
As a society, and here in Sunnyvale,
We are all too comfortable with these populations being poor, unhoused, over policed, and normatively undereducated,
Marked as human shields for the “good” of the alleged “whole” of our empire.
Their personal suffering is normal and expected.
Their perseverance and achievement is our perplexity and surprise.
The church was birthed in a time where Early Christians and messianic Jews were genuinely afraid of their local government and the Roman Empire
Due to the policing, torture, and crucifixion of Jesus,
Executed by the Roman Empire at the persistence of his local government.
This is why when I hear Christians sometimes mention
“Church is not a place for politics,” I get concerned.
Jesus was crucified by the Roman Empire in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
If it is a Jesus you want without the politics of the day,
there are plenty of churches who will teach you,
a shallow theology, and hollow gospel.
Satan is more than happy to welcome you to a feel-good empty fellowship.
What we are seeing in Los Angeles,
what we have been witnessing in cities across the country over these past months,
is not an America that has never been.
It is an America that has always been.
My parents, when they were children and teenagers
Remember the National Guard deployed in their Black urban
Neighborhoods of Chicago and Newark, New Jersey.
My Cousins, Aunties and Uncles of their age
Remember the US Army Tanks pointed at houses in their Black neighborhoods.
So when I get the news updates on my phone
When I turn on my computer
When I watch my television screen
To see and hear what is happening to predominantly our Latine immigrant siblings
Several of whom, when the borders of the United States expanded westward
The border crossed them,
When I see the history
of just one generation before me repeating itself
Targeting a different people group
Not because people targeted in the past are no longer en vogue
But because there are not enough of them anymore
To fight back in numbers the way our siblings in LA are fighting back now
It begs the honest reflection that …
If we are the Church that we say we are,
When it comes to migrants and immigrants in our country
When it comes to trans people
When it comes to Black people
When it comes to the targets of empire
I quote the great Baptist Preacher Prethea Hall,
“Who are they to you,
in your ministries of teaching and preaching and care?
And who are you to them?”
Pentecost
The birth of the Church
Happens at a moment when Christ’s followers are scared
Jesus is no longer with them and has ascended on the throne through our receiving of the Holy Spirit
It is an apocalyptic moment, meaning it is a moment of the end of an era
The age being the time that God dwelt amongst us as one of us.
So much so that Peter quotes the Prophet Joel Acts 2:14-21,
Who biblical scholars agree is an apocalyptic prophet,
Just as the author identified as John was an apocalyptic prophet
In the Book of Revelation.
People have survived apocalypses,
Not without scars, but people have thrived and survived after apocalypses
After terrors so awful they marked an end of an era where there was no going back.
Pentecost was an apocalyptic event
And on our birthday as the Church, we are in the midst of another.
Sometimes I think we as Christians cling to a falsehood
that life is fair and that we are owed comfort
without accountability for how and by whom our comforts are serviced.
What is the cost to life for our comfort?
There should be little to none.
The Holy Spirit coming to the early Christians
in their time of justifiable fear and concern
Was to bring the comfort of equipment
To have to the tools necessary be followers of Christ teachings
In an age when Jesus no longer walks amongst us.
Make no mistake,
just as the maturing of the Church
came with the blessing of the power of the Holy Spirit,
So did a spiritual maturation happen to those who received God’s Spirit.
In other words, I say this to myself as well,
Spiritually speaking beloveds, it’s time to grow up and meet the moment.
What is happening is not going anywhere and this is just the beginning.
The Holy Spirit has no bounds on race, class, gender, or ability.
The time we live in now is a clarion call to build the muscles of body and spirit
So that the Holy Spirit can use us as vessels
Just like the Holy moment of tongues.
In order to build muscle and become strong
Our muscle fibers have to rip.
They must go through an appropriate time of discomfort and pain
In order to strengthen and meet the weight demands given them by the body.
Oppression and political repression is a terrible, heavy weight.
That in order to lift with the help of the Holy Spirit
Your heart must tear … just enough
So that you can move beyond comfort and grow into your purpose
To lift the heavy weight of life
And meet the moment the demand of what it means to earnestly be a Christian at this time.
Your heart needs to tear … just enough at the reality that
“Rising white nationalism, racist violence, xenophobia,
and economic deterioration of the working class,
Has prepared the way for the current iteration of our American Empire, an
imminent reality.”
Your heart needs to tear … just enough to know
That Fascism, as Historian Robin D.G. Kelly puts it,
“is not some aberration, from the march of progress,
It is the logical development Western civilization itself.
It is the logical development of
A civilization based on racial classification and hierarchy,
A civilization based on colonial domination, capitalist exploitation and violence.”
Your spiritual heart, needs to tear a little
So that it can grow back stronger
To help support and lift the weight of these perilous times
Of all the awful things being done in the name of our Christ Jesus and God
So that we might put an end to the legacies of hate that we didn’t ask for.
The Fascist state exists to protect those who are the people
and eradicate those who are not considered the people.
So in this respect, fascism is not at odds with liberal democracy.
Which is in part why what is happening right now is so scary
For the parts of ourselves that are scared,
I propose to you this:
What is happening in our country is nothing new
the part of you that is scared,
is the part of you that has always been
unsafe or suspect at times anyway.
The difference is the veneer has worn off
and you cannot ignore the tarnish as you once did.
If God, through the resurrection of Jesus the Christ,
fought the duel with death and won,
If you believe that the victory is actually already yours,
Turn to your neighbor on your right
And say, with the help of the Holy Spirit we’ll get through
Part of what’s happening is
the Roman Empire of our time believes in eugenics,
Meaning they believe in human diversity as a fixed
immutable hierarchy, where some groups are not suitable
for freedom or self rule precisely because of their genetic make up.
And these people, because they are not like “us”
Are considered inherently less than and required to be ruled over
stripped of any federal recognition or legal protections.
Which is not only a culture and governance of apartheid,
but lack of recognition in combination with lack of legal protections
is the definition of genocide
according to the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention.
For some of us this American reality
has been a permanent fixture of life.
For some of us that wonder why our country
won’t name genocides elsewhere
It’s in part because our country would implicate itself
In long-standing and recent genocides here at home.
Fascism is always a war against life.
And America has always been at this war.
Lest we forget,
that the Nazi party based its eugenics roots and practices from our Jim Crow.
Hitler was fascinated at how our country could be a democracy for freedom and justice for all
and yet maintain apartheid.
We were his blueprint.
So we need to build muscle in community just as the early church did.
We need healthy debates to figure out
not if we are included in solidarity with one another
But how to be in solidarity with one another,
while honoring the obvious diversity reflected in our shared humanity,
Which is in part why the day and season of Pentecost
Is a day to join in the tongues of fire throughout the ages,
To live a lifestyle of compassionate actions of care
And solidarity partnerships with all people and life,
For our mutual liberation as Jesus taught and lived.
That is the only reason we call ourselves Christians
Or compel others to follow Christ’s ways.
Historian Robin D.G. Kelley said in a recent lecture
“It is so easy to blame the right.
Defeating the kind of fascism we face now
requires something deeper than defeating
the current administration or winning elections
it requires a deeper ideological shift.”
I argue, it requires a Pentecost.
It means to go to the root of the crosses we bear,
and the people we crucify.
It means we need to always fight in solidarity with others
as though our lives depended on it,
because they actually do.
It means pleading allegiance to the kin-dom of God, and all God’s creation
which God from the beginning proudly proclaimed was good.
It means standing up for oppressed life everywhere
and like Jesus not asking for anything in return.
That is what solidarity means.
You don’t get brownie points for solidarity;
As a Christian it’s what you’re supposed to do
Like cleaning your room or washing your body,
It is a part of your spiritual hygiene
In these Evil times
As we deal with these all too familiar demons of old
Remember The Holy Spirit is heard in every tongue, every language
Through love and compassion.
Remember You were born for these times just as you are
Because you are here to live them.
Let us go about doing the work Jesus
and the Holy Spirit on Pentecost call us to do,
And give the Church a birthday we will never forget.
Amen.
Gospel Sounds of Young America. (2020, April 21). A Nightmare in Broad Daylight (sermon) – Rev. Dr. Prathia Hall [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=PSuC15uLlAA Hart, S. (2020, July 14). The Race Gap: How U.S. systemic racism plays out in
Black lives. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/graphics/GLOBAL-RACE/USA/ nmopajawjva/#0 Keck, L. E. (2015a). The New Interpreter’s Bible. 7. Introduction to Apocalyptic Literature, Daniel, Additions to Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi: Vol. VI. Abingdon Press.
Media Education Foundation. (2025, April 16). Robin D.G. Kelley | “The Black Radical Tradition Against Fascism and Genocide: The Long Durée.” [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT9ZCYxPfkc Whitman, J. Q. (2017). Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvc774zw
