Presbytery of San Jose

February 21, 2025

A Pastoral Letter to the Presbytery of San Jose

The Rev. Dr. Neal D. Presa, Executive Presbyter

February 21, 2025

Dear Siblings in the Faith, Colleagues in Ministry, and Friends of the Presbytery of San Jose,

Grace and peace in the name of the holy God, revealed in Jesus Christ our Liberator, in the transformative breath of Holy Spirit!

This week, specifically February 19th, marks the 83rd year since the fateful signing of and issuance by President Franklin Roosevelt’s of Executive Order 9066. On that day, through the stroke of a pen, the president directed hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans to be forcibly detained, separated from their homes and families, and imprisoned at a series of internment camps in the Western United States. I have attached here some photos Grace and I took when we visited one of those camps, Manzanar, a couple years back. As many of you know, I grew up in San Bruno. Our family frequented the Tanforan Mall, which was once upon a time a racetrack. Manzanar has an exhibit that described how that same Tanforan racetrack was used as one of several processing centers where Japanese Americans would be registered and then shipped off to any one of a number of concentration camps. These fellow citizens were not afforded due process, not regarded with dignity as human beings, and subjected to the suspicion and terror of the federal government, all in the name and under the pretext of “national security” and preserving American interests.

This is Day 33 into this new presidential administration. The sheer volume and velocity of executive orders being issued by President Trump and being implemented have created a situation of chaos, fear, and fomented conditions where real lives are being adversely affected, migrant communities are vulnerable more than they were already, LGBTQIA+ persons’ identities have been eviscerated, constitutional checks and balances that provided a semblance of trust in our institutions are now questionable, global alliances are threatened, American foreign policy that challenged dictators are now cow-towing to those same dictators, U.S. foreign aid that provided needed food and medicines to impoverished communities around the world has all but ceased, and the list goes on and on by the minute. It becomes overwhelming, and there are some days where I wonder what to do next and how to respond. Because the revolutionary changes that the new presidential administration is enacting through the series of executive orders will transform government for years, now is not the time to rest, and certainly not the time to tune out and approach this moment with apathetic resignation.

I am prompted by Holy Spirit to press into the apostle Paul’s exhortation in 2 Corinthians 4:8-12:

Here, the apostle is addressing both internal and external challenges to the church’s witness in the first century C.E. Yet, we see visibly before us, in 2025, the pernicious values of empire rearing its ugly head where an unelected billionaire walks with his team from agency to agency terminating civil servants, accessing sensitive information, and, doing so with impunity.

The brazenness of this administration is emboldened not only by his interpretation of the Supreme Court’s decision last year affirming the president’s near total immunity from prosecution provided such acts were done as part of official acts and duties of the president. But the brazenness is further emboldened when he views his political mandate on some illusory imprimatur from God. We who are students (and teachers) of history have seen this script play out in human history: Pharaohs, emperors, monarchs, despots, presidents, religious leaders – the constellation of political, religious, and economic leaders who saw their right to rule in dictatorial ways as part of a divine mandate, that somehow they are the anointed person from God. 

Thus, the church’s witness of the Gospel and of the loving justice of God must be brought to bear in every moment, and certainly on these perilous times. Now is not the time to rest and retreat, but to confront, interrogate, challenge, and protest the powers and principalities when the vulnerable and disenfranchised are threatened, when hate and fear are instilled into the lives of people, when the values of empire are lifted above the well-being of the poor, the refugee, when fellow human beings and their identities are disregarded. 

We give witness of our faith of the One, Jesus the Christ, whose divine mandate to us, whose executive order to all people was and is to love: love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love neighbor and stranger as Christ loved us. Period. Full stop.

I’m not experiencing and seeing that executive order in the president’s executive order – whether Roosevelt’s in 1942 nor Trump’s in 2025.  

For us in the Presbytery of San Jose, living out Christ’s executive order to love will mean many things in the contexts of Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Monterey counties. It will mean:

•   Being and providing sanctuary to the vulnerable

•   Accompanying people through the legal process for protection

•   Advocacy through the legal and political processes

•   Street and neighborhood protests

•   Community organizing and coalition building

•   Challenging and critiquing policies and the implementation of them

•   Listening to the heart of fellow neighbors and strangers who live in fear

•   Listening to the heart of those with whom we disagree

•   Loving neighbor and stranger alike

•   Praying

•   Discerning for wisdom when to act publicly, and when to act subversively

We are a community of faith. And as such, we are called to pray for one another, to support each other, to join our hearts, voices, and lives for the work and witness of Jesus Christ so that the God of love and the love of God may be lifted up in our midst.

These are perilous times, to which we have been called for such a time. May the steadfast love of God inspire us and enable us to bear witness – in word, in deed, in prayer, and in every way – of the divine executive order to love.

In the One who is our Joy and Love,

Neal Presa, Executive Presbyter

Presbytery of San Jose

Neal D. Presa | neal@sanjosepby.org | (408) 763-5004

We're asking all churches and worshiping communities to pray for the host of the Unity Candle each week, including mention in their worship bulletins and pastoral prayer/congregational prayers.

First Presbyterian Church of Monterey, https://fpcmonterey.org/

At Nov 2024 Presbytery Meeting, Pastor Mark Peake listed some of the programs that First Presbyterian Church of Monterey either leads or supports, to share its love with the community:

• IHELP, Interfaith Homeless Emergency Lodging
• MMO Preschool
• Food collection and distribution
• Stephen Ministry

Follow the path of the Unity Candle: http://tinyurl.com/SJUnity2025

Feb 23 - First Presbyterian Church of Monterey

March 2 - Gonzales Community Presbyterian Church

March 9 - Northminster Presbyterian Church

To learn more about the Presbytery's Mission and Outreach work group, contact co-chairs Pam Siu (RE, Santa Teresa Hills Pres, also member of Coordinating Council) or Pastor Vincent Arishvara (TE, Trinity San Jose).

Detailed information is on the Presbytery's Mission Funding Request form for Community Missions.

The following changes to Community Mission grants were voted into place at yesterday's meeting of Mission and Outreach work group:

• $2500/congregation. A congregation can apply for a maximum of two grants per year. Upon receiving the first grant, a second grant application can be considered after six months of receiving the first grant.

• $5000/project involving the partnering of two or more congregations. This is a decrease from the present $6000/partnering congregations. Each of the partnering congregations must describe how they are involved in the project.

Office of Public Witness lobbies lawmakers and organizes actions that promote PCUSA's point of view in Washington, DC.

- Instagram

- Holy Discontentment

Advocacy Guide

Office of Immigration Issues offers advice, resources, and maintains the Family Care Plan page of PCUSA.org, to help communities come together in support of one another and create plans for the worst-case scenarios.

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance

PDA is in contact with communities hit with recent ICE raids and is involved in multiple initiatives to offer a safe and stable environment for refugees and asylum seekers.

• 22 Feb, 1pm Memorial Service for Ruling Elder Mel Goertz, Stone Church
• 22 Feb Watsonville Public House Anniversary Dinner
• 27 Feb, 4pm Presbytery Meeting by Zoom
• 1 March Youth Triennium Interest levels due (contact Rosaleen Zisch)
• 5 March Ash Wednesday
• 20 March, 12:00 Clergywomen's Luncheon, Country Gourmet, Sunnyvale
• 22 March, 9:30am Treasurer Training Zoom (registration link)
• 22 March Registration Deadline, NAPW Retreat
• 29 March, 1:30pm Church Mystery Book Club, PCLG
• 13 April Palm Sunday
• 20 April Easter Sunday
• 3 May N.E.A.R. Gathering, First Presbyterian Church of Monterey

www.sanjosepby.org

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