Last night some of us seminarians went to Mt. Airy Church of God in Christ to hear Rev. Otis Moss, III preach for the “Preaching With Power” series. Now you might know of Rev. Moss, he’s a pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ. TUCC is the church of presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Rev. Moss was amazing. It was obvious he knew his stuff in a very deep intellectual level. He was Orthodox as can be, the message was sound. But the medium! Oh my goodness! He preached like Rev. Cleophus James from The Blues Brothers. He was getting so excited he did a little moonwalk while preaching. He drug President Cray (LTSP’s president) up from his chair, he was sweating and getting into it. He preached for 45 minutes non-stop, without notes, no holds barred! He REALLY wanted us to meditate on the Blind man and the pool of Salom!
In addition, since COGIC is out of the Pentecostal tradition (Moss on the other hand is UCC) people were falling out in the spirit, spontaneously laughing, as well as calling and responding to Rev. Moss. It was an intense service.
Peace,
Chris
2 comments:
Heh, interesting.
Thanks for bringing up Rev. Cleofus from the Blues Brothers, brought a smile and a laugh. James Brown played that part brilliantly.
I hear Obama's pastor is causing the Obama campaign some problems with a sermon ABC News had dug up. I gave it a listen and it sounded very intense as you describe, but was basically blaming 9/11 on the United States, and was calling for God to damn the US, rather than bless the US.
Any thoughts on that, Chris?
Hmmm... I don't know, from listening to this guy my impression is he would be too nuanced to say something like that, but I don't know...
I think we do need to take seriously that some of America's foreign policy, going back before Bush, even before Clinton, Bush, Reagan, or even Carter, makes people very angery. I think that is just what happens when your country is on top. When any action you take leaves a much deeper footprint on the world than does other countries any mistake America makes is amplified. Even mistakes other people make, but we don't stop, can make people resentful of America.
In saying that I'm not saying 9/11 was right, as Paul would say "By no means!" What I am saying is that we do need to understand that America is not all good, as I think you know rather well.
Further if Rev. Moss did take things in that direction perhaps he was doing it like some of the prophets from the Hebrew Scriptures, kind of a "I condemn Egypt, really horrible people you know! and Syria just Godaweful folk! And... Israel!"
Anyway I don't know about his views on America, I do know his sermon two nights ago reflected a mature, if impassioned, belief that through Jesus all things are possible. Or, to mimic one of Rev. Moss' riffs from Wednesday night, "geo-politics, I don't know nothing about that, but I do know I was blind, but now I see!"
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