The Rev. Otis Moss III delivers his sermon “The Blue Note Gospel” Sunday in the Amphitheater.
The Rev. Otis Moss III, although he was not in Chicago, asked the congregation in the Chautauqua Amphitheater to turn to their neighbors and say, “Neighbor, we are included.” And the congregation did.
Moss preached at the 9:15 a.m. Tuesday morning worship service in the Amphitheater. His sermon title was “An Open Letter to an Unloving Church,” and the scripture reading was Isaiah 56: 1-8.
“There are two patriarchs and one matriarch who epitomize the brilliance and resilience of the Black community,” he said. “The first is Bayard Rustin, a colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who oversaw the planning and implementation of the March on Washington in 1963. And if anyone has the desire to write with the power of the word and preaching, look at James Baldwin. If you have seen ‘Black Panther,’ you have seen the work of the genius of Afrofuturism, Black science fiction of Octavia Butler.”
He continued, “They are all Black and they are all queer, people who do not fit in a category, people of a different identity.”
Moss said that his heart has been broken by the “so-called church in its attitude toward anyone different.”
He experienced the practice of bad theology and loud preaching, of unquestioned tradition dressed in unfeeling theological language for the first time up-close when he was a young pastor in Augusta, Georgia, the home of James Brown.
There was a man who was dying, as Moss said: “He pitched his tent close to the Jordan and was ready to make the transition. He was a good man, a good brother and he was queer. Notice I said ‘and,’ and not ‘but.’ ”
Moss was not prepared to witness a man he knew as very athletic and weighing 220 pounds lying in a hospital bed and weighing less than 150 pounds. His father and mother were there and his father was a deacon in another church.
The father was whispering in his son’s ear to repent or he would not get into heaven. The father was trying to get the son to repent, but did not offer any love. Moss told the parents he was there to pray with and for their son. They left the room and Moss prayed with him.
“I prayed and then in a raspy voice, he said to me, ‘Now let me pray for you and Monica (Moss’ wife),’ ” Moss said. “Then with all his strength, he started to sing ‘Total Praise,’ and lifted his hands. I teared up. I prayed for his mother and father who kept an idea of love (that excluded their son.)”
Moss told the congregation, “This is a letter to an unloving church that wants to exclude God’s child, a church that says ‘I love you, but. I love you, however.’ Dear God, be gentle with us who harm our family with suspect theology and hermeneutics.”
The prophet Isaiah preached to the people of Israel that they needed to maintain justice. There were some who had issues with foreigners, with immigrants. Moss said, “There was a new ‘in crowd’ and it had to have an out crowd. But God said, ‘My house is a house of prayer for all people.’ ”
The people of Israel also had problems with eunuchs, who didn’t fit into any categories. But God said they were welcome in the house of prayer, as well.
“Why did Isaiah have to say this?” Moss asked the congregation. “Because in pre-exilic times these people could not enter the place of worship. In post-exile times, so many had married different people (from different tribes and lands) and needed to be welcomed in.”
He continued, “Fundamentalism works against inclusion. Someone says, ‘I read the word of God,’ as if Jesus spoke English. Originalists and fundamentalists come from the same community.”
Moss said he has issues with originalists and fundamentalists. “They come from the same community. Those on the Supreme Court say they read the Constitution looking for the ‘original intent.’ If they are looking at original intent, then I am not included. This is a living document, as is scripture. We must engage and wrestle with scripture. Why is it we exclude, but God always includes? Most of us are exclusionary.”
Most Black Christians were raised in an evangelical framework that valued abolition. Moss said there was a shift during the Civil Rights Movement, a feeling of encroachment (by white people). Those against civil rights did not feel God was speaking, and that others could not have the same rights.
Moss suggested that the congregation read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18-19. Abraham has pleaded with God not to destroy the city and God sent angels to visit the city and visited Lot’s house.
“When these ‘different’ people showed up, the people came and wanted to ‘know them,’ ” Moss said. “Lot said they could ‘know’ his daughters — and I have a problem with that, but it is a whole other question for another sermon. It was an issue of hospitality; the townspeople broke the code. Anyone might be an angel.”
Ezekiel said that the nation of Israel was destroyed because the community was not helping the poor, not doing justice. “Sodom and Gomorrah imploded because they did not keep the hospitality code, but the fundamentalists flipped it and made it about people being different,” Moss said.
Moss said he had a conversation with someone who said he lived out the Levitical law code. Moss reminded him that he was eating shrimp at that moment. The man said, “I am covered by Jesus’ blood.” Moss quoted the Rev. Marvin McMickle, that many people can make a shift away from their former understanding of scripture, but they hold on to one particular scripture that is no longer forbidden.
“We are selectively prejudiced and not being Biblical,” Moss said. “The root of Jewish tradition is being a child of God, recognizing the God in you which was Christ’s foundation. Different doesn’t mean deficient and it is not our place to put our fear on their spirit. We need to be Christ centered and see with the lens of Christ and not the eyes of Paul.”
He told the congregation, “We are all equal under the cross. Forgive us, God, because we don’t know what we are doing, and I am talking to us all. I am glad God included us all, whether or not we love each other. Rustin was a Quaker, Baldwin was a Baptist, Butler was a Methodist. Alvin Ailey was a dancer and Barbara Jordan was a congresswoman.”
God includes the stranger and the outcast, the young and the old, those with dementia and those with HIV. “God includes the privileged and the poor, the single, the married or those who are married who want to be single. God includes those with ADD, ADHD, Ph.D. or no D. It is all good news. You are included, we are included. I am glad we are included. I am included, you are included, we are included,” he said.
As he kept repeating the last phrases, the congregation applauded and gave him a standing ovation.
Melissa Spas, vice president for religion at Chautauqua, presided. Stephanie Dawson, a year-round Chautauqua resident and the resident teaching artist, read the scripture. Owen Reyda, 2024 organ scholar, played “Andante,” from Sonata No. 1 by Joseph Rheinberger for the prelude on the Massey Memorial Organ. The Motet Choir sang “Rise, O church, Like Christ arisen,” by David Cherwien and Susan Palo Cherwien. The choir was accompanied by Reyda on the Massey Organ and sang under the direction of Joshua Stafford, director of sacred music and the Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist. For the postlude Stafford played “Andante maestoso,” by C. V. Stanford on the Massey Organ. Support for this week’s chaplaincy and services is provided by the Gladys R. Brasted and Adair Brasted Gould Memorial Chaplaincy and the Daney-Holden Chaplaincy Fund.
