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Biography
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"The People Who Could Fly" The story takes place in St. Johns Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, as Africans who had been mislabeled slaves are toiling in the hot sun. They are working so very hard to pick cotton. There is one young woman and beside her is her small boy, maybe six or seven. She’s working in the fields and she has such incredible dexterity that she is able to pick cotton with her right hand and caress the forehead of her child with the left. But eventually, exhausted by working so hard in the fields, she falls down from the weight and the pressure of being—in the words of Dubois—“problem and property.” Her boy attempts to wake her very quickly, knowing that if the slave drivers were to see her the punishment would be swift and hard. He tries to shake his mother, and as he’s trying to shake her, an old man comes over to him. An old man that the Africans called Preacher and Prophet, but the slave drivers called Old Devil. He looks up at the old man and says, “Is it time? Is it time?” The old man smiles and looks at the boy and says, “Yes!” And he bends down ands whispers into the ear of the woman who was now upon the ground and says these words: “Cooleebah! Cooleebah!” At that moment the woman gets up with such incredible dignity. She stands as a queen and looks down at her son, grasps his hand and begins to look toward heaven. All of a sudden they begin to fly. The slave drivers rush over to this area where she has stopped work and they see this act of human flight and are completely confused. They do not know what to do! And during their confusion, the old man rushes around to all the other Africans and begins to tell them, “Cooleebah! Cooleebah!” When they hear the word, they all begin to fly. Can you imagine? The dispossessed flying? Can you imagine the disempowered flying? Three fifths of a person flying? The diseased flying? The dislocated flying? They are all taking flight! And at that moment the slave drivers grab the old man and say, “Bring them back!” They beat him, and with blood coming down his cheek, he just smiles at them. They say to him, “Please bring them back!” And he says, “I can’t.” They say, “Why not?” He said, “Because the word is already in them and since the word is already in them, it cannot be taken from them.” The old man had a word from West Africa, cooleebah, a word that means God. It had been placed into the heart of these displaced Africans and now they had dignity and they were flying. Ah, is it not the job of the church and the preacher? No, we are not called to make people shout. No, we are not called to make people dance. No, we are not called to have our bank accounts fly. No, we are called to make sure that the people of God fly! Fly from breakdown to break through. Fly from hurt to healing. Fly from heartache to being mended to a whole person. We are called as a people to ensure that those who have been marginalized have a word in their spirit that allows them to fly. And the question is: are we a part of a church, are we a part of a ministry that causes people to fly? Isaiah says it: “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not get weary. They shall walk and not faint.” Yes, when the word of God is in us, we can fly. Conversation with Otis Moss Lydia Talbot: Welcome back, Otis. We’re soaring! That was terrific. Otis Moss: Thank you very much. Talbot: Well, you know, a very wise man spoke in parables a long time ago and the African folk tale is a beautiful, unique vehicle for expression of deep suffering. But the word was in you before you were born, I bet. Moss: Yes, indeed. Talbot: Tell about that. The son of, of course, your father. Moss: My father is also a pastor in Cleveland, Ohio at the Olivet Institutional Baptist Church. He’s been there 31 years. He is a product of the civil rights movement. Actually, I always say that Dr. King got my parents together because he married my parents, and actually was trying to hook my father up with somebody else at one point. So they were good friends. He worked very hard with SCLC and was part of the Atlanta sit-in movement. My parents met in the movement, and so literally the word was in them before it was in me. Daniel Pawlus: So you know what passion in faith is, don’t you, Otis? Moss: Absolutely. Pawlus: I mean, speak to that a little bit, about how important that is to connect with people with our faith, to really have that passion behind what you’re saying. Moss: It seems that everybody, I mean in our world, in our context today, everybody can have passion. The jazz musician has passion. The DJ has passion. But when it comes to church and we start talking about the Word and we talk about the power of God working in people’s lives, it all of a sudden seems that we have to move back into an enlightenment of rationalism. We can act with no passion. But within the African American tradition, passion has to be connected to your intellect. You can’t have one without the other. In the words of Charles Adams, one of my favorite preachers, he says, “When you think, which is intellectual, you automatically thank, which is passionate.” And so there has to be thinking and thanking connected. Talbot: You said everybody is passionate. But there are a lot of people who would say that you could ice skate down the aisles of most white churches in America. I mean, what’s been your experience? Moss: You know, what I have found is that in many of our churches, not only black but also white, we’ve been beholding to the enlightenment tradition. We lift up Hegel and Kant and other people and we say, ah, we must operate within this rationalistic idea and we displace passion. But you can’t have Brahms, you can’t have Chopin unless you have some type of passion. You can’t have John Coltrane unless you have some type of passion. And great art and great human cultural production comes from a passion that is given by the imagination that comes through God. Pawlus: Let’s talk about that with Trinity UCC right now, a church of great passion obviously. Moss: Absolutely. Pawlus: Tell us about the motto of the church. I found it fascinating when I read it on the web site. Moss: Unashamedly black, unapologetically Christian. Pawlus: What does that mean? Moss: It means that we are completely committed to our culture and to Christ, that we do not separate, to say that we are Christian over here and we are black over here. But God made us who we are and we celebrate what God made us and being African Americans. We’re Africans who’ve been displaced and who live in America. Talbot: At it’s beginning, Trinity United Church of Christ, which, of course, is the fastest growing church in the denomination, the United Church of Christ, had about 30 members, a long time ago. Now there are 8,000 members? Moss: 8,000 members. Yes. Talbot: So what do you do on Sundays and the middle of the week? Moss: Everything! Everything. We have seven different corporations. Corporations that deal with community development to education to health care to our credit union. All of these pieces working during the week to meet the needs of the community. We are a church that has the community as our heart. And we have a heart for the community. And so every single day it is a 24 hour, 7 day a week operation. I mean if there is someone even in need at 3:00 a.m., there is a way to connect with the ministry. And that’s one of the beautiful things, and especially through the vision of Dr. Jeremiah Wright who is the Senior Pastor. When we came in 1972, that he wanted to have a church, through the vision that was given to him by God, that would be committed to the community. Talbot: Now, you are one on the short list and near the top I suspect, probably at the top of the list of the top 20 young men to watch in terms of the future of the African American experience. Moss: That’s very kind. Well, I have no idea who made the list but that’s very nice of them to put me on the list. Talbot: I read that. Your leadership and vision are legion. Tell me a little bit about what your vision is for the future. Moss: Part of my ministry has connected in several ways as a result of the influence of parents, my mother and my father. It’s prophetic. I say prophetic out of the Keanian tradition of speaking truth to power and also an inter-generational ministry. Connecting with the hip hop generation, connecting with the unchurched generation, those who have been disenfranchised from the faith community. My work in Augusta, my work when I was a youth pastor in Denver has always connected with those who were disconnected from the church. There is a segment in our community that has been completely pushed aside by the faith community because what we do is demand that they change and operate like us instead of operating and say, wait a minute, what do we need to do to connect with you? I had an interesting experience. There was a young man I was talking to. I said something about amazing grace. He looked at me and he said, “Who’s she?” Meaning that he didn’t understand the language of the church. And that was really a signal to me that the language we use, the way that we dress, the songs that we sing that connect with particular cultural memory do not connect to this generation. And so I like to say that we need a kind of “ipod-esque” mentality. Meaning that an iPod is mobile versus the old school way of having a 45 or a 78 or 8-track or something where you bring the records to the party. We bring the music wherever the people are. And so that’s the kind of ministry that has to be developed. Pawlus: I want to ask you then, how specifically are you reaching out to the young people and connecting with them and seeing that growth of their faith with your ministry? Moss: Well, at Trinity we have two fantastic people who are working in the area of youth ministry on staff, that being Rev. Ramah Wright, who is the wife of Dr. Jeremiah Wright, and Rev. Michael Jacobs. There are several ministries under their particular purview. One is the rites of passage ministries for boys and for girls, which teaches young people who to be productive adults. I mean, how do you become a man? What does it mean to be a man when you are 10, 11 and 12 and you have all these images that are pressing against you. And then connects you with someone who is Christ centered and also celebrates their own culture, to pass down those values. And that’s what we’re really missing. Then, one of the great things that we do and I love is the youth week. Actually, that was my introduction into Trinity was through the youth revivals where it completely flips the script and it becomes a completely hip hop kind of service, where the kids are in control, where they are doing their own music, where they are creative. They’re using poetry, they’re using rap, they’re using dance and everything to connect with their generation. Talbot: Don’t leave out the drums. Moss: Oh, absolutely! Always the drums. I mean it’s a fantastic program. Talbot: My son’s a drummer so I can say that! Moss: OK! Alright! Pawlus: So you’re empowering them to express themselves in a truthful way about how they feel about their faith? Moss: Yes! Absolutely, because they will be the ones who will be able to connect with another generation. I recently did a message called “Theology of a Thug,” talking about Paul. I say he’s a thug. The reason being is because he was stoning people and that sounds thuggish to me. But Paul was an apostle to gentiles. There are certain people who are within the Jewish community who would not be able to do that. But God has a great love for thugs because thugs can reach other thugs. Children can reach other children. And so we have to recognize that it’s not always going to be the ministers and those who are wearing the collars and the wonderful robes and the beautiful language, that it may be someone that maybe does not speak standard English that can break something down to someone in a different way and they will connect to God in that way. Talbot: I must ask you, Otis, when Harold Washington won his stunning primary election in Chicago, he said on one of our programs he could not have won without the church, the black church in Chicago. You have many significant people at Trinity United Church of Christ including Barack Obama. Moss: Yes, indeed. Yes. Talbot: Got to talk about politics and the faith. What is your vision that guides you as you bring together justice issues, questions of reform, not only in Chicago but nationally? Moss: I think of the church, and specifically the pastor, as prophetic interpreter. Prophetic interpreter means that you stand as a prophetic witness and this is the beauty of Dr. King. He could speak with democratic language and it was undergirded by faith language at the same time. So he could speak and criticize the current administration and at the same time also demand that that administration connect with people in the South. But he could also criticize people that were on the right, people on the left. He never put himself in a position where he was beholden to any particular party. He always stood above as a prophetic interpreter. And I think that is the role of the church, that you should never be in the pocket of any politician. You should advise but never be in the pocket because when you’re in the pocket, then it takes away your prophetic power to criticize when someone’s wrong. Talbot: And to stay authentic. Moss: Yes. Talbot: You have to talk about your children, Makayla and Elijah, and, of course, your wonderful wife, Monica. Moss: Monica is now working at the Matteson public school system as an educational consultant. We have been married for 12 years. I met her September 17 in 1988 at 11:15 a.m. in Atlanta, Georgia. That is my baby. Talbot: She’s going to be very happy! Moss: She’s my best friend. It’s easy to preach about heaven when you’ve got an angel by your side! I love my wife so I give her a major shout out. Talbot: She graduated from Spelman. Moss: Spelman College. Spelman’s a great school, for all the Spelmanites out there. And we have two children. Elijah just started kindergarten and he gets up every morning at about 5:45 and says, “Is it time? Is it time?” So it like, not yet, you have a few hours, brother. And then Makayla who just never sleeps but wants to do everything that her brother does. She’s two and will be three in December. They are absolutely joys. I mean, it’s amazing having children because my parents now come and visit and they smile. They smile because it’s like, “Now you know what we went through! You kept us up. You would say play this, do this.” And it’s really, really a joyous thing. Talbot: Your parents must be so proud of you. Pawlus: I’m sure they are. Moss: Well, you’ve met my father as a guest. Talbot: I know. I know. I haven’t met your lovely mother though. What is her name? Moss: You have to meet mom. Edwina. Talbot: Edwina. Moss: Yes. Pawlus: I want to ask you, Otis, before we have to go. What is your take on the interfaith movement. You’ve got a unique perspective. You are a Baptist minister. Moss: Yes, I’m a Baptist minister. Pawlus: But your practicing now or preaching in the UCC church. How do you feel about what’s happened? We feel so happy on this program to have an ecumenical approach, interfaith approach. Moss: Absolutely. Pawlus: We’ve got about a minute left. What do you feel in your gut is happening out there on the landscape? Moss: I think that there is a strong move. I’m a big fan of Cornell West and Michael Lerner. Michael Lerner has written this great book called “The Left Hand of God,” talking about a spiritual crisis in America and the different traditions. Whether you’re talking denominations or whether you’re talking the Judeo-Christian tradition or even the Islamic tradition, that there are people that are attempting to bring meaning into the lives of people who are pretty much living market driven lives. It’s all about consumerism and people are looking for meaning. They’re looking for something deeper than just buying their next car and buying some brand new clothes. And so I think the interfaith movement is bringing that, but it’s also dealing with what I would call a very conservative movement that has been beholden to the political right in America, which is now saying that there is only one type of Christian and if you don’t operate and think the way I think, then therefore you’re going to hell. And I have an issue with that. Pawlus: Well, we’d love to talk to you more about that and thank you for being an inspiration. Moss: Thank you. I appreciate it very much |
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