12/31/2021 10:30pm | Watch Service | Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III

41:21 When you discover what does not belong, remove it from me and cast it into the sea of forgetfulness. As far as the east is from the west, that it may never return again. We are thankful and we are grateful for this moment together. We ask, O God, that you would anoint this moment. I know that I am not worthy to preach your word. I am simply a broken vessel. But I request that you would send grace and mercy to those angels, one to stand at the right and the other to stand at the left, that may breathe upon this word. that the words of my mouth and meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. O Lord, you are my strength, and without a doubt, you are certainly my redeemer. Holy Spirit, do thy will, do thy will, Holy Spirit, in the mighty, magnificent, awesome, majestic, powerful, and saving name of Jesus, who is the Christ, who we collectively pray, that the people of God who love God may say, Amen.

42:25 Amen, amen. I want to invite you at this moment to turn with me. If you have your Bible or you have your phone, even if you have your phone, that'll be fine. We're going to look at the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 5, chapter 5, on this watch service. The service where, historically, people of African descent gathered together, and they waited for that moment when the clock would strike 12 and the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect. And they would be technically free. That's an entire story right there. They would be technically free. And then there was another group of African Americans who were in Texas and Oklahoma. They didn't find out until June that they would be technically free. So this service is a tradition within our community where we remember our ancestors gathering not only in churches, but they would gather by the river and by trees and tree stumps.

43:35 And they were looking and waiting, when was it going to be 12? And we will be technically free. So we still practice this tradition today. We honor those who have gone before us, who recognize that there was something bigger than us, that there was a God. As our ancestors would say, it's so high, you can't get over him. So low, you can't get under him. So wide, you can't get around him. You might as well go to the front door. So we're going to look at chapter 5 in the Gospel according to Luke. I'm going to invite that you would move down to verse 17. Verse 17. And verse 17 reads this way from the New International Version and also from the OM3 translation. That's the Otis Moss III translation. I've had several inquiries to say I need to go ahead and just publish it.

44:31 Go ahead and publish the OM3 translation. But we want to begin this way, beginning with verse 17. It reads this way. One day, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. The power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick. Let me give you another translation. One day, he was teaching, that being Jesus. Pharisees and teachers of the law. Another way to put that is all the church folk and people who had some degrees had come from every village and town from all around the metropolitan area. And they were sitting there. The power of the Lord was present upon Jesus to heal the sick. Some brothers came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus.

45:35 when they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd right in front of Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith, someone say their faith, When Jesus saw their faith, said, friend, your sins are forgiven, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, who is this brother who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins? Only God can do that. Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, why are you thinking these things in your hearts?

46:35 Tell me this. I like the way Jesus does this stuff. He's so smooth. Tell me this. Which is easier? To say your sins are forgiven or to say get up and walk? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralyzed man, I tell you. OM3 translated. I tell you, brother, get up right now. Take your mat and go home. Immediately he stood up in front of him, took what he had been lying on, and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise and glory to God. They were filled with awe and stated, we have certainly seen something, something on this day.

47:43 May the Lord add a blessing to the reading and to the hearing of God's holy word. I'd like to place a tag upon this text, for it constitutes the context of which we attempt to preach. I want to revisit this text that we visited several years ago, and I want to revisit this idea that we visited years ago. I want to revisit it again, because I think it's appropriate in these moments and in this time that we are in. I want to deal with this idea of by any means necessary. by any means necessary. I would invite you to flank me with your prayers at this moment, and if you are near someone in your house, and for the 12 of us who are here, we would invite you to turn to your neighbor and say, neighbor, oh neighbor, by any means necessary.

48:48 Amen. Find the same neighbor because you don't have another neighbor to look to. Amen. Some of y'all just by yourselves, you know, amen. And just say, neighbor, oh neighbor, it's time to get free. By any means, God deems necessary. Amen. By any means necessary. I would submit to you this on this moment of this day of this evening, that one of the greatest cultural icons of the 20th century is arguably a person by the name of El-Haj Malik Shabazz, or more popularly known as Malcolm X. formerly Malcolm Little, was raised in a household where he heard and revered the teachings of a black Jamaican liberationist Christian by the name of Marcus Garvey.

49:56 He would later come under the teachings of a person who resided here in Chicago, known by the name of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm, I would say, was our prophet of black self-esteem, who unfortunately was assassinated in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York, in 1965. His words, indeed, still echo through the halls of history and still inspire thinkers, activists, and spiritual leaders to this day. Now some may be listening at this moment and are trying to figure out what is going on. Some may question why I would open a message by lifting up a Muslim icon. Hear me today.

50:54 You must hear this clearly that truth is not exclusively heard in a Christian vessel. If you believe that God is sovereign, meaning that God has the authority to move beyond human captivity, then God has the right to use Malcolm X or use a Nipsey Hussle, a poet or a writer, that he can even inspire someone by reminding them that all my life, I've been grinding all my life, hustling sacrifice to pay the price. God can use anybody God chooses in order to communicate an ideal to God's people. It's Malcolm X who spoke a truth that I believe that we must hold today. It was Malcolm Deacon who said this, We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, To be given the rights of a human being in a society on this earth in this day which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.

52:16 According to Malcolm, no one will determine the method by which we will get free. Our methodology will be determined by us. The status quo will never give you permission over your methodology and will try to police your theology and will also interrupt any type of affirmative psychology you may have in your spirit. The status quo always wants the marginalized to be orthodox according to how they frame orthodoxy. Reverend Mark, the status quo will always say you need to get approval from us in terms of what you are going to say, how you are going to do it, what you are going to write, and what you are going to preach. As a matter of fact, if there's any community that should know anything about the status quo saying that you need to get our permission, it should be those who have been a part of Trinity United Church of Christ.

53:25 In order to reach God, I say to you, to be in God's presence and bring people in close proximity to the Holy Spirit, we must be willing to connect with the holy by any means God deems necessary. It is the tragic nature of the human condition where we are always trying to box in God and tell God how God is supposed to function. According to people who live in limitations, they are comfortable with God being framed in ways that keeps God's hands within the finite human imagination. You see, God cannot be boxed in. We cannot limit God by language, and we cannot limit what God can do or where you may hear the soft and still voice of the holy. Our possibility is wrapped up in whether or not we will listen to God, especially in this time.

54:41 This is a moment in America where it seems that democracy is decaying, where civility is exiting from the public sphere, where pandemic is raging across the globe. And it is time in this moment where the people of God must not only listen to God, but we cannot be boxed into the methodology in which how and how God will operate. We just suspended in-person worship. Some people had the nerve to say the church is closed. I'm here to let you know the building you may not be able to enter, but the church is not closed. Because we do not operate out of the framework that the church is a building. No, the church is actually the people of God.

55:38 and wherever the people of God are and they choose to connect with the holy, you know you are in church. Where two or three are gathered in my name, the word says I am there also. But somebody's saying right now, I'm isolated, Reverend. I don't have two or three other people. You made a contradiction by making that statement. No, I didn't. Let me break it down. even if you're by yourself two or three are already gathered in your name because if you're by yourself I'm here to let you know three other people are still with you you've got God the Father you've got God the Son you've got God the Holy Spirit where two or three are gathered God Thank you.

56:30 But in this moment in history, today, right now, there are people who are boxed in by their limitations of how God can function. They believe that the only way that God can function is through the traditional means. But in the midst of this pandemic, God is showing us that if you learn to do things by any means I deem necessary, you will see the outflow and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Some of you are still missing me. You see, this building can only fit so many people. But the last time I checked since we were in the pandemic, when I said I wanted to find out how many people now attend online, they told me in the media department that based on the email list, there's over 50,000 people who show up for Trinity United Church of Christ.

57:34 Don't you know we can't fit them in here? But God says I can do anything I deem necessary. So we witness here that we are in this moment in history. And we also witness here in this text that Jesus has been going to and fro in and around the Sea of Galilee in Judea and in Jerusalem doing that healing. And as he has been healing, he has been attracting the attention of the orthodox status quo religious folk. They come and want to hear Jesus teach, and they want to ask some questions about his methodology. They want to make sure that his doctrine is correct, Jared, making sure that he is not erring from the tradition, because there are certain things that we do as religious people.

58:29 And so Jesus is teaching with Pharisees and church folk all around him. There's what I love about this text. It's one of my favorite texts because it has so much comedy in here, Deacon Miles. And the comedy here is that Jesus is teaching. And there are all of these religious people, but something happens that I love so much in this word right here. There is a paralytic, someone who has been paralyzed who wants to get to Jesus, but he does not have the ability to get to Jesus. But yet he gets to Jesus not on his own power, but he is positioned for possibility because he has some faithful friends around him. You still missed your shout right there.

59:24 There are moments when you won't have the strength to get to God. There are times when you don't have the power to move where you need to move. But you need to be around some people who can position you and who are faithful people. Because the brother couldn't do it, but he had to depend upon people who already knew that if we can just get you to Jesus, Jesus can change your situation. And I want to declare over your life that my prayer for 2022 for you right now is not for a new house, is not for a new car, but that you will have some faithful friends in your life. That you will have some people who will pick up the slack when you are weak, people who will lift you up when you are down, people who will call and pray with you. faithful friends who are not only your ride or die, but folks who will tell you the truth.

1:00:28 And so these faithful friends, they show up in the life of this gentleman right here, and they are ready to put him in position for new possibilities. They carry my man in to see Jesus. And that's what I love about these faithful friends, because they recognize that we want to get you in position. We want to put you in a position to succeed and for you to rise beyond where you are. If I may stop here at this moment and share with you something within our tradition since we are on this watch night evening that we want to talk about. Ah, yes, yes, yes, something from our tradition for those who know anything about HBCUs. It's a unique tradition, and historically black colleges and universities. But if you've never been to an HBCU, I've got to break some things down to you.

1:01:24 You see, at an HBCU, when you go to the game, you don't watch the game, you wait for halftime so that you can see what? The band. The battle of the bands. But when you go to an HBCU, you don't go to a graduation. You start out going to the graduation. but it will always end in a Pentecostal revival meeting. No matter where you go, there will always be the dean of academic affairs who will stand before everybody who has driven, I don't know how many hours to get to this event, and they will say, please hold your applause till the entire class of 2022 receives their degrees, and then we will applaud for the entire class for the great work that they've done. Please, you would ask that you would please respect this tradition. But they always forget, Big Mama shows up every year, and she has been praying for the last four years that her child would graduate, and she knows I put that child in a position of success.

1:02:27 I've been lifting him or her up, and I'm going to shout right now for what my God has done in my baby's life. And I don't know about you. You've got to give thanks for faithful people in your life who knew how to pray for you, pray with you, encourage you, and lift you up when you were down. So we see and we witness within this text, we witness this gentleman in this moment in this particular text, ah, that he has some faithful friends. His faithful friends are willing to place him in a position where he can be in a position of new possibility. Now, he is being carried in. He is being carried in on a mat. He's being carried in on a mat.

1:03:20 He's being carried in on a mat. Can I use the, can I have the watch box right there? Let me see. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So, he's being carried in on a mat. Imagine that this mat is a mat. It has four corners, which means the man is in the middle of the mat, and he has a friend holding each corner. You will notice that in order to carry the weight of their friend, each person has to be responsible, Reverend Mark, for their own corner. They can't be worried about the other corner. They just have the responsibility of holding down their corner. You can't be jealous that someone else has been given another corner. You just got to work the corner that you've been given.

1:04:18 And I'm here to let you know we need some good corner theology, that if we are going to change some things in our city and in our nation, you got to learn how to work your corner. Stop looking at what somebody else is doing and work the corner that you have been given. And we could see change in Chicago if every church would work its corner. If Trinity works its corner, St. Sabina does its corner. Oakdale does its corner. Progressive does its corner. Third Baptist does their corner. If the Lutherans do their corner, Baptists do their corner. The Kojic do their corner. If everybody works their corner, we can lift some broken people up and make sure they get to Jesus. Is there anybody in here? Are you willing to work your corner? God is saying you've got to work your corner.

1:05:16 So all of the corner conflict we got to put to rest because people are dying because we're arguing over the corner. God wants us to hold down the corner of the mat so that we can lift someone up and bring them to Jesus. And so I love these brothers. They're carrying their brother, Deacon Miles, because each one is holding down a corner. But here is the other thing that you've got to see. They're carrying the brother. Remember, it's a mat. It is a mat. He's in the center of this. It's a mat. You all can see that on the screen. It's a mat. He is carrying. Each one's carrying a corner. And so they're trying to get to Jesus, but the word says they can't get to Jesus. ah hold on you missed it again they're carrying the corner there is no adh compliancy so they can't get to jesus because some other folks say i'm in my seat therefore i'm not going to move because i want to be down front in my seat no you still missed it let me help you out The religious people, the script says, the Pharisees and all those with degrees were blocking the man from getting to Jesus.

1:06:48 And I'm here to let you know that sometimes church folk will be your biggest blessing blocker because they refuse to get out the way when you try to get to Jesus. We see that the man couldn't get to Jesus because they had people who were blocking him. But here's the thing. This is where this idea of by any means necessary comes. Because they were going through the tradition of the front door. Boom, that if you want to get to Jesus, you've got to go through the front door. That's the way to go. of course you want to go to somebody's house, you go to the front door, you know, in some houses, you say, better come to the side door. Some, you got to come to the back door, wherever. But here is something, that's why I like these brothers. I think they might have been from the west or south side of Jerusalem of the way that they function. Because when they can't get to the front door, because not all ministry is front door ministry, because not everybody connects with Jesus through the traditional way. Some people have to come to Jesus by any means necessary.

1:08:02 They've got to come a different way. And I love what these brothers do because they draw on an old prophet from the Old Testament. They go to an old prophet, a prophet by the name of George Clinton that says if you want to get to Jesus, sometimes you got to tear the roof off and you got to drop somebody right at the feet of Jesus. Maybe I'm talking to somebody here. You didn't come by the front door, the side door, in the window. You had to tear the roof off so you could get to Jesus. Sometimes you got to do what's necessary to get in the presence of God. they come through the George Clinton entrance. They tear the roof off.

1:08:56 That's what they do. They end up tearing the roof off as a result of that. They tear the roof off. And this unorthodox idea. In other words, I'm not going to come by orthodoxy. I'm not coming to Jesus the way you got there. You got there with him. I came there with hip-hop. you got there through a suit. I came with some jeans and a t-shirt. You came through the church. I came on the corner. You came through prayer meeting. I came through the 12 steps. However you get to Jesus, it does not matter as long as you get to Jesus. And I want to know, is there someone who can testify online or in here that you had to come a different way in order to get to your God, but you got there nonetheless. so and so and so they come at a different way they come in a different way and this is a standard anytime that people come in a different way in reference to how they get to jesus it was james cone who upset all of academia and he decided to write the black theology of liberation that you would get to jesus in a radically different way uh in a radically different way on so many levels. And there were so many things that happened as a result of it. Just as Howard Thurman, who is unorthodox, comes at Jesus a different way on so many different levels.

1:10:29 It's a beautiful and powerful thing when you come in a different way to Jesus. And that's what I love. They open up the roof and drop the man down. But wait, let me paint the picture. Now, they're bringing the man, bringing the man, bringing that man, and they can't get in. They climb up the steps, and they start removing some of the tiles and bricks, and they drop the man down. Now, when you paint the picture, when I began to think about this, I realized that when somebody wants to ignore you and ignore what's happening, You know, they're trying to get your seat. You act like you don't see them. Just like when you're at State Street and somebody is trying to get a dollar, you act like you don't see them.

1:11:23 You just stare straight ahead and they're up there. They're a bucket boy. They're looking in your car. You ignore them. You act as if, am I right? Am I right? You ignore them like they're not there. But here's what happens that made me shout when I saw this, when I looked in the text. They ignored the man and his friends when they came the traditional way. But when they came the non-traditional route, moving bricks, it forced everybody to look up. So when they ignored him on the lower level, they elevated him to a higher level. And those who ignored him had to look up at him. But wait a minute. It made me shout because they couldn't get to Jesus because of Pharisees and religious teachers. They drop him at the feet of Jesus.

1:12:16 So now he has a better seat than everybody else in the house. And now he's in front. In other words, the last shall be first. And the first. So now, so now, so now, he's at the feet of Jesus. But I'm telling y'all, this thing gets gooder and gooder. Yeah, I said gooder. It gets gooder and gooder. He's at the feet of Jesus. But here is the thing, that when I read it the first time, Reverend Murphy, I ran out my study. It says right here in the word when Jesus saw their faith. You missed it. It does not say his faith. It says when I saw who was carrying you that I'm going to bless you by the people you hang out with.

1:13:17 you missed it again, that sometimes your blessing is based on the proximity of who you hang out with. so they're blessed he's blessed he says i saw your faith because i saw your faith i'm about to hook your boy up because you love him so much that you want him to be in my presence so i'm going to bless your brother because you carried him. I don't know how far they carried him. I don't know if it was miles, eight miles, ten miles, or 500 feet. But they had to carry the weight of a grown man. They carried his weight and they knew that we can't carry you forever.

1:14:14 But if we can just get you in the presence of Jesus. God can do the rest. And I want to talk to somebody right now. You can only carry him, but so far. You can only carry her, but so far. At some point, you're going to have to put them down in the presence of Jesus and let God do some things that you can't do. You've been carrying your child too long, you got to put that child down and put that child in the presence, in the presence of Jesus. And so now man is in the presence of Jesus. He says, I'm about to hook you up, not because you, but because of who you hang out with. Because you got some faithful people who hold down their corner, know how to hold down the corners. And then he does something because he's about to heal them. Pharisees are rumbling, making their noise, and he's about to forgive some sins. The man is like, what are you talking about forgiving sins? The Pharisees and the religious teachers, they've been studying all their lives. They're not bad people, but they are orthodox, and they want everybody else to be orthodox. And they start rumbling, and they start thinking to themselves, and Jesus knows what they're thinking, and says, and I love how Jesus does it, said, please tell me, since y'all been studying so long, and you got all these doctorates, please tell me, is it easier to forgive sins, or is it easier to say, get up and walk?

1:15:56 Nobody answered. So Jesus said, well, I already forgave your sin. Now, I want you, man, I say to you, get up and take up your mat and walk. You miss the shout at that moment. Because Jesus does not say get up and walk. He says, take up your mat. Take what you've been upon. Take what has been the the idea and the symbol of your affliction, take it and begin to walk. And here's the thing, go on back home, but make sure you're carrying your mat because your mat is a symbol of where you used to be so that you can tell everybody, I used to be on this mat, begging people while I was on this mat, but I'm going to take up my affliction, and I'm going to carry it so that everybody can see what I've been through. Keep your past in perspective and your future in focus.

1:17:11 Take your failure and your hurt and your bed of affliction. This does not define you, but when you run into somebody and they say, why are you carrying that mat? Why do you have that coin from your meeting. You can tell them what you've been through. That I used to be on this mat all my life, but I met a man by the name of Jesus. And I want you to know if you meet the same man, he can change your life. You've got to pick up your mat and you've got to share your story. There are too many down-low Christians around here. Always want to keep quiet about what God has done in your life. But when you take up your mat and you begin to walk, you'll let everybody know without any shame how God has blessed your life.

1:18:12 I've got to get out of here. But several years ago, there was an artist by the name of 21 Savage. He had a song where he had a refrain where he talked about a lot. He said, how much money do you have in the song? He says, a lot. How many problems do you have? He says, a lot. How many people doubted you? He says, a lot. How many people hoped you flopped? He says, a lot. But I'm here to let you know 21 Savage doesn't understand like I understand what a lot really means. Because if I talk about another artist, the one who hung the morning stars in heaven, the one who set the earth on his axis, when I raise the question, how many times have you been blessed?

1:19:06 All I can say is a lot. How many times were you headed in the wrong direction, but he pulled you out? A lot. How many times has he picked you up and turned you around? A lot. How many times has he healed your spirit? A lot. How many times has he put you in the right frame of mind? A lot. A lot. Is there anyone here? Do you have a lot testimony? Is there anyone here? Has God blessed you? A lot. Has God healed you? A lot. Has God lifted you a lot? Has God moved in your life a lot? Somebody ought to open up their mouth and say a lot. A lot. A lot. A lot. A lot. A lot. My God has done a lot. When people doubted me, God blessed me a lot.

1:20:02 God is calling us in 2022 to move into this year by any means God deems necessary.

1:20:26 God is calling us in this season to be unorthodox Christians. to not think that it's only the front door. It's also the side, the back door, the window. Sometimes you got to tear the roof off. I'm here to let you know that there's not one way to connect with Jesus. It may have been one way for you, but it's going to be something different for someone else. But as I said earlier, I pray that God will give you some faithful friends who will hold down corners in your life. And when you are unable to move or pray, that you will have some prayer warriors in your life who will show you that we have a God who does a lot. the door of the church is open right now if you want to connect with Jesus by any means necessary we welcome you for those online for those of us who are here present in this space we welcome you to be a part of this community community we know as Trinity United Church of Christ we welcome you in this space we serve a God who does so much and we welcome you at this moment The door is open to you right now.

1:21:58 God is looking for you. God is waiting for you. This is an invitation right online. Our digital pastor is online right now. Just send your name, send your information. You can email. You can call and email. Let us know. We want you to be connected to this community. We welcome you right now. The door is open to you. The door is open to you. Right now, right now, God is calling you. On this New Year's Eve, we welcome you to be a part of God's family. By any means necessary, but you need to be in position for new possibility in 2022. You need some faithful friends who are going to hold down some corners. you need to recognize and see the power of what God is doing and how God is moving in a marvelous way.

1:23:00 The door is open to you. God is waiting for you right now. Right at this moment, God is looking for you. God is looking for you at this moment in time God is waiting for you God is looking for you we welcome you give God praise for you we give God praise for you amen amen you may be seated in the presence of the most high God God is waiting and looking for you at this moment Before we depart from this place,