6/6/2021 | Sermon Only | Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III

0:11 We've come to the moment in our worship experience where we move to the Word of God. But before we move to the Word of God, before we pray, I have to do a shout-out. Now, we don't do shout-outs, but if I did, I'd have to shout-out one of the smoothest people I know at Trinity United Church of Christ. As a matter of fact, when he walks through the doors of the church, there has to be a theme song. It has to be so fresh and so clean. I'm talking about none other than Shelby Grant. He's turning 93 years young. And we just want to say happy birthday to so fresh and clean, Mr. Shelby Grant. When I grow up, I want to be able to dress like Shelby Grant. I want a suit like Shelby Grant.

1:08 I want some shoes like Shelby Grant. I want a string of ties like Shelby Grant. Happy birthday, sir. We love you and we praise God for you. Let us prepare our hearts and our minds at this moment as we go to the Lord in prayer and then we open up the word of God. Let us bow our heads in prayer at this time.

1:36 Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and see if there is any destructive way in me. When you discover what does not belong in me, I ask, O God, that you would take it from me and cast it into the sea of forgetfulness as far as the east is from the west, that I may never return again. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord. You are my strength, and without a doubt, you are 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, we pray. The people of God, who love God, may say amen. I want to invite you, if you have your Bibles, or you're using your app or your phone, to turn with me to Acts chapter 7, beginning with verse 54.

2:39 Acts chapter 7, beginning with verse 54. So when you have it, you go ahead and say virtually amen so that we can begin our reading of this scripture. And so it'll be Acts chapter 7, beginning with verse 54. And so we're going to be looking at the message translation. And it reads as follows this way, beginning with verse 54. I'm going to give a little bit of translation also from the OM3 translation. It reads, At that point, they went wild, a rioting mob of catcalls and whistles and evicted. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, hardly noticed.

3:40 He only had eyes for God, whom he saw in all his glory with Jesus standing at his side. He said, oh, I see heaven standing at God's side, yelling and hissing. The mob drowned him out. Now in a full stampede, they dragged him out of town and pelted him with rocks. The ringleaders took off their coats and asked a young man named Saul to watch them. As the rocks rained down, Stephen prayed, Master Jesus, take my life. Then he knelt down, praying loud enough for everyone to hear, Master, don't blame them. As he died, Saul was right there congratulating the killers.

4:39 Hmm. I want us to focus on this day to deal with this simple idea of courageous commitment. Courageous commitment. And we're continuing in our series of the truth about the church. but I want to look at this idea of courageous commitment. There's something unique and powerful about history. I must tell you, I do not look at history as dates or distant stories of people long ago. But for me, our history, we find the sacred nature of God running in between the notes of our past. For example, one of the greatest people of our history, I believe, the brilliant, brave person by the name of Frederick Douglass, who is without a doubt the greatest articulator of prophetic faith. Now, many will lift up a Martin King, a Malcolm X, a Jarena Lee, a Prathia Hall, or a Gardner Taylor, and I believe all of them are shaped by God's hand.

5:52 But Douglas is a once-in-a-generation mind and talent who had to negotiate the evil of antebellum life and find the light and goodness of God somewhere in the brush. we can see in his life God working in between the notes. If I may offer another example of the sacred serendipitous action of the Spirit, I was privileged this week to speak in the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in commemoration of the Tulsa massacre, and had the opportunity to speak at the Vernon AME Church. Now, this is the only building, original building, that is still standing in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

6:52 All of the other buildings were completely wiped out, but it was the Vernon community that made the decision that we are going to rebuild two months after the massacre. And that building still stands today. I had this opportunity to witness what people in Tulsa called a mini Wakanda after this terrorist attack. And many people will always offer and talk about the massacre, which was the worst racial terror attack collectively in America upon a city. Upon a city. But we talk about the massacre, but people in Tulsa talk about the burning, but they also talk about the building. And that after the burning, that people were so deeply committed to their faith that they rebuilt, as best they could, the area that we now know as Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You see, you must understand that our history is sacred.

8:00 It is not simply a story of trauma and of horror. Our history is sacred, reflecting the nobility of a community and the power of God. When we look through the lens of our ancestors, we are strengthened by their courage and their commitment. In between the notes of history and through the lens of our ancestors, we witness God at work. So let's do this. Let's do this today. I want to teach this. Let's examine another ancestor. Yes, an ancestor. A man by the name of Stephen, who gives us a glimpse of God moving in between the notes of our spiritual history. Yes, he was courageous. And in the words of that brilliant and wonderful scholar by the name of Brene Brown, he was speaking his whole heart.

8:59 Stephen, a courageous man, recently a deacon and would be the first martyr of the Christian era. And I encourage you, I want you to go and read all of chapter 7 because it gives the sermon that Stephen is preaching to the people. This incredible sermon that even though people are angry with him, he has just been ordained as a deacon, as a servant within this developing community. and movement. He stands boldly before the people and begins to communicate the power of God, of what it means to serve God, and giving the history of the faith. He's literally preaching and practicing the gospel, which is a splendid and sublime idea that when you're possessed by this wondrous thing that is called the gospel.

9:57 This wondrous thing called the gospel when you are pushed forward by it. It is a colleague of mine by the name of Jared Alcantara, who is professor of preaching at Baylor University. He says that there's something unique about preaching, that when you are possessed by it and when you are authentically preaching, that one, that preaching always transforms. It means that it changes people's lives, that you are presenting something that is transformative. But not only is it transformative, but it also offends. Because just as St. Augustine states, that whenever you preach, you are always forcing humanity to look in the mirror and we see our brokenness in a term that we use known as sin. Sin not being solely an act, but the fact that we have rebelled against God, it transforms, it offends, but it's also hopeful.

10:56 Hopeful in that we are loved by God, that the God that we serve is no respecter of persons. In the words of Galatians, there is neither male nor female, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, that we are all one in Christ. It is ultimately hopeful, but also it is prophetic. And what does that mean, prophetic? It is the prophet's, the prophet's role, the prophet's job, the prophet's call, who was literally trying to give the moral compass to the nation of Israel. That every time you hear the prophet preach, the prophet is always calling the people to account, to say that this is how you are to live in order to protect those who are vulnerable. It transforms, it offends, it's hopeful, and it is prophetic. And Stephen had every category.

11:53 This criteria as a preacher, one captivated by an encounter, he is newly ordained and is attacked by people he thought should have been his supporters. He's unwavering in his commitment and his courage. And he gives us insight to our journey with Christ and speaks truth to power about this moment of when you are facing people who are attempting to silence your voice. He is courageous and he is committed. And these are virtues that we must cultivate. Hmm. It is the faithful who claim they know Christ where the speech is directed. Hmm. I love this, that we all need a word and we must be filled and reminded and reinvigorated by the word.

12:58 He, Stephen is preaching to people who, hmm, who really do, who are not outside of understanding this, but he's preaching to people who really should know the word. You see, many times we become distant and distracted by our spirituality and we need a word. And we witness here that in this, that Stephen is pointing to us and saying that those who are already committed to the faith are the ones who need to be reinvigorated by a word. Let me say it again, that all of us need a word. All of us need to hear the word, but especially for those of us who make the claim that we have connected to God, that we have already accepted Christ, we need to hear the word and study the word and hear it from someone who is going to speak uncompromisingly, unreferenced to the word, so that we can reconnect our hearts once again to God.

14:04 There is a word for you. Those of you in your spiritual slump, there is a word for you, so that you can recommit yourself to God. There is a word for you. For those who have strayed and you no longer feel that God hears your prayers and you're raising questions, where is God in the midst of your exhaustion? There is a word for you. That is why we gather together. That is why you have tuned in today. You want to hear a word. Stephen says that it's necessary not to preach the word solely to those who are outside of the community, but we need to hear it for those who are inside of the community. Stephen is speaking to those who are within the community, speaking to those who are within the faith tradition.

15:07 But Stephen is also not only speaking, preaching to those in the faith tradition, Stephen is also walking through the faith tradition, giving the history. Let me help you out here. You see, I realize more and more. Yes, I realize more and more that how little about our faith we know and even less about our own history. That we are susceptible to the winds and to the distractions of life. We know little about our faith and know almost nothing about our history. And so when you read chapter 7, you will notice that Stephen walks through the tradition and the history of the faith. He talks about what happens, what we call the Old Testament, and how God moved with that covenant with Abraham and walks us all the way up to the moment that we talk about as the gospel.

16:16 He's trying to let people know that there is a history that you must know. You cannot just say that I follow God and you are not willing to study and understand where God has already taken our ancestors and where God is moving us in the future. Let me break it down this way. We must learn our tradition. See, you must know that when you open up Genesis, that you are looking at creation. And in that moment of creation, it is speaking about causality. Let's get away from the fundamentalist framing of trying to parse every specific word and really get down to the meaning. It's speaking that there is creation and there is a creator because in order for there to be creation, there had to be some causality. and we are saying that that causality is God. And from that causality, the one who is the creator, he also gives everything a purpose.

17:13 And so that which has been created by God has purpose. And from that purpose, when we read scripture, we then understand that there is a covenant that God gives with God's people. And we are always in rebellion against that covenant that God has given. And then God sends prophets, prophets who specifically have the authority to shape our moral compass, to say that we have strayed and how we are to care for those who are vulnerable. Then we move to the good news, better known as the gospel, where we see Jesus as a divine manifestation in human form of God's love. When we begin to understand our tradition, we will begin to have a greater appreciation of how God moves. We begin to understand our tradition, the black church tradition, that it's a tradition where we believe that God has placed God's stamp upon all humanity. That is what is unique about our tradition because it says it explicitly in our practice that we believe God places God's stamp upon all of humanity. It is a tradition of resistance and liberation that literally we are all equal at the foot of the cross. It is interesting that there are those today that are always trying to create a hierarchy in reference to humanity. I am here, you are there, but let me help you out. When you stand at the foot of the cross, everyone is the same height.

18:52 When we stand at the foot of the cross, we are all the same. Stop trying to parcel out using an antiquated framing of hierarchy that is birthed out of a particular tradition that does not come out of the framing that the gospel and Christ is trying to present to us. We are all equal at the foot of the cross. That is what Stephen is preaching. He's preaching a history. He's preaching to people who think they don't need a preacher. He's preaching to people who think they know it all. And as a result, the people are angry. Ah, a riot starts and hissing and catcalls, and they say you must do something about him, because it is interesting that it is the religious people, the churchified people, who are angry by good preaching. All of those who had been so holy when they came into the temple, into the church, into this particular movement. It is now Stephen who is saying that you cannot claim any type of perfection. You must always hold on to humility. And as a result of this, the people are angry with him and are ready to take him out. That's why I love my man Stephen and his courageous commitment that even in the face of people who can't stand you, he will not shut up. It is not that he is saying it to hurt people. He is saying it to elevate them, to say that we have all fallen short, that God has called us to express God's love to every person you encounter. This is Stephen's role. Stephen, who has been ordained as a deacon,

21:04 It is his role to go to those widows, to the ones who have been marginalized, the ones who have been exploited and ensure that they are fed. This is his role. He is one who is committed to people that everyone else wants to forget. And now he has cleared his throat. He stands tall and he begins to communicate the gospel to people who don't want to hear it, but should want to hear it. Let me help you out again. People who don't want to hear it because they think they know it all. They want to be entertained. They do not want to be edified and educated. These people are angry at Stephen. And as they get angry, a mob gathers and they begin to attack Stephen and stone him. They take off their cloaks, their coats, and they hand them to a young man by the name of Saul.

22:11 Saul holds on to those cloaks and says to everyone, yes, yes, that's what you should do to Stephen. He is just nodding and just giving amens as the people are harming Stephen. What I love about Stephen, and this is the heart of his courageous commitment, where we see God working in between the notes of what is being played in this moment. Stephen looks up to heaven and Stephen begins to pray unto God. he says to Jesus go ahead and take me I've been your servant take me as they are stoning him but he does something that's so powerful he says don't hold it against them I'm praying for the people who are causing me pain I want you Lord to bless them see this is a level of spiritual maturity. I want to see my enemies grow out of their limited life. He doesn't want affliction, but he does want conviction. Stephen prays for those who cause him pain. And in the crowd is a man by the name of Saul. For those who do not know the tradition, it may not seem much that there's a gentleman by the name of Saul. But I've got to tell you, because Stephen was praying and Saul was present, Stephen's prayer was answered by God. Let me help you out. Because Saul was there breathing out threats, holding the coats and the cloaks of those hurting Stephen. But I believe in my sanctified imagination. This person by the name of Saul, as he's on the road to Damascus, hears the voice of Jesus raising the question, why are you persecuting me? He is literally knocked off his horse and blinded. And that person by the name of Saul has to change his name to Paul.

24:21 He becomes Paul the apostle. And I believe in my sanctified imagination in the back of Paul's mind was always that moment that he stood and did not speak up for Stephen. He stood with the crowd instead of speaking up for someone in need. And he now organizes his entire life to be one who will speak up for the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I'm here to let you know that sometimes the prayers you offer, you may not live out to see when those prayers are answered. You may be gone from this world, but God will answer those prayers. And there will be another generation that comes that will remember your sacrifice just as Paul did. And I believe that Paul always had in his memory that he was a party to this destruction and this harm of another individual and wanted to live his life in a different way. This is courageous commitment.

25:35 when you are willing to speak truth to power, when you are willing to preach to those who think they already know everything, but you can walk through the tradition, but you're willing to pray for those who cause you pain. It is counterintuitive to what we desire as human beings. It is counterintuitive because to pray for those who cause you pain does not sit right within our spirit. But I'm here to let you know we don't want to see continued affliction. We want to be alleviators of suffering. This is God's call. And we are called at this moment. We are called to be courageous in our commitment. And we are called to pray for those who cause us pain. And there may be a moment where that person is convicted, where they will carry out a new message, not one of destruction, but one of development.

26:42 And Paul is an example of that. And we give God thanks. God is always moving in and around and in between the notes of our history, whether it is from Frederick Douglass to a Tulsa massacre to the moment when Stephen speaks, and though he dies, he inspires a Paul to become an apostle.

27:15 Do not view the work of God from a limited lens. view God's work from a broader lens and see in between the notes that there is something sacred and serendipitous that is working that we cannot explain. If Stephen was never stoned, then Saul would never stand at that moment. If Saul never stood at that moment, then he would never see Stephen stoned. If he never witnessed the stoning of Stephen, he would never rest in the back of his mind that something morally dubious happened that he was a part of. And then he would never be able to hear the voice of Jesus knock him off that horse in Damascus. If you never heard the voice of Jesus, he would never move from Saul to Paul. If you never moved from Saul to Paul, then Paul would never become an apostle. If Paul never became an apostle, then Paul would never end up preaching and evangelizing churches in North Africa.