Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III | "Ministry Before a Lost Cause" 6PM 03/22/26

54:25 I also want to thank our soloist, John P. Key, for being with us today. Amen. Amen, amen, amen That's right That's right Brothers, will the Lord make a way Amen, amen. Let us prepare our hearts and our spirits as we go to the Lord at this moment. We thank you, Lord. We thank you.

55:24 Search us, O God, that know our hearts. Try us and see if there is any destructive way in us. When you discover that which does not belong, we ask that you would remove it from us and cast it into the sea of forgetfulness as far as the east is from the west, that it may never return again. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. Lord, you are my strength, and without a doubt, you are certainly my redeemer. Holy Spirit, do thy will, do thy will. Holy Spirit, we offer this prayer this day in the mighty, magnificent, blessed, healing, way maker name.

56:19 of Jesus, who is the Christ. And the people of God who love God may say, Amen, Amen, Amen. I want to invite everyone that we might take a look at the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter 37. You have your Bible. You can also look on in the screen. we invite you to take a look at Ezekiel chapter 37. you're reading from the new revised standard version and it reads as follows on this day that the lord has made 37 beginning with verse 1 the hand of the lord came upon me and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. He led me all around them. There were very many lying in the valley and they were very dry.

57:40 He said to me, mortal can these bones live. I answered, oh God, you know. Then he said to me, prophesy to these bones and say to them, oh dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you. And you shall live and you shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I had been commanded. And as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them, but there was no breath in them.

58:55 Then he said to me, prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath. Thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet. a vast multitude.

59:26 Then he said to me, Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, Our bones are dried up and our hope is lost. We are cut off completely. Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, I'm going to open your graves and bring you up from your graves. O my people, I will bring you back to the land of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves. O my people, I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil, and then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord. Another translation, just a few verses from the contemporary English version says, Some time later, I felt the Lord's power take control of me, and His Spirit carried me to a valley full of bones.

1:00:47 The Lord showed me around, and everywhere I looked, I saw bones, and they were dried out. He said, Ezekiel, son of man, can these bones come back to life? I replied, Lord God, only you can answer that. He then told me, dry bones, listen to what the Lord is saying. I, the Lord God, will put breath in you, and once again you will live. I will wrap you with muscles and skin and breathe life into you. Then you will know that I am the Lord. The Lord showed me all around, and everywhere I looked I saw bones. The Lord placed me in a valley full of bones.

1:01:48 Another translation, the Lord placed Ezekiel in a valley where nothing lived. The Lord placed Ezekiel in a valley of dry bones. The Lord gave Ezekiel a ministry around lost causes. May the Lord add a blessing to the reading and hearing of God's holy word. You may be seated in the presence of the Most High God. I want to, for the few moments that we have together, I want us to deal with this idea of ministry before a lost cause. Ministry before a lost cause. If you would be so kind as to turn to your neighbor, look at your neighbor, smile at your neighbor, just give your neighbor a nod, whatever it may be, give them the south side you know just just give them that just lift it there you go the acknowledgement and just say to them say neighbor oh neighbor Ezekiel was placed in a valley and called to preach to the bones find another neighbor Thank you.

1:03:13 and say, Neighbor, oh neighbor, sometimes God will give you an assignment to minister to a lost cause. Ministry to a lost cause. Beloved, I begin this way, sharing a story that was passed to me, and I pass it on to you on this day. We will just call this person John. And the story happened at a home going.

1:04:11 approached the lectern with the weight of grief clinging to his body, forcing his shoulders to slump. His soul was dragging across the room, and under one arm he had a small box, and in his other arm and in his hand he had some folded papers. He made his way to the pulpit area, placed the box underneath the pulpit, and then held with one hand to the pulpit as if it was supporting his weight, and if he let it go, he might die.

1:04:58 He then began to unfold the papers, and then as he exhaled and then inhaled and exhaled again, he began to speak. He said, I am the youngest child of Mother Zorah. All of my siblings have already spoken with eloquence about their recollections and love of our mother, who now rests with God. He went on to say that I feel it's important to not only tell my mother's story, but I must tell my own story. before my mother's story is connected to my story. I first must tell you this, that many of you do not know me, that I am the one who left home, but in actuality, I was put out of my home.

1:05:57 My addiction to the streets, plus bottles and white powder that I kept putting in my body, threatened my own life and threatened the lives of those in my family's home. He went on to say that I speak to you today as one who is sober, sober with the truth about my story. And many of you have not heard my name nor never seen my face. But my mother and father had to put me out of their home because I even used language that no one should use with someone they claim to love, especially with their mother or their father. I got into a physical altercation with my father before he passed, and my siblings, my mother and father, said, You got to go.

1:06:57 And I left because they said to me that if you loved the nothingness of the street and the comfort of the bottles and the powder you keep injecting, you cannot stay in this house. I left the house cursing. He went on to say, I went out and made a name for myself in the street. nothing bought or sold on this side of town was not sold without my knowledge. I created an empire. Even some of you know my street name, but not my actual name. And many of you never knew that I was Mother Zora's child. He said this, he said, As with all fools who dance with ignorance and arrogance, pride always precedes the fall.

1:08:00 I was arrested, convicted, and still I had no remorse because I still ran my empire from a small cell five hours from this city. He went on to say these words that shook everyone at the funeral. I was a terrible, awful, cruel, and an indifferent son. I renounced my belief in God and my connection to my family, my inheritance, all for a shallow taste of power. I was a lost cause. When I learned from my siblings that my mother never gave up on me, As a matter of fact, when they had Sunday dinners for years, my mother would say, that seat is left for my youngest child. Don't sit there.

1:08:54 And she would place a plate and a seat always for me, but I never sat in the seat because I was in the street making a name for myself with shallow power. As many of you know, my mother called my name in church day after day, praying for me. and many of you prayed for me day in and day out. My mother came to visit me every week when I was incarcerated, driving four and a half hours from this city. But my anger and my foolishness, dancing with ignorance and arrogance, refused to see her because I had built a shallow empire. I ran from my cell and did not need anyone because I thought I was the man. My mother sent me several letters every single week.

1:09:53 He went on to talk every week, but yet I did not open them. I returned them to Cinder. All of this changed when the abuse that I had placed against my own body came back to haunt me. That my body started to fail me. What I did not realize, the same time that my body started failing me, the body of my mother started failing her. And even though I was turning myself around in my small cell, that is roughly four and a half hours from this city, he went on to say, my mother could not speak with me, nor could I speak with her, because no longer could she speak. And no longer was she conscious.

1:10:49 And I would never have the opportunity to tell her I turned myself around. As he was talking, he then picked up the box he had placed under the lectern. He then opened the box and pulled out letter after letter. My siblings gave me this box that has all the letters that my mama wrote me. I started to read these letters, and I saw they were prayers after prayers, and also letters of stories of our family. There were quotes from Baldwin and from King and Malcolm X that she was always praying with me. And I did not have the opportunity to read any of these words until her death. I'm only here at this home going, he said, because I'm a son who is a lost cause. But please know, I got here because of my mama.

1:11:47 And let me tell you how. you notice that there were officers who escorted me in. The only reason I'm at this home going is because my mama worked on the campaign of the governor of this state. And told the governor, if I die, I want you to make sure my son makes it to my home going. She even gave me a gift in her death. I stand before you today, a son who was a lost cause. And as I came in today, I was given the final letter that my mother wrote me before she was unable to speak. And all she said was this, Baby, I have loved you before you were born. And I have prayed for you since the moment you drew breath.

1:12:44 You were loved by me and by your father. you did not recognize nor understand the love you had and have and had. But I declare, God told me as clear as this letter is, I'm writing to you this day, that you would rise from the valley you are in, be restored and return home to where you belong. Be at peace, my son. New doors are opening for you and around you. After reading those words, he said this and everyone wept in church. He looked down at the casket of his mother and said, good night mama. Thank you for ministering to a lost cause named John. Your prayers were answered. God made me anew. I will be in a cell a good portion of my life, but I'm a new man now because of you. He walked from the pulpit, was escorted back to his seat by two deputies from the Department of Corrections. He was a lost cause, once only dry bones, a man who lived most of his life in the valley. But still, in the very end of a woman's life, something happened. A mother spent the majority of her life in ministry to what everyone assumed was a lost cause. Let your boy go. Nothing is going to happen. Statistically, based on demographics, research patterns, that there is no possibility of hope, just a lost cause. It takes a special kind of calling to accept the assignment to minister to before what others claim is lost and cannot be resurrected.

1:14:43 This is why the prophet named Ezekiel is such a peculiar and interesting character in the Bible canon. It is Ezekiel, we know, is the one who ministers to a lost cause. Ezekiel was called to minister under a national crisis, what we call the exile period in Israel. The people of Israel were marched from their home of what was called Jerusalem into the land of Babylon. This is where they went to the river by the rivers of Babylon there they wept can you imagine you are playing with your best friend and then all of a sudden soldiers begin to march you to a land that you have never been and hear languages you don't know anything about they were now brought to another land. Another land known as Babylon, a 900 mile march on foot. They were taken from Jerusalem all the way to Babylon, from Israel to Jerusalem. And if that was not bad enough, Babylon was under the leadership of a problematic leader. Babylon was under the leadership of a small-minded, insecure, narcissistic, arrogant, ignorant, foolish, petty, vain, egotistical, corrupt, nefarious, shady, venal, unscrupulous, unethical, unprofessional, empty, broken, leader named.

1:16:38 Nepukadnessa. people were marched the trail of tears 900 miles and Ezekiel witnessed the people adopt new values that they were people of faith but now they were adopting a nationalistic faith a nationalistic faith that no longer called on the God of Abraham Jacob and Isaac they were not calling on the name of Jehovah and Yahweh, but they were lifting up a new name. Tumaz was the name, the God of agriculture, the God of prosperity, the God of money and material, that if you follow this God, everything will be all right in your household. Ezekiel was called by God to minister to these people.

1:17:44 In the 37th chapter in this mystical prophet we know as Ezekiel, he is snatched from the physical world and placed within the spiritual world, and God places him in a valley. It says to Ezekiel, says, Zeke, I've got to tell you something. And that was his nickname. can these bones live i want you to look in the valley i want you to see the carcasses of your people i want you to see there's nothing but bones and if they stay longer they will become fossils can these bones live and ezekiel with his respect and admiration for god and the humility he says lord only you know and then he is given an assignment i'm not giving you an assignment like any other prophet. I'm giving you an assignment to preach to what other people say cannot be preached to. I'm giving you an assignment to minister to a lost cause.

1:19:03 Who wants to preach to some bones? Who wants to preach to a graveyard? Who wants to preach to the headstones? Who wants to preach to the coroner's office? Who wants to make that movement as the basis of their ministry? Ezekiel is given this calling to preach to a lost cause. There are some assignments where you will not be able to see the outcome of. there are some assignments you will question God about. There are some assignments and you will raise the question, why did you call me? And if you look at the assignment of everybody else, you will raise the question, why couldn't I get assigned there? But you got me in a valley preaching to bones?

1:20:01 This is a lost cause. Why would you do this, God? The duty of Ezekiel was to preach to a congregation of bones, to preach to a lost cause, to set your ministry in the valley. May I pass on something to you? It's simply this. sometimes God will not give you a mountaintop ministry.

1:20:42 Sometimes God will give you a valley assignment. And you have to accept your valley assignment. Even though you can't see the outcome, God has given you the assignment. And what I love about Ezekiel, there is no complaining from Ezekiel. Ezekiel does not say, I want a different assignment. He's not Jonah. He doesn't run from his assignment. He says, God, if you want me to preach to the lost cause in this valley, I got you. And in this moment that we find ourselves in as a people and as a nation, this is a valley moment that often seems like a lost cause. The American valley of a broken democracy, of predatory self-interest, according to Reinhold Niebuhr, immoral man and immoral society.

1:21:53 where it seems that everybody is out for themselves. And though in this moment, it is what philosophers call that because of the systems that are present, especially for people of African descent, we end up with a philosophy of Afro-pessimism. Afro-pessimism is that you've looked at the pain so long that you don't think that there's hope anymore, that you might as well stay where you are since the system will not change. In this American valley of a broken democracy, we find ourselves in because of predatory self-interest and we even operate with a sense of Afro-pessimism. But not only is there a valley in terms of this American democracy, I would submit to you that there is a valley, an ecclesiastical valley.

1:22:52 This ecclesiastical valley is a valley in reference to those who function out of a particular religious tradition where they are saying that they are now Christian nationalists, where they no longer can speak truth to power, where they will no longer speak about alleviating suffering. They want to be adjacent to those who so-called have power. I saw a picture the other day of the person who has, who is living in temporary public housing in Washington, D.C. And there were a bunch of preachers praying over him after he had already called for a war in Iran.

1:23:42 168 children were killed by an American Tomahawk missile. But there were a bunch of preachers laying hands on him. I have a problem with that. Just to be adjacent to power. You shouldn't be excited about being adjacent to power. You've got to learn how to speak truth to power. You've got to be an Ezekiel, an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, an Amos. That is the tradition that is willing to say, I know you're in power, but you are operating in an unethical and immoral way. And thus says the Lord. We have come to a point in this moment where an ecclesiastical valley has happened, where those who operate out of certain religious traditions, where they are being used by the empire in order to continue on the empire's ideas and ideology.

1:24:47 But not only that with this ecclesiastical valley, the silence of people of faith is deafening. we just want to pray but do no work I recently heard a person of faith say that it's not any of my business what ICE is doing. ICE isn't coming after me. They're going after them. My response was this. If they come after Jesus today, they're coming after Keisha tomorrow. There must be solidarity in the recognition that when people are suffering, that we all suffer because we are interconnected. But we live in an ecclesiastical valley, an American valley of broken democracy and a human valley of brokenness. That as human beings, we have been struggling, making the wrong choices.

1:25:51 In the words of John Steinbeck, that's why we got thrown into east of Eden. That we were pushed out of the garden because we chose our own predatory self-interest. Human valleys, ecclesiastical valleys, American valleys. And Ezekiel is called to preach in this moment to a valley among his people. It seems as if they are dead. God says, can these bones live? And Ezekiel responds, oh God, only you know. And God gives instructions and the assignment. And I'm about done right now to share what the instruction and the assignment is. two simple things that Ezekiel is simply called to do.

1:26:50 The first thing that Ezekiel is called to do is simply, God says, preach to the bones. Preach to what is dead. Preach to what nobody else wants to preach to. Preach to the bones. Make sure your ministry is not just spiritual and otherworldly. make sure it's grounded in the physical and the tangible reality you can pray but you better do some work with the bones you better do some work with the hurting and do some work with the dead and the pain and the infirm you've got to do some work praying for people is necessary but loving people is mandatory. It must be physical and material. Preach to the bones. Have a ministry to the bones. Make sure they can feel the presence of God. Preach to the bones. We are on 95th Street, 400 West, 95th Street, Trinity United Church of Christ. And on this 95th Street, when I drive down the street, I'm praying and it just, it gets me because I've talked to our elders and they told me what 95th Street used to look like. It bothers me. It bothers me because I see bones when I'm driving down the street. I see empty businesses and vacant lots that were not vacant at one time. And now venture capitalists are trying to come into our neighborhood and buy up these empty homes and buy up these lots so that they can make some money and charge exorbitant prices because they see some of the development going on. But I'm here to let you know what one of the reasons, one of the reasons in which we do what we are doing on 95th Street, whether it is Imani Village or the Carter G. Woodson Library, we're not doing this work so that more people show

1:28:56 up at church. We're not building housing so we fill up the pews. We're not building senior housing so more people show up and give their tithes and offerings. We do it because God calls us to do it. We do it because it's the right thing to do. We do it because we want to see our community flourish and thrive. It's not about membership. It's about developing our community because God called us to preach to the bones. And that we are called to meet the needs of those in our community. The church must be a positive force in the community. There was a brother I ran into a couple of years ago.

1:29:51 He told me this straight up. He said, I live right over here, Lord and Holmes. I want you to know I ain't never coming to your church. And then he said this, but you my pastor. to create the kind of space where even if people will not show up through the doors, we are called to make sure this community thrives and grows and develops. It is not about who is a member of Trinity. We are a member of a village that is bigger than Trinity United Church of Christ. We are called as a people to develop this community.

1:30:41 Preach to the bones. That is the first thing. But God says, Ezekiel, you are to do. But then there's the second thing. It's so simple. I'm sorry. May the road rise to meet you. I'm about done. God says after Ezekiel sees that the bones seem to have flesh on them they have the tendons and the bones are connected but there's no life in them they have their physical needs met but they don't have their spiritual needs met so God says now you're done doing the bone work now i need you to preach to the breath you missed your shout right there so as i was doing some exegetical work i found out that do you not know that the word spirit in hebrew is a ruah ruah means breath or wind the only way something can live it's got to have breath in it If there's no breath in it, there's no life.

1:32:05 It may look good on the outside, but it has no life in it. There are a whole lot of churches that look good, but ain't got no breath in it. Breath, ruah, spirit, that brings life. and Ezekiel is told preach to the breath four winds come and the wind the breath shows up and I can imagine in my sanctified imagination that when the spirit shows up after the bones have come together the spirit inhabits the body you missed it once the physical is met that's not enough for a transformation you need a spiritual connected with the physical otherwise you may look good but you'll just be a zombie walking around but when the spirit is in the body then something happens to the body because the spirit is in you the bones begin to live because the breath of God invades them and gives them life. You missed your shout.

1:33:28 Many of us in this space, you have had all the necessary material things met, but you were still not satisfied. You were missing something, but something one day happened in your life where you started to inhale and you started to exhale. You inhaled God's power and exhaled the negativity of the enemy. You inhaled God's strength and exhaled all the negativity coming from the enemy. And when you inhale what God has given you, you will move from your valley to another mountain. Preach to the breath. Well, I gotta go. But can I tell you one more thing? Truth be told, many are gathered here in this space. You were a lost cause. But thanks be to God that there was somebody Thank you.