One of the few times I’ve been genuinely starstruck was meeting Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III of Trinity United Church of Christ (UCC) in Chicago. I had gone to Trinity with a group from Open Table, a UCC congregation in Ottawa, and got the opportunity to meet Rev. Moss briefly after the Sunday evening service.
I didn’t expect to be starstruck. I’d seen Rev. Moss preach before, and I was aware of his being a kind of theological rock star, but I didn’t think it was any big deal. I figured I’d just say hello and shake his hand and be on my way. As he approached though, I found myself a bit overwhelmed. We were introduced and spoke briefly — I told him about seeing him and the Trinity choir at the Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina — and we shook hands and embraced. Afterwards I stood there awestruck at the experience, despite it having gone more or less as I’d expected. He simply has a presence, an extraordinary sort of charisma that’s difficult to describe in the abstract but impossible to miss in person.
Surprisingly, one of the revelations I had that night came while listening to that evening’s guest preacher at Trinity, Rev. Dr. JC Howard from St. Ruth Missionary Baptist Church in Dania Beach, Florida. I realized the Black church is a tradition, part of the fabric of American life. Rev. Moss is one of the great luminaries of that tradition, but there are many Black preachers who are also scholars and community organizers. And standing behind them all you will find Black churches great and small, communities of people organized around the worship of God and the practice of neighborly love.
When we talk about exemplary persons, I think we sometimes confuse the fruit for the tree. We revere Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and celebrate his birth annually — and surely his life and work and worth celebrating. But he was just one preacher among many, all of them rooted in service to their communities. Rev. King’s gifts as a leader are undoubtable, but what made him great was the strength of the community he led.
On our visit to Trinity, the folks from Open Table learned about the staggering breadth of Trinity’s work. Besides weekly worship services and religious education, they organize concerts and sport tournaments, health programs and support groups, arts and crafts workshops, and even maintain a credit union within the church to help ensure access to fair and secure financial services.
This last may not be obvious, but is important: In a recent study Cornell University economists Vicki Bogan and Sarah Wolfolds show more than 30 million American households are either unbanked or underbanked (meaning they use alternative financial services, which often charge fees considerably higher than conventional banks). Black women have the highest incidence of being underbanked in the U.S. Expanding financial services in the Black community is therefore important to overall social stability in the U.S. Such is the work of community organizing.
Rev. Moss is a speaker of uncommon power and depth, a shining example in the storied American theological tradition. Small wonder he emerges from the Black church, a tradition that — even in the face of great adversity — always held on to hope for all Americans.
- Proud papa, loving life partner, and amateur ukelele composer, local economics professor Samuel Barbour muses on all things topical, within our community and abroad, affecting our daily lives. Questions and comments are fielded at newsroom@mywebtimes.com