"Say Amen!"
The Gospel of Matthew, in the sixth chapter beginning with the thirteenth verse, reads as follows: "And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one." In the King James version it ends this way: "For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen."

With all of our scientific advances, with all of our medical discoveries, one thing that humanity has not been able to do is to eradicate evil. In the text we see here—with the words, "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen."—is a doxology that answers the question: what do we do about evil? In this post-modern age we must learn how to engage evil, to deal with evil by dealing with it from the perspective of, "for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen."

Professor Frank Thomas, a professor here in Chicago, deals with this particular issue from a unique perspective. He tells a story by Elie Wiesel of what happens to a young man in a concentration camp. When he arrives there, he is about to give up. He sees an elder run toward the fence who is shot by the Nazis. He thinks to himself that he is going to do the same thing, when an elder grabs him by the shoulders and says, "Wait a minute! Don't do that."

The young man says, "Well, why shouldn't I?"

And the elder says, "You need to see how this thing is going to end."

So the writer tells the story that there were three types of people that were unable to make it out of the concentration camp and they have three different perspectives.

The first perspective is the one who is an optimist. They never make it out of the concentration camp. The optimist says, "We are going to be delivered on Hanukkah." Hanukkah comes and they are not delivered. So the optimist says, "We are going to be delivered in the Jewish New Year." The Jewish New Year comes and they are not delivered. So the optimist dies of a broken heart.

The other person who never makes it out of the concentration camp is the cynic. The cynic says, "We are never going to be delivered!" The cynic gives up before God actually shows. They say, "There is no God. Nothing is going to happen. We are going to stay in this concentration camp!" And so the cynic gives up, refusing to engage evil.

But there is one other type in the concentration camp and, according to the story that Frank Thomas tells, it is the realist. The realists share their faith in a different way. In the barracks of the concentration camp and they say, "Well, I don't know when we will be delivered, but I do know we serve a God who will deliver us." Or, in the words of the African American tradition, "He might not show up when you want him, but He is always right on time!"

That's the kind of perspective that we must have. A realist perspective. In the words of Cornell West, "We must have the courage to hope." We might not know when God is going to show up, but we do know that God will show up.

My father helped me understand this. How we deal with faith and how we engage evil became clear to me when I was a young man, and you may not believe this, but we were watching a film! I rented a movie called The Guns of Navarone, with Gregory Peck. I loved The Guns of Navarone and have seen it several times since then, but this was the first time we watched the movie. My father had not seen it, I had not seen it, and my mother had not seen it, so we were sitting in the family room watching Gregory Peck do his thing.

We came to the end of the film and it looked like Gregory was going to die. I looked over at my mother and she was nervous with the suspense of the film, pacing the floor. I was nervous, biting my nails. I knew Gregory was going die and it was getting near the end of the film. My father was just sitting there, cool, calm, collected. I couldn't understand it and I thought, "Mom is upset, I'm upset, and Dad is all cool, calm, and collected!"

The film continued and I knew Gregory was going to die. My mother said, "I can't take it anymore," and left the room. I was sitting there, nervous, wondering if Gregory was going to get out of this situation while my father just sat there, cool, calm and collected. Finally I had to raise a question to him. I said, "Pop, why is that Mom left the room (because she was not quite sure how this thing will end), and how is it that I'm so nervous (because of the suspense of the film), and here you are cool, calm, collected?" My father looked at me, smiled, and simply said this: "Son, I read the book! I know how this thing is going to end."

And so the question that comes to us if we are to engage and deal with evil is: Have you read the book? Well, I know a Book that says he'll never leave you nor forsake you. If God is for us, who can be against us? We need to keep these words in our spirit and in our hearts — "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen " — when we think about the evil of this world, when those twin towers fell in New York on 9/11. Remember that even though there is evil in this world, "for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen."

There may be some who are raising the question: why would you entitle this message, "Say Amen"? Well, in the African American tradition, there is a call and response where the preacher speaks and the congregation says, "Amen." If we were to look in the Hebraic tradition we know that "amen" means "so be it." God is going to do what God said God would do. So when we say "Amen," we are saying in our spirits that God will do what God said God will do.

When we face the Osama bin Ladens of the world, say Amen! When we are in the face of evil that has been created by men, say Amen! When we are dealing with children who are hungry because we have created structures that abandon them, say Amen! When we are dealing with a continent that has been devastated by AIDS, say Amen! We don't know when we will get out of the situation, we don't know when God will show up, but if we are able to say "Amen" we are saying that God will do what God said God will do. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Interview with Otis Moss, III
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: Otis, a commanding message on how to engage and confront evil in our world these days. I'm intrigued by the story you cited with Elie Wiesel, a story of those in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, and the three perspectives of those in the camps: the optimist, the cynic, and then you use the term realist. But where is faith in that? The realist survived but what about the component of faith?

Otis Moss: The realist is the person who recognizes that God is going to show up. They have faith in God, but they are not putting parameters on when God will show up so they have faith and hope.

Talbot: You said it was your father who helped you understand how to confront evil. You have a beautiful three-year-old son named Elijah. How are you helping Elijah do the same thing in the world in which we live?

Moss: By exposing him to a history of faith from his parents and from his grandparents. My father and mother directed evil in a unique way during the civil rights movement and were sharing those stories with him.

Talbot: And the evil of racism still rears it ugly head everywhere. Tell us, walk us through, how do you help Elijah understand that evil and be prepared to engage it?

Moss: Well, the first piece is letting him understand that he is a child of God, that he's a creation of God, and knowing that he need not be belittled by a system or individuals. The second piece is to expose him to a variety of people who love him because when you engage in love and with love, it doesn't allow room for evil to occupy a place in your heart.

Talbot: I can tell that you've had that experience. Your father, Otis Moss, marched alongside Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement. You are now pastor for six years at the Historic Tabernacle Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia. You really carrying on a distinguished and precious legacy. What does that mean to you?

Moss: It's a wonderful thing to be able to stand in the pulpit where Booker T. Washington spoke, where John D. Rockefeller spoke, where Charles Thomas Walker spoke, and to recognize, literally, that I'm standing on the shoulders of my ancestors, but also that the church was fertilized with the blood of people known and unknown.

Talbot: Charles Thomas Walker was a slave himself. Tell us about his pilgrimage.

Moss: He is a unique individual. Born a slave in Hephzibah, Georgia, he graduated from school at what was called the Augusta Institute, which moved to Atlanta and became the Atlanta Baptist Seminary. It then changed it's name and became Morehouse College, so he was an early graduate of Morehouse College. He was a contemporary of Booker T. Washington and loved Booker T. Washington's philosophy. The church was unfinished and they planned to put an automobile repair facility connected to the church to teach African American men how to repair cars. Now this was at the turn of the century and most African Americans did not have cars, let alone most Americans in general, but he believed that if you had a skill that you would always be able to provide for your family and also to build the community.

Talbot: I'm thinking of the title of your message, "Say Amen." What's it like when those words are said in your church at Tabernacle?

Moss: Amen is an affirmation. It says that we are with you, we hear what you're saying, we connect with what you're saying. Preaching is a dialogue in the African American community. It is not just the preacher that is communicating words, but it's also the congregation that participates. When you are on task, when you are right there, they will say "Amen," saying that "I'm with you, I understand, I connect with what you're saying." Now, if you're not on task, they will say, "Lord, help him!"

Talbot: When you cited "say Amen" in your litany of the evils we are confronted with in this world—war, oppression, violence, racism, hunger, homelessness, suffering in general—where's the action in that? I mean, to say Amen implies an affirmation that God will take care, but where is the action, where is the intentionality for the individual person of faith?

Moss: It's necessary for us to say Amen first in our spirits before we make the action, or simultaneously do it. When Dr. King was working during the civil rights movement there was a group of people who were saying Amen with him by standing beside him. So when we engage any structure, institution, or individual that is presenting something that is antithetical to God, we must bring that affirmation of faith to the table and then create the necessary structures or means by which we can develop our community so that we can get rid of those things that are destructive.

Talbot: So, "Say Amen," becomes a foundation for the structure or the strategy?

Moss: Oh yes. Absolutely!

Talbot: When you were seventeen years of age, you had an epiphany moment. You were a track star in high school and yet you had a revelatory moment in which you decided to answer the call to go into ministry. What was that?

Moss: I was on a track scholarship at Morehouse and I was planning to go to the Olympics. That was my focus. As I was finishing my workout, doing my warm-down, running around the track, it was very clear that a voice came to me and said, "You need to stop running in circles." I then called my girlfriend, Monica, who is now my wife, and I shared with her that I was being called to the ministry, but I don't want to be a minister. She then retorted back to me that we all knew that.

Talbot: So everyone expected that you would one day be where you are today?

Moss: Quite a few people did!

Talbot: Otis Moss III, our joy to have you on this program.

Moss: It's been a blessing. Thank you very much.