Posted: February 12th, 2010 Ken Garfield

Two Charlotte houses of faith that long have stood for reconciliation will swap pastors this weekend.

At around 11:10 a.m. Saturday (February 13), Dr. Ricky A. Woods of First Baptist Church-West will preach at Sabbath worship at Temple Israel. The following morning, Rabbi Murray Ezring will share his heart with the congregation of Woods’ African American congregation at the 11 a.m. Sunday service.

In his 15th year at First Baptist-West on Oaklawn Avenue, Woods has led the 800-member congregation out of the sanctuary and into the community – and into a growing friendship with Temple Israel that has included sharing Hannukah and Kwanzaa services.

As part of a sermon exchange that’s challenging clergy and congregations to step out of its comfort zone, Woods will preach at Sabbath worship at Temple Israel on The Complications of Faith: In the same way that God tested Abraham by asking him to offer his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, God tests us in terms of the depth of our devotion to our faith.

Life, Woods will preach, is fraught with challenges, complications and risk.

“Holding nothing back,” he says, must be our response.

In his 16th year at Temple Israel, Rabbi Murray Ezring has done inspiring work leading the south Charlotte congregation of 750 families closer to neighbors of other faiths. The Conservative synagogue in Shalom Park has nurtured lasting relationships with Park Road Baptist, Myers Park and Providence United Methodist, St. Gabriel Catholic, Unitarian Church of Charlotte and the Masjid Ash-Shaheed Islamic community. Ezring has even given the very ecumenical pregame prayer over the PA system at the Carolina Panthers games.

Ezring's voice, though, rises with the fervor of a rabbi on a very special mission when he speaks of the connection his congregation has established with First Baptist Church-West: Jews and African Americans, sharing worship and fellowship today, sharing a heritage marked by slavery, the Holocaust and generations of pain. That’s why he is especially passionate about swapping pulpits with Woods.

“There has been a connection and a closeness between the African American religious experience in the United States and the ancient Jewish experience coming out of Egypt,” says Ezring, an Illinois native who has become one of Charlotte’s most visible and upbeat spiritual leaders. “We have to continually remind ourselves of the connection.”

African Americans, he says, frequently harken back in liturgy to the ancient Israeli experience of freedom from bondage. The Seders used at Passover, when Jews gather for a family meal and worship to mark freedom from slavery in Egypt, are rich with African American spirituals. Listen to "Let My People Go" – or, better yet, join in the plaintive singing – and affirm again the bond that brings Temple Israel and First Baptist-West to stand on common ground.

In a very real sense, these sermons are hymns, to be sung over and over, together.

Says Ezring: “It’s a very personal identification.”

Ken Garfield, former religion editor of The Observer, is director of communications at Myers Park United Methodist Church. He often writes on faith and values for Charlotte Magazine and other forums, and will be profiling clergy participating in the Xchange Sermons.

Click here for a schedule of the exchanges and for more information on the faith leaders who are participating.

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