Ecclesia Princeton
Ecclesia Princeton
Michael Carrion- A Theology of Rejection
Rev. Carrion serves as Vice President of Church Planting and Leadership Development at Redeemer City to City in New York City and is the regional coach for church planting and development for the Evangelical Covenant Church. Rev. Michael Carrion, is the founding pastor, and now Bishop of The Promised Land Covenant Churches in the North and South Bronx, and the founding chairman and superintendent of the Bronx Academy of Promise K-8 Charter School. He also serves on the board of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition and is currently on the Mayor’s Faith Sector Advisory Council.
I have the honor of introducing our guest speaker for today, but a little bit of context is helpful. The year is 2018. Courtney and I have said yes, we're going to start to try to plant a church, which again as we've told the story over and over again means I have no idea what I'm doing and most of it is kind of you leave a stable job and situation and move into something that is highly unstable and highly uncertain and most of your lived reality then is defined by terror and, especially early on, I'm just like I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know if this is even a good idea. We have three kids at the time, now we have four and just that sense of like, oh, we're going to put our family in a really bad situation. This isn't wise. That kind of constant nagging sense of failure, of self-doubt and one of the first times that somebody else spoke against that in my life. Through the course of planting the church, my wife and I got connected to what is now our current denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church, which, again, if you've been through our membership courses, you've gotten a little bit of insight into what that family of believers is all about. If you don't know about them, you can just pull it up on your phone, covchurchorg and learn more about them. But that is our wider faith family that we are part of churchorg and learn more about them. But that is our wider faith family that we are part of.
Speaker 1:And the Covenant Church has a process through which they assess church planters, and so one of the first engagements we had with this body was Courtney and I went to an assessment in Minneapolis, minnesota, in the middle of March which is decidedly still winter in Minneapolis and traveled there to be assessed. And the whole process is basically a group of mentors and guides listening to your story, your plan, and trying to just discern if you, as the person and the couple that you are in your current state, are in a healthy place to try to undertake a ministry of planting a church, starting something from nothing. And they want to assess both your sort of physical, financial health but also your spiritual health, because they're trying to say, hey, the expression of the kingdom of Jesus that is a church should be a beautiful thing, but we all know that so many times leaders start out unhealthy and that toxicity tends to take root and a lot of people have been harmed by unhealthy churches, and so they're trying to forestall against that. And so we go to Minneapolis, we're in this assessment center. There's a bunch of church planners and people from all over the country that are being assessed and it really is this kind of almost like rapid fire job interview.
Speaker 1:And one of the people that introduced themselves that first day, and that I would get to know over the course of the next few days as an assessor, was our speaker for today, a man named Michael Carrion. And again, I'm filled with self-doubt, I'm filled with despair, as Michael told me. I was so nervous when I was speaking, more nervous than I am doing announcements right now and I still remember sitting across the table from Michael and he looked at me and he said Ian, you are called to do this. And it was one of the first people that had looked me in the eyes and said that, those words of confirmation, those words of affirmation to me, and so having Michael here is such a gift in so many ways.
Speaker 1:First of all, this gathering is an expression of that yes, that took place several years ago. The seed that was there is taking root and bearing fruit now, but also, too, just to remind us of the power of our words, the power of the affirmation that God holds in us when we're discerning, when we're looking in people's lives and speaking encouragement over them. And so what a joy it is to welcome Michael. I'm going to invite him forward and then I'm going to ask him a few questions, just so you can get a sense for who he is and where he's coming from. But, dr Michael Carrion, everyone.
Speaker 1:We've already done this somewhat once, so it's good to see you All right. So, Michael, you yourself were a church planter.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes and are.
Speaker 2:So where is your church? So this month we'll be planting our 15th church in our new charter school high school, and so we've planted 15 churches over the last 20 years, and once you're a planter, you're always a planter. We look at 10 spiritual gifts to plant churches preaching, teaching, theology, sound missiology, so on and so forth a grounded ecclesiology and how to do church. But you have a gift of architecture and building. So this is obviously something that God's built through you and your wife, Courtney, and so it looks like you've got the stock we knew back then, but it was good to see the fruit.
Speaker 1:It remains to be seen. Yeah, we'll see, you can see it. So you mentioned a charter school. All right, so what's that about?
Speaker 2:So my context is not well. I live in Jersey. Our ministries are in the South and North Bronx. I'm from the Bronx. I probably felt that stereotypical imagery with the black leather jacket, but I'm a Latino, I can't help it. I'm from the South Bronx and we like black leather jackets.
Speaker 1:Big Mets fan.
Speaker 2:right, that's right no no, no, heterodox, that's heresy. No, no, yankees. And so what was the question? Again, you got me with the Mets, charter schools, charter school, missy O'Day. Mission of God for us was how do we stop little black and brown kids from going to jail? And right across the street from our office, I was the executive director at Urban Youth Alliance, which is one of the two ministries that the late David Wilkinson started before he started Team Challenge. It was the Christian Urban Renewal Project and the mission of God for David was to get kids off the street, out of drugs and into the kingdom.
Speaker 2:And so, in following in that same DNA, we found this one basketball court off 149th and 3rd and it was where all the gangs were, all the drugs were, all the brokenness was, and we started to hang out there and just start to play basketball there and meet some of the kids. And then we started to find out their stories, meet their families, and then we started to go to court stories, meet their families, and then we started to go to court and adjudicate on their behalf. And basically adjudication ministry is we go to the court to tell the judge don't send Felipe to jail, send Felipe to our ministry and we'll help Felipe his family, we'll help him get reconnected, we'll help him get a job, we'll do workforce development, we'll get him a resume, we'll help him reunite. And as long as you stay with him, as long as we can stay with him, we'll watch him. We'll take full responsibility that he doesn't recidivate. Recidivate means goes back to jail. And so 89% of the kids that came to us and they were all gangbangers I mean these are some rough, broken kids, multiple diagnoses, illiterate in both their mother tongue from place of origin and English, and 89% of them didn't go back, and so we found that to be a ministry.
Speaker 2:So then one kid named Leo, he was a Latin king and this kid was tattooed like a comic book. I mean this kid was just and he says Pastor Mike, I'm tired of you sending me to these churches. And I said why? What's going on? Every time you send me to a church, they send me back. And it was true, we kept sending these gangbangers to these churches and the pastors would call me and say stop sending us these people. We're trying to have church. We're trying to have church. I'm going to let that settle. We're trying to have church. You don't even have to do the evangelism. I'm sending them to you, but they're sending them back. So Leo says you know, pastor Mike, you're my pastor. Why can't I stay here? And I said because we're not. We're a parachurch, we're not a church.
Speaker 2:That night I was so convicted, so convicted. I was at the dinner table with my wife, elizabeth, and I said man, you know, at the TIPO meeting this kid came and told me he says you know where is church? And then my wife was like making the beans. She said well, you know, mike, you know you're an idiot, you're slow, because obviously God is calling you to plant a church. And I said thanks for the affirmation. And I went back and I spoke to the board after praying and we're going to take a room, we're going to tithe that room on Fridays and shut down all nine ministries and just let that be a church for these kids. And see what happens. That room got so packed out we had to move to the foyer. That foyer got so packed out we had to move to another community center. That community center got so packed out we had to find a building and it was uncontrollable growth because these kids started telling their grandmothers and their parents.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you what's happening in the program that I'm in. And the program has a church, and so they were coming to program and church and then falling in love with Jesus because they're surrounded by their own types of brokenness and same sort of struggles. And so then they started to come in and we started to feed them. We had to start a food pantry because they needed food. Then we needed to have a job developer on site because they needed jobs. We would send them out to jobs. Then we started short-term occupational training, further educate them to get credentials, to then what Get ESL education, ged and then move on so that you don't stay in a context of poverty.
Speaker 2:So this holistic modality of evangelism started to happen. We didn't even know, we didn't try to do it. The Holy Spirit did it as we just responded and kept saying, yes, we'll help another family. Anyway, that's 20 plus years ago. That's 24 years ago. We planted 14 churches and the 15th is now with our charter school. So Missio Dei was let's start doing after school programs as part of the holistic outreach. Those after school programs turned into an invitation by the charter. Anybody ever hear of a man named Ray Bakke? Anybody Show of hands? Anybody? Seminarians. There's no seminarians in this. We're in Princeton and there's no seminarians here.
Speaker 1:Ray.
Speaker 2:Bakke's, like the father of missions, wrote a huge book City on the Hill. So Ray Bakke heard about me from CCDA I don't know how. He had a brother that was a billionaire called Dennis Bakke. And Dennis Bakke flew to New York to meet with me and said if you could start a school, how would you start the school? I said what he said if you could start a school, I want you to draw up a schematic, a white paper. Give me vision and then I'm going to fund it. And I said really. And he said yeah, and he gave me a million dollars and I started this whole thing called the Promise Project.
Speaker 2:That was a church, adjudicated youth and then a charter school, and then that was history. And then we just God, did a grand slam and I still walk into. We have today never let ministry be held back by money. We've never had two nickels to rub together to get a spark. But 25 years later we've got $60 million in buildings that are all educational facilities from pre-K all the way to high school. And I still can't explain it, other than I just kept saying yes to God and so planting churches, and now the 15th 15 church, which will probably be my last church because I'm no longer the senior pastor for many years now, but it'll be. This will be in the auditorium and about 500-seater and gymnasium. You know, I still walk in the building, I still start crying because I can't believe that God didn't come on. Yeah, god is merciful. To God. Be the glory To God.
Speaker 1:Be the glory, and the latter part of your career also has been spent with Dr Tim Keller oh absolutely so you're working in the South Bronx. You're working with Redeemer Planting churches through that as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I'm the vice president of church planting and movement leadership for Redeemer City to City. Some of you might have heard of Dr Timothy Keller. He was a Presbyterian, did lectures in Princeton, I think, a few times, and Westminster and was my boss up until he passed away two years ago and it's been just an awe. You know, we used to do these things called City Lab in New York where we would invite all the networks, church planting, denominations and so on, and I was like the no name opening act for Tim Keller and this guy was just an anomaly.
Speaker 2:If you read his books, if you listen to his old lectures, ai is scary for me. I'm a little older, I know I look young, but AI is scary. I just heard Tim's voice in Spanish. He didn't speak Spanish, but I heard his voice in Spanish audible book of his book Justice Works or something like that. I'm saying how do they do that? Oh my gosh, but AI is replicating now his work. If you haven't read a Tim Kelly book, please. Reasons for God the prodigal, god mercy, prayer preaching. He was a gift to the church. The church is lesser now that he's gone into glory, but we're still planting churches in the name of Tim Keller and Jesus. To God be the glory.
Speaker 1:I wanted to share a little bit of what Pastor Mike's been up to too, because I know we're in the midst of future pastors, yes and amen, but most of you aren't. But you can see how the thing that you are going towards. I know we're in the midst of future pastors, yes and amen, but most of you aren't. But you can see how the thing that you are going towards, that you are studying maybe, or even that you're doing right now, if you're in the midst of your career, you've long since passed those crossroads and you're saying, okay, how do I live out the kingdom of God? Michael is such a beautiful example of the way you mentioned holistic, the Padilla like mission integral.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:And so that's what we're trying to give you a vision for, because the work of the kingdom of God is not just talking about Jesus, it's living out His kingdom where we are, and so you're such an embodiment of that I'm going to pray over you and stop taking up your time, but we're so glad you're here today. Thanks, lord, for Pastor Mike, and thanks that you brought him here today to open the scriptures for us. God, would you give us ears that are open to hear God, hearts that are soft to what you're doing? And, lord, would you help us to see you, jesus, beautiful, high and lifted up. God, we pray these things in your name, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We pray Amen.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. Thank you, ian's speaking Spanish and everything Exciting Rene Padilla, misión Integral. So a lot of people don't know who Rene Padilla is but brilliant mind which influenced the Lawson gathering to reimagine what evangelism was through John Stott and just turned around and said that evangelism cannot be divorced from justice. And now this became a new modality of how the church would unpack evangelicalism out of that Lawson group or Lausanne group, however you pronounce it. But as you study liberationists and liberation theology, there'll be certain names that come up. That influence have influenced me as well.
Speaker 2:Tim Keller was a Presbyterian and he was not a liberationist. But Tim understood that the voice of God was not just from the Puritans between the 11th and 18th century. He understood right, come on, somebody say amen. The world would be in trouble if the only narrative that we had and how to do church was a Puritan narrative. We need other perspectives to exegete and to understand text culture, and part of the issue is that we do a great job at exegeting words but we don't exegete culture well, or we don't exegete history well, or we don't exegete systems well, and literally a lot of our theology, which tends to come out of Europe and is German, tends to be very much of a hermeneutic of nobility, and nobility cannot exegete or understand poverty and suffering. So there's a desensitization that happens. It's missing within our theology.
Speaker 2:If you really study our theology, how much of it lines up with the heart of Jesus? Look at Jesus and then look at the religious leaders of the first century Palestine. You always see Jesus. The question is, why does your master dine with those people? Well, because his theology informed him. He understood that the move of God, the heart of God, is always with the weaker, not the stronger. And when we seek power we actually get weaker. But when we humble ourselves in meekness to stand for those who cannot stand for themselves, walk with those who can't walk for themselves, talk for those who can't talk for themselves, we take the position of that was really Jesus' framework for us to take.
Speaker 2:And today we have such a problem with the church. This is where somebody should say amen, because the church is sick right now, and it's my hopes that Princeton will have. Princeton with other seminaries, other high theological institutions who have the task of raising the next generation of leaders and prophets for this world, for this generation, would get it and do something about it, like Ian just stated, Because you need more than historical, puritan theology to navigate through the globalized reality of the mission field. Today, Even if you're in a suburban, rural context, you've got to prepare for the global dilemma that's moving and migrating from the city into the rural community. It's not if it's when you face these issues. Urban issues have a way of migrating. They follow, they show up, they tend to through culture, through fad, through systems, through media, through internet, through TikTok, through Facebook, through Instagram, you name it. Whatever the new thing is, this is how not only good things but bad things travel. It used to be, if you wanted to see pornography, you would have to go to a public newsstand on the corner and then look around and see. Right Now, you don't even have to leave your room. The pornography just pops up on your screen. We're living in a very sensual age and because of that there's so much corruption.
Speaker 2:I was invited here to reflect on the Lenten era with, as Ian stated, we're in Lenten season, coming up to Easter Sunday, and that's not what the Lord put in my heart to talk to you about, and I think it does fall within the Lenten framework. But this is what God put in my heart for you, mark, chapter 12. And I told the group earlier, the first service. I'm reading from the real word of God, the ESV. Teasing the ESV is not the real word of God, it's translation. I'm joking, I'm jesting, mark, chapter 12. The Bible says this. And he began to speak to them in parables.
Speaker 2:I didn't go to Princeton, I went to Alliance Seminary and the Greek scholar there, dr Glenn Sherwood, adopted me. I don't know why, but he adopted me. He just looked at me and he liked my chubby face. Might know why, but he adopted me. He just looked at me and he liked my chubby face. Might've been because I was the only black Latino in the room. Everybody else was like a 15 year old Korean or they were. They were emerging leaders, but I was the biggest blackest thing in the room and I always sat in the back of the class. Why? Because I'm the biggest blackest thing in the room and I don't want to be seen and I'm going to have opened my mouth and I didn't want. I just want to get through this, but he would go Sixto. My first name is Sixto Sixto. What does the text mean when it says this and I'm going to come on, man, why you got to always do me like that. You know, pull me out, shout me out. You know, ask him. He looks like he got the answer. I don't know, but Glenn used to talk to us about Stein, and Stein is a brilliant theological theologian.
Speaker 2:Howard Stein and Howard Stein's work on New Testament theology says that every parable, all of the parabolos, are what Eschatological this is under thesis. All of the parables are eschatological. They point us to the final consummation. They point us to the work of Jesus at the cross, the redemption of the world through Jesus, and that there will one day be a final consummation. There will one day be a final day and on that day the sky will open up. We will hear a trumpet sound. You may not be a dispensationalist, you may have a different eschatology, but I'm here to tell you one day, king Jesus is coming back and he's coming back for his bride, who is the church, the Ecclesia, and the Ecclesia will hopefully be found in better condition than what she's in today, current day, because we are living in the most polarized moment in history.
Speaker 2:When it comes to the church, undoubtedly, there's a straight line separating us. Well, there's several lines separating us. It's not just a black and white narrative though some would think it's just a black and a white cultures that are dominating within Christendom. In the West there's a brown narrative, there's an Asian narrative, there's several narratives and expressions happening all at once, but the dominant conversation is the black and white one.
Speaker 2:Secondly, the insensitivity and the neutrality surrounding the atrocities and the things that are happening every day, and the church is silent on them. Silent on them. It's almost as if we've leaped back 70 years before MLK and the work of the civil rights movement. Come on, You've got to be. This church is sick today and it's a Christological dilemma. It is a Christological dilemma. It's not a theological in the sense that we don't have a framework to understand it. A theology explains to us, clarifies for us, reveals to us who God is, how God moves, how we should interact as creation. But Jesus is God. The gospel is a person, not just a narrative. Somebody say amen, amen, right. And when he's not at the throne, what happens? Somebody's going to be on the throne. And who's on the throne today? Who's on the throne? I know somebody who wants to be on the throne. I know somebody who wants us to call him king. I'm not going to do that because there's only one king and his name is Jesus. Stein says that the parabolos point to the escha and his name is Jesus. Stein says that the parabolos point to the escha, point to the final consummation.
Speaker 2:The Bible says he began to speak to them in parables. A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the wine press and built a tower and leased it to tenants and went into another country. And when the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took Verse 6. But he still had one other, a beloved son, and finally he sent him to them saying, thinking to himself, they will respect my son. But those tenants said to one another this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours. And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.
Speaker 2:Have you not read the scriptures? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. Jesus, in the last sentence is citing Psalm 118. And really, when you look at Psalm 118, what's being stated in verse 24 is that, and this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. How many of us have heard that song? This is the day, right, old school right. We need to come back to some of that old. That was a good theology in that song that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. This is the day that the Lord has made Right. Start getting open on that right.
Speaker 2:When we forget that every day is made by the Lord Jesus and we think that the days are within our control, our power and an entitlement to us, we are in trouble, church, when we no longer recognize his kingship, his providential identity, when we no longer see him as King Jesus but just Jesus. The Jesus that we see on Fox News and CNN is an alarming Jesus for me. It's not biblical Jesus, because that Jesus will say with one set I'm a Christian and I have Christian values, and then, in the same mouth, say we're gonna raid churches and we're gonna take all these people out of these churches and we're going to deport them. Now listen, I agree we need to have a comprehensive immigration plan that protects indigenous and the West, that those of us that live here that are Americans. We need to have something that protects. I agree with that, no argument with that. But there's got to be the dignity of the Imago Dei when considering what a legal, what a comprehensive immigration policy should be.
Speaker 2:Now, some people right now can smell the smoke in the air. You say, oh, he's political, he's one of those. Well, this is where you misunderstand it, because this is not a political, sociopolitical ideation dilemma. This is a theological crisis and it's more of a crisis because the church has been neutral or silent on it. Neutral or silent when we no longer speak truth to power, from humility and from a place of love and redemption, when we can no longer see the dignity of the margin space, of those that are impoverished, when we can no longer see, when we no longer care for children, when we no longer care for families. The issue is not them, the issue is the church. You don't have to say amen, but that's an amen point right there. That's where you say amen. And I'll say this to you we have a selective hermeneutic when it comes to Matthew 25. People take it and they over-spiritualize it. Let me help you with that.
Speaker 2:The sheep and the goats Eschatological imagery One will get in, one won't get in. It's not just eschatological in that imagery, because Jesus says to us when I was hungry, you, when I was naked, you, when I was sick, you Healed me. Y'all didn't read that part of the text. When I was a stranger, you, you think that's there just to point to the sheep and the goats. No, that is a how to love the other. He's giving us a descriptive manual, truncated, and check this out.
Speaker 2:Listen, this is the theological implication with when we get it wrong. If we have a disoriented view of the poor, of the imprisoned, of the foreigner, of the immigrant, of the margins, if we have a disoriented view of them, we have a disoriented view of Jesus himself, because he says when you've done it unto them, you've done it unto who? Me, listen to me, listen to me. You cannot divorce that. That's the teaching in the text, that's the metanarrative within the pericope Right when you've done it to them, you've done it to me. When you don't do it to them, you're not doing it to me. That's the text and we've got to reconcile. Something's got to be reconciled, something's got to be healed, something's got to be called out from within us, and I can tell you that it's a Christological dilemma.
Speaker 2:Somebody other than Jesus is on the throne of the church in America. The vineyard is Israel, the owner is God, the servants are the prophets and the son is Israel. The owner is God, the servants are the prophets and the son is Jesus. We see the good news in this parable. It's not just a nice story, it's not just a spiritual, it's not just an earthly story with a spiritual meaning or implication. It is the good news, revealed plainly, succinctly.
Speaker 2:And what are we doing? We're beating, beating up Jesus, killing him and kicking him out of his own vineyard, out of his own church. That's what we're doing when we're silent on the issues and the atrocities of systemic oppression. That's what happens when we're neutral and we're silent on the abuse of women. That's what happens when we're neutral and we're silent on the abuse of women. That's what happens when we disrespect women and say that you can't do this and you can't do that and you're not good enough for this and only a man can do this. That's not even biblical.
Speaker 2:Now I know that there's some complementarians that come out of a reformed theological perspective. I appreciate your perspective, but I have my own and I'm an egalitarian. So is everyone in the Evangelical Covenant Church In my denomination. A woman can get ordained to a word in sacrament just as equally as a man can. Matter of fact, it's proven in our denomination that the women pastors pastor better churches. Their churches have more financial well-roundedness. They stabilize sooner, they mobilize even sooner than that and in longevity they last.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that men don't have a place and that women are replacing us. I'm saying is that it was God's intent for Adam and Eve to move together in equality. And we see this when we look at Deborah in the Old Testament, the only female judge who was 100% judge over Israel. Somebody say amen, she wasn't half a judge, she didn't deal with just the feminine issues. She was a judge and they had a fallen line with her. And you know what happens.
Speaker 2:What always rocks and shocks me now that we're talking about this hot topic while I got the mic for the next 10 minutes how even women themselves can sometimes be so socially conditioned not to see themselves as a leader that they themselves will argue against egalitarianism. This is what shocks me when I hear about Latinos or people of other ethnic backgrounds voting for a person just on one issue versus the plethora of issues that are going on. And now I see people who are Latinos testifying on TikTok and Facebook and Instagram. I voted for him, but now I'm being deported Because you only had one issue you were looking at. Now both parties have fallen near Jesus. We didn't have a party to vote for and I'm not trying to get too political, but I want to say Christological dilemma Leadership.
Speaker 2:Where is the leadership? Where is the voice that would say this is wrong? Where is the voice in the dark that say we shall not kill our children? Where is the voice that will say we will not abuse our women? Where is the voice that will say we will not abuse our women? Where is the voice that would say we cannot do this to people who have come here, worked 30 years, paid taxes, contributed to society. Now we deport them without even so much as a conversation, and because somebody disagrees with us does not mean that we get to cancel them. Can you imagine if God would have canceled you? Let's park here On my worst day while we were.
Speaker 2:The Bible says while we were yet sinners, christ is anybody hearing what I'm saying this morning? While we were yet sinners. On your worst day, he still went to the cross for you. On your worst, perverted, nastiest, grimiest you know how ugly you are, you know how you've been living day Jesus still went to the cross for you. And if you were the only person on the planet, he still would have gone to Golgotha.
Speaker 2:Man, they say. I know somebody, say man, this dude is woke capital W-O-K-E. Well, that word has been co-opted because woke used to mean I just came from a nap. But righteous indignation is a consciousness. Understanding what the text says and expecting a lifestyle from a person who's been what Touched by the living text, right, that's not wokeism, that's transformation. Not wokeism, that's transformation. And me respecting not just afro latino and other and european brethren as my brothers and accepting them as the image of god and giving them the dignity of their humanity because they reflect god's image, that's not wokeism, that's just being christian.
Speaker 2:And for me to say justice is something separate and apart from central thinking. I don't know who's redoing the definitions, but you say justice today and now you're a leftist. The gospel is justice. You cannot divorce justice from the good news. Well, how could you say that? Because Jesus himself protested. He protested your eternal damnation by going all the way to Golgotha. The Bible says in Isaiah that he went like a lamb, without words, silently to the butcher's mill. He protested in silence our eternal separation from the Father. That's a protest. And there weren't 50,000 with him, because there was only one that could do. It had to be a perfect lamb, come on that'll preach all day. No one else could do it but Jesus, and he did it.
Speaker 2:What we learn from the parabolos of Mark, chapter 12, is that we have got to embrace a theology of rejection. I said this in the first, I'll say it again. Because the minute you stand up and start saying things like I'm saying, or you start to believe or start to move, or you start to say no. I don't agree with that and I don't think that's right. I don't think that's Christian or godly Guess what You're going to be rejected. The minute you start speaking truth against the status quo, you're going to be rejected and identified.
Speaker 2:Now are you willing to pay the price? Because Matthew 16, 24, 25 says this If any man will come after me, let him first, deny himself. Second, take up his cross. That's two negatives in the Greek. For me that's two negatives. First one is deny. The second one is die. That's two negatives. Deny myself and then pick up my cross. Cross, what Crucifixion. Death to self. Something in me must die in order for Christ to live in me, in order for me to meet the maturation of his will and plans for my life.
Speaker 2:The things I want to do, I cannot do Because the things I want to do are perverted. Why? Because there's nothing good within me. And the minute I can embrace that truth and walk in the emptiness of my righteousness, because my righteousness is as filthy rags. I know some of you think you're good people. Well, you know I don't do this and I don't do that. There's gonna be good people in hell.
Speaker 2:Being good is not enough and the Bible says there's no one that's good. All have what sinned and fallen short of the good. Don't, nobody want to hear that. Thank you one. Glory to God and that glory you can tell. That hurt. Glory to God. I know it hurt, but it's the truth. It's the truth and that's the truth. And only truth sets free. Truth wrapped in love sets free. Truth without love is abuse and legalism and rules.
Speaker 2:But I want to say this to you, and I came here to say it we're in dire times, we're in dire straits. This is a Christological dilemma. I've said this to every MDiv that I'm speaking to at the RTS, where I teach, when I taught at ATS, when I teach at Fordham, I'm saying the same exact thing we're in dire times. Where is the church? Where are the prophets? Where is the remnant of God that would stand up and say no, pharaoh, let these people go. Where are the voices of those that are in the desert that are preaching repent, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Where are the prophets?
Speaker 2:I don't care about your doctrine and divinity. I don't care about what your credential is If you're silent and neutral on the issues you should be prophetic about, because at this point silence is very pathetic. I don't believe in Black Lives Matter. You don't have to. Do you believe that Jesus is God, that he's the only one true God and the only one true king? Do you believe that Jesus is God, that he's the only one true God and the only one true king? Do you believe?
Speaker 2:We love these reform songs and they come out of a reform font, I believe, and they start going over the different tenets of faith, I believe, and if you're charismatic, they add on to the tenets, you know. If you're Pentecostal, I believe, singing and dancing in the tongues, there's a context and there's a frame for that. We got to respect them. They're saved, sanctified on their way to heaven. Because they have a different hermeneutic does not mean that we divorce them from the body and that's the problem. Church, we've canceled out each other so much.
Speaker 2:I was rejoicing when I heard them singing a corito here a little while ago, because you know my impression, coming from the South Bronx, coming up in here, I'm in the sticks, dog. This is a rural community, even your town. I was saying, bro, where are we, ian, ian, why has God forsaken me? We drove by a river bank and a river, a lake water. I was like, where are we, dog? And then we got here and I was like, oh, this is beautiful and the first service seemed very Presbyterian.
Speaker 2:I work and live in Presbyterian spaces. In that room I'm always because I'm Latino, you know I'm loud, passionate, if you haven't noticed. But I heard the corito Se mueve la mano de Dios Con poder, con poder, and our version of that is ting ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting ting in the Bronx. I like how you changed the melody, made it more palatable for my European brethren, because in the other version they go in. In the Spanish they start fuego baja del cielo, which is fire from God, come down from heaven and burn us. That's it Con sus manos que se mueven. When his hands are moving, the fire is flowing.
Speaker 2:We've got to embrace the theology of rejection. We've got to take our stand as believers because this is not the season for silence and neutrality. If any man will come after me, let him take up, and anyone that has given up family friend has received the 30, 60, 90, 100 fold. There's no neutral language in the synoptic gospels. There's no silence. There's no neutral language in the synoptic gospels. There's no silence. There's no silence.
Speaker 2:And I'm not saying that you've got to be screaming and raging, emotional, irrational. I'm just saying open your mouth and care for somebody that doesn't look like you and I know that culturally, ethnically, looking at me from across the room is like seeing one of my dogs. I have two bull mastiffs in my house and if you look at these dogs from across the street you'll be like yo. I will never go to that man's house Because those dogs look scary. But if you were to break into my house, don't tell this to nobody. But if you break, is this being recorded? If you were to break into my house, those dogs, while they have this demeanor of they'll be like let me show you where they got the money. She keeps the jewelry in the box right over here under the. Could you give me one of my snacks before you leave? But from across the street they're like yo, that looks like a beast. And it feels like that sometimes when you're dealing with people outside your ethnic background.
Speaker 2:But the most powerful conversation on the planet is when I can walk across the room and see somebody that doesn't look like me. Hey, how you doing? My name is Mike. Hey, john, I love your hair. John God knew what he was doing because he didn't give me hair. Hey, john, I love your hair. John. God knew what he was doing because he didn't give me hair like John, because if I would have had hair like John, I would have been, I would have had, I would have looked like Fabio, you know. Except for that, I got an afro, I got to get the. Anyways, it's a cultural thing.
Speaker 2:The scariest, the most prolific conversation is when we come out of our place of comfort into other people's space and become incarnational. What does that mean? Jesus steps out of glory, puts on humanity, incarnates in a first century Palestine, in occupied territory under pagan Roman rule, and becomes Emmanuel. He incarnates in the place where nothing good comes out of. This is why they say can anything good come out of Nazareth? Why do you think they say that? Because Nazareth was the south Bronx of Israel. He's Galilean. The Messiah surely cannot come out of among them.
Speaker 2:This is why, in Acts, chapter 2, when they start speaking in different tongues and people from every nation hears them, are these not Galileans? Every time they heard the Galilean dialect, they wanted to stone one of these people because, in their minds, their accent disqualified them from being in a position of power and a position of prophetic relevance in the current day. Every time they heard the Galilean dialect of Jesus, they wanted to kill him. Is this not Joseph's son and Mary? Jesus was the other. Jesus was a daca. Jesus was a refugee. He had to check in with the authorities and check in with the NSA. He was the other. And for us to now look at the other and say kick them all out Because they're all this.
Speaker 2:We're missing something, church, and I pray that we in this institution that Princeton, would raise up prophets, presbyterian and Reformed, but prophets nonetheless, that would speak truth, from love and humility to power and to usher in a Christological embrace once again, so that the church could be made whole. We need to be the church, ecclesia, and ecclesia is a compound in Greek, called out but sent in. Did you know that Compound? Called out but sent in? You're called out of your comfort into the new life and then from new life to go out. And what Preach? New life. This is the word of the Lord and if you can receive it, say amen, thank you for having me. Church.