Month: December 2024

Christians memorialize some very odd things during the joyous season of Christmas. The day after Christmas, boxing day in Britain, is the feast of Saint Stephen. Stephen’s death by stoning was a result of his intemperate witness to the resurrected Christ. Two days later, we remember the feast of the Holy innocents when boys two and under in Bethlehem were killed by King Herod in the hope of getting rid of the newborn Messiah. The two brutal episodes follow on the heels of our joyful acclamation that born to us has been the king of kings, Lord of Lords, and prince of peace.

It is a dark reminder that God did not enter the world in Christ Jesus to cleanse the world of the evil we inflict on one another in one mighty act of divine power. Why, we wonder, didn’t God simply eliminate from humanity its addiction to vengeful violent scapegoating and its lust for power, position, and claims of others’ property?

The evil we inflict on one another is our own doing.  It is our own fault and there is no one else to blame, least of all the God who created us out of love, in love, and for love. We were also created with the freedom to choose between life and death, moral and immoral, ethical and unethical. Relying on our own desires and devices we too often choose wrongly. Jesus came to rescue us from the human condition we have created. I think he has done it in two ways. 

First, by word and deed he gave Holy affirmation that the words of the ancient prophets were true. God showed us the way to live a more perfect life in greater harmony with one another. It’s a way that eschews violence in all its forms, accepts responsibility for one’s own failings, and works for the good of one another without discrimination infringing on the human dignity of any other person. We are only human and it will never be a pure and perfect way of life, but it can become a better way for each one and for all. Our efforts can bring a measure of the kingdom of God into this world and into the lives of others.

Second, by entering into our life as one of us and by his death and resurrection, Jesus has offered to each and every one of us the chance to avoid the destructive forces of evil that only end in pointless, eternal death. Everyone is offered rescue. No one is required to accept it.

A metaphor might be helpful in making God’s point more clear. Think of a Coast Guard rescue swimmer who willingly descends into stormy water to be with someone in distress. The one in distress can be rescued from their condition only if they agree to surrender trying to hold on to their sinking boat and all the possessions on it. The person can be saved, but not the boat or possessions. It is possible that the person in distress might decline rescue because he would have to give up all that he had worked so hard to achieve. She might say no because all of her possessions define who she is and without them she would be nobody. Some, no doubt, would claim to be able to save themselves, no help needed thank you very much. But those who accepted the rescue would be lifted up to a new life, restored life in a new way of living.

The sentimental adoration of the newborn babe must give way to the recognition that something unheard of, incredible, unbelievable happened. God entered the troubled waters of our lives to rescue us from ourselves. At the same time, he said as long as we are in this world there’s always a better way of life. Not for us only but for all peoples everywhere. Following God’s word won’t eliminate evil, but it can be diminished. Evil cannot quench the light of Christ nor the near presence of God’s kingdom whenever and wherever we are willing to let it shine through our words in deeds

A Merry Christmas to you all.  What would a Merry Christmas be for you, or more specifically, what would it mean for you?  I imagine for many it would be to reenter the nearly magical days of childhood when the wonder of anxious anticipation, colorful decorations, presents under the tree, and store window displays climaxed early on Christmas morning, and it all happened without your having to take responsibility for anything. Even if that was not one’s experience, stories about how that was real for others made possible a few moments of fantasies about “what if” it might be some day.

The adult version might be a hope for moments of personal unrestrained joy with a feeling of good will shared in gatherings with others feeling the same way.  That can happen and sometimes does.  For others it is the joyful reunion of loving family.  Reality doesn’t always add up to expectations fulfilled, but you never know, it might.

The first known use of “Merry Christmas” was apparently in 1534 when Bishop Fisher used it in a letter.  I doubt the good bishop coined the phrase any more than Trump coined “groceries.”  In any case, I suspect his Merry Christmas meant something quite different.

I suspect he meant it to mean an unrestrained, generous outpouring of gratitude for the incarnation of The Messiah through whom it would be made known that we gentiles are counted as among the members of God’s family. I expect he meant Merry Christmas was to be powerfully reminded of the daring awesomeness of God entering bodily into human life in the most humble and vulnerable way possible.  Imagine trusting fallible humans with the care and protection of this holy babe. 

The Bishop’s Merry Christmas is one that requires no trees or presents or reunions or parties or decorations.  By all means let us have them if they bring delight into our lives, but let them not burden us with responsibilities and demands that makes them more work than pleasure. Above all and regardless of life’s conditions, let us once again be overwhelmed with the holy majesty of Christ’s birth, and the redeeming, abounding and steadfast love that opened for us a better way of life now and for eternity.   A Merry Christmas is one in which we renew our intentions to bear the light of Christ, however we can, into a world needing it so much. 

Merry Christmas

Artificial Intelligence, in particular Chat GPT and similar platforms, has captured the attention of many recent conversations.  Latest versions offer more sophisticated abilities to retrieve obscure information from data bases world wide, produce acceptable articles on most any subject in seconds, and engage with users as if in conversation between humans. It’s exciting, entertaining, mesmerizing stuff, and very seductive. 

It’s never been easier to find answers, search references, produce citations, and create papers, articles, speeches and sermons in the blink of an eye, the touch of a Button, hardly any work at all.  The only hard part is framing one’s query in just the right way to get desired results. 

What it amounts to is outsourcing one’s thinking and learning. I’m not a luddite.  A.I. in all its forms is now and will become an even more useful tool.  But to use it as a substitute for the hard work of critical thinking, creative thinking, and disciplined learning can lead only to mental atrophy.  It would be a disturbing surrender of intellectual responsibility and accountability to a machine and its algorithms. 

I was struggling to put my apprehensions about A.I. into words when a friend suggested I ask Chat  GPT to write an  essay on the dangers of outsourcing one’s thinking.  I would only have to tweak it here and there to “make it my own”. That is precisely the problem.  It would not have been “my own,” and I would not have had to wrestle with the questions  bubbling up in my mind.  A.I. would do it for me.  I would get a superficially acceptable answer, and get on with life without troubling myself any longer.   It would be an easy answer relieving me of the need to think.  Would I have learned anything?  Not much.  Would I have gained wisdom? No.  Would my readers know the difference?  Probably not, but it would be a fraud  perpetrated on them by me and A.I.

There is another dire consequence to relying on A.I. to do our thinking for us. It can generate answers to only what is known and has been experienced.   It cannot like Da Vinci imagine a mechanical flying machine in a time when no similar idea was known.  It cannot like Einstein imagine the nature of time and space by watching a clock tower receding from view while in a passing train. That imagination led to the theory of relativity, without which A.I. would not exist.   It can paint a picture in the manner of Rembrandt or Van Gogh, but it cannot become an original Rembrandt or Van Gogh.

The temptation to outsource our thinking leads directly to outsourcing morality, to tell the difference between what is good and right, and what is not. To rely on morality and ethics from A.I. is to enthrone it as a godlike entity, an electronic golden calf. It’s insatiable demands for data, electricity, and routine maintenance become the ritual of sacrifice it demands as the price of directing human life. 

Those who submit to it abdicate too much of their free will and diminish what it means for them to be fully human in relationship with creation and one another. A.I. cannot converse with others over coffee or a beer, indeed it cannot participate in or know about most of what ordinary human life is about. Above all, it cannot substitute for our relationship with the living God through whom what is right and good has been revealed. That revelation has been made known to us through prophets and sages by whom God’s words were spoken.  In other words, through communion between God and humanity in words humanity could understand, but not without thinking, pondering, and testing.  God’s truth is made more fully known in Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, who engaged with us as one of us, demonstrating in word and deed what good and right looks like in real life.  The standards are clear but we are not coerced to live up to  them.  We are challenged to live into them as best we can by the guidance of scripture, tradition and reason in a world of change and conflict.  It demands that we think and act for ourselves as ones responsible to and for each other, and accountable to God alone.

A.I. does not and cannot love us. It did not and cannot bring creation into existence and call it good.  It cannot demonstrate it’s desire to engage with us individually and collectively out of love and for our good.  The living God in whom we trust can, has, and will continue to do.  Let us use A.I. as a tool for the good of humanity but never let it be used in ways that diminish our humanity.

Advent always leads me to reflect on the Virgin Mary.  In Luke’s gospel she is courageous, decisive,  adventurous, and thoughtfully reflective. She is not at all like the submissively obedient girl she is often made out to be in popular culture.

As Luke records it men are kept silent and for the most part it is Mary and her kinswoman Elizabeth who have voice.  Joseph is never heard from and makes a few decisions that move the narrative along. Mary’s discourse with the angel Gabriel is assertive and probing.  It’s her decision to travel fifty miles or more to visit Elizabeth and stay for three months.  It is she and Elizabeth who declared to the reader what was happening. It is the two women who affirm that the names of their babies are John and Jesus. It is Mary who ponders all these things in her heart.

I suspect Mary was known in Nazareth as a rather headstrong young woman whose exuberance for life was a little out of step with the decorum expected of proper girls entering the age of marriage.

In Luke, Joseph is a figure lingering in the background, coming forward only when needed. It is in Matthew’s gospel that Joseph takes the lead to care for and protect the infant Jesus and his mother. Mary is silent.  The difference is what had to make Luke’s narrative appear radical and possibly threatening to the patriarchal customs of the time.  Perhaps it is still too radical for some which may explain why Mary is made to look meek, mild and obedient.

A final thought comes to mind when I think about Mary. In each celebration of the Eucharist Jesus has given us his body and blood in bread and wine, the holy food of new and unending life. Mary fed the Son of God with her body and blood for nine months, giving ‘him’ new life that made the incarnation of God’s Word possible. She is indeed worthy to be called blessed, the Theotokos.

The crowds that came out to see John the Baptist lived in a time of political and economic injustice and disorder. It was a time of civil unrest with occasional insurrections breaking out. Groups of religious and secular extremists threatened violence against those who opposed them. It was a time not unlike our own. Most of those who came to John were on the margins of society with little power of their own. They had two questions: what is God going to do about it and what are we to do? John could only introduce what the word of God in Christ Jesus would more fully reveal as the way of life for those who followed in Christ’s way, regardless of the conditions under which they lived.

Considering the conditions under which we live, and are about to live for the next four years, what are we to do? First, let’s consider what some of those conditions are.

The recent Meet the Press interview with Trump made it clearer than ever that Trump is convinced that his delusions are real. There is little point in confronting him with verifiable facts about the way things are. He lives in an imaginary world peppered with a few bits and pieces of reality. It is both sad and frightening that he has been able to sell his imaginary world to many others. Moreover, it makes him vulnerable to manipulation by others who understand well how to use his fears, anxieties, and vague concepts to advance their own nefarious agendas. What complicates matters are his short attention span, ease with which he is distracted by anything that grabs his attention, his vanity and demands for absolute loyalty. Above all, the very real power of the Office of the President is to pass into the hands of a wiley, intellectually challenged man who exhibits a mercurial personality with degenerating cognition.

I also listened to one of Trump’s minions being interviewed on CNN. In a calm, rational voice he presented each of Trump’s cabinet picks as among the very best qualified anyone could imagine and lamented how poorly they were being treated in the media. Clearly, the media were just picking on them for no good reason. He was well gifted in the art of bald faced lying overlaid with a patina of conviction and believability. The interviewer confronted him with various candidates histories of malfeasance, misfeasance, and incompetence. It did not rattle him one bit. He did not raise his voice or get angry. He simply reasserted that all these people are fine, upstanding candidates on whom the country can rely. I had to give him credit. It was an impressive performance. If the news media were complacent, it could be a very effective performance convincing a broad sector of the viewing public.

There are indications that the news media are tired of being played the fool. I am grateful to hear major news organizations beginning to push back, but it may be a case of too little too late. They had nine years to stand up to him and failed to do it. The test will be if they can keep it up for four years in the face of threats to investigate and imprison.   My guess is that the first year will feature a hard push to redirect the nation into an authoritarian system benefitting oligarchs.  I suspect it will not be as easy to pull off as the Trump posse thinks. 

With luck the following three years will settle down to disorganized, spasmodic lurches this way and that epitomized by backstabbing in fighting. They will not do too much harm as long as the American people go about their business in the usual way as best they can, ignoring the chaos in Washington DC.

Christians are one element of a public called to live in responsible freedom and respect for the dignity and rights of every person regardless of actions that may be taken to suppress them.  But they have the additional obligation to anchor their resolve in Christ Jesus.  It means subordinating all other political and economic loyalties  to the centrality of godly justice revealed in God’s abounding and steadfast love.

Prophets and sages throughout the ages have confronted kings and emperors with the dire consequences of their actions that lead people astray from God’s way of peace, harmony, and prosperity. Throughout the ages Kings and emperors have ignored the warnings and stubbornly plowed ahead creating turmoil and destruction where they expected success and glory. It seems to be a pattern that those in highest offices seldom learn from.

Our advent journey is a reminder that God’s redemption, reconciliation, and restoration is given not to nations, but to peoples. It is a promise given to peoples who continue in the way of God’s justice with courage and perseverance, in the face of all the difficulties that surround them. God’s Word made Flesh, Jesus was made manifest in a time of corruption and conflict.  In it he proclaimed God’s truth that the Kingdom of God is present, even under the worst of circumstances, wherever and whenever his followers demonstrate by word and deed, in speech and action, the better way that brings redemption, reconciliation and restoration into the lives of others. There can be no complicity with forces intent on subjugating people to an ideology of enforced obedience and ultimate loyalty to a prince or president.  Nor can there be complicity with any regime that uses the name of Christ or Christian to justify  what is not Christ life or Christian.  Finally, we cannot allow ourselves to fall into complacency or try to hide in seclusion and separation.  We are to live boldly in Christ for the better future of all peoples.

Advent is an unusual season in the church year. A season celebrated in every nook and cranny of the community, holiday songs fill the air, Christmas markets pop up, concerts and recitals are performed, mailboxes are stuffed with catalogs. On air ads encourage us to buy the perfect present for someone else, or for ourselves. Saccharine Hallmark movies abound.  It’s a time to mask the reality of the world as it is so that a sense of peace, joy and good will can be experienced, if only in our imaginations. Sadly, however much we get into the sport of the holidays, the reality of January ends it with a thud.

In the meantime, the Christian church  takes another path toward Christmas in a four week Sunday worship season of reading stern sayings and warnings. It seems out of step with the happy holiday cheerfulness on display everywhere else. Advertising promises a more attractive path to riches and a better life.  But it is a way is distorted by envy, selfishness, greed, and desire for status.  However, we are preparing for the greater, more authentic joy discovered once again in a manger where the greatest gift of all lies sleeping. Fullness of life abundant in God’s grace, a life of courageous peacemaking and godly justice for all is to live into Jesus’ teaching and commandments. 

There is something in our human nature that favors following our own devices and desires with a passing nod to the way of Jesus.  As God has warned us time and again, it never works out as hoped for.  It’s not that we are hopelessly incompetent creatures as our collective “better angels” have proved us to be more just, less miserly, more willing to make shelter, food, education, and health care more available to more people.  As a society we have repented for our ancestors most egregious sins even if we are loathe to repent of our own. Nevertheless, it never delivers the fullness of a better life that so many desperately need and passionately hope for.

Advent, therefore, is a time to reflect on these things and recommit to the better way proclaimed in the annual celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace, Lord of Lords, and King of Kings.  It is a time to resolve that this year we will be more intentional as Christians to live into the way of God’s love, and bear the light of Christ through word and deed in the ordinary affairs of daily life. 

Advent, although not a somber season, is a season of serious contemplation about the reality of life as it is.We contemplate the deeper meaning of the nativity for us and for the salvation of the whole world. At the same time, we are free to enter into the joyful preparations that surround us. If society sees it as a season of joyful good will, then let us engage in it in joyful goodwill with everyone who we meet and we can help make it a happy holiday season for others, regardless of their religion or lack of it.

Trump tosses daily half baked policy bombs and news media respond as if they were the product of a rational, comprehending mind.   They aren’t.  Trump has a limited to-do list with which he is obsessed. Last time it was The Wall and NATO.  This time it’s mass deportations and tariffs.  He is serious about them and will announce bold moves, but he has little interest in how things get done, nor is he cognizant of consequences, intended or not.   All of that is left to underlings whose performance is measured by loyalty not competency. 

Of course there is a large menu of other policy priorities.  Trump’s practice is to let others fly things by him and if any capture his attention they become policy priorities.  If any of them involve Trump getting the sort of airtime he craves, something may actually happen.  Others will move ahead or be forgotten depending on how backers are able to squirrel away enough resources and political power to get pet projects started without appearing to upstage Trump.  In Trump world that means brutal infighting and back stabbing. 

Permanent insiders in Trump world will be his two sons.  A few others will be temporary insiders trying to make themselves permanent.  Chief among them is Musk.  It would be an impossible goal for anyone else but he may have a shot.  Trump is deep in debt so there is a possibility that Musk holds a lot of paper and, in a sense, owns Trump.  On the other hand, now that Trump knows he is immune from prosecution he is in a position to exercise power that even $300 billion can’t buy.  We shall see.

What of other high level appointees?  Some will be heralded on arrival as the greatest most amazing ever.  Their short tenures will end with the condemnation of their low I.Q. incompetency, and the media will not bat an eyelash. The majority will exit with Trump declaring he didn’t know them, never met them, and their presence was somebody else’s fault. 

In the meantime, keep an eye on Miller and Bannon.  In Trump world, they are the smartest, most calculating and ruthless enemies of liberal democracy and they’ll take care not to be too public about what they are doing.  They have had nine years to study Trump’s vanity, ignorance, short attention span, arrogance, and his wily ability to stay out of jail. They also know how easily manipulated he is and it’s possible they could engineer the Hungarian style autocracy they favor.

Will so called guardrails be relocated to Congress?  Republican senators say they will not be Trump puppets.  They have said that before but quickly surrendered courage and integrity to do obeisance to their political overlord. The House GOP makes no pretense of having political integrity. Whether an opposition loyal to the Constitution can effect protection of the American people remains to be seen. 

The wild card is always Trump himself. Any objective observer has seen his cognitive decline paraded before every form of audience. It’s hard to believe his physical health is any better.  News media and his supporters pretend that what is plain to see isn’t there.  It would be comical if not so tragically dangerous. 

What might all this mean for us in the next four years?  My not very present guess is four years of political and economic chaos filled with political bombast, little constructive accomplishment, and a smattering of truly destructive moves toppling the U.S.A. as the undisputed world leader.  Perhaps we will emerge as a wiser and much chastened nation.  We shall see.