Matthew 7:1-12 (Romans 13:8-10)
July 21, 2024
In the summer of 1983, a movie hit
theatres that was incredible and unlike anything most of us had ever seen
before. The movie was War Games. It was amazing, and although the graphics
and technology in it look pretty dated now, it still resonates with our
experiences today. It’s premise is that a brilliant but underachieving high
school boy hacks into the government’s computer system to play their listed war
games. He really thinks he is just playing a game called Geothermal Nuclear
Warfare, but what he actually does is trigger the computer. WOPR – which stands
for War Operations Plan Response – into playing the simulation of that war
game. The people in charge have no idea that a game is being run at first and
it looks as though the Soviet Union is starting a war with the United States.
The authorities figure out that the
computer was hacked, that it’s only running a simulation before they
launch missiles against the USSR. They trace the hack back to David, the young
hacker and take him into custody. David realizes that the computer, known to
him and its creator as Joshua, thinks that this is real and will eventually
start a war. But no one believes him. David escapes the authorities to find
help from the computer’s creator and the action and the tension escalate from
there.
The man who designed this computer
system, Stephan Falkan, worked on the advancement of machines being able to
learn. And one reason he designed Joshua to play war games was so that it could
play out the high stakes of nuclear war without annihilating humanity and most
of creation. But as he tells our young heroes, the one thing he couldn’t get
Joshua to learn was futility, that in a war of that scale there would be only
losers, not winners and losers. Even though this is fictional movie, the
technology that was being developed, even 41 years ago, was not. For those of
us who were the original audience, this was the first time we were introduced
to hackers and computers that could fit on a desktop. As I said, we’d never
seen anything like it before. As I was reading some background on the movie
last week, I learned that when Ronald Reagan, who was the president at the
time, watched the movie in the White House, he was alarmed that someone might actually be
able to hack into government and military computers and ordered that security
be heightened to prevent that possibility.
There’s lots of lessons to be
learned from this movie, but the one that I really want to focus on happens in
the first scene of the movie. Two air force officers arrive on a terrible night
of blinding snow to take their shift controlling a nuclear missile silo. Their
work is deep underground, and as they’re getting on the elevator they’re just
chatting about their weekend, about a woman that the captain knows, etc. They
talk with the officers they’re relieving and joke about being late, and on and
on. Nothing unusual. Nothing to hint at the enormity of what they do.
But minutes into their shift they
receive official notice that a launch must take place. They have a protocol to
follow, confirmation to receive that it’s real and not a test. But as they are
preparing to turn the missiles to launch, the captain falters. He hesitates. He
realizes what he’s being asked to do. He breaks away from protocol and tries to
call someone in charge to find out what’s happening. The other man keeps
telling him that this isn’t protocol, that he has to launch. At one point the
captain says he wants to make sure, to at least talk to someone in charge, before he kills 20 million people. Just as
this scene ends, the other officer draws a gun on him, which you understand to
be part of his job as well. They both must launch, and if one of them won’t he
then he must be forced to.
It turns out that it was a test; a
test that approximately 28% of the officers failed. To the powers that be, that’s
too large a percentage. So, they take the human out of the equation and link
all the silos to the computer, to Joshua. And in the terrifying minutes toward
the end of the movie, it’s Joshua who locks all the humans out to fulfill its
original command – launch the missiles.
I know, I know, it’s a movie. It’s a
dated movie from the 80’s. But it’s a great movie, and one that is still worth
watching now. And while the whole movie is fantastic, it’s that opening scene
that keeps coming back to me. The captain as he is trying to make himself do
his job and launch the missiles is whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He knows
that he holds the lives of millions of people in his hands. And that’s why he
falters. That’s why I would falter if it were me. I couldn’t do that to others
just as I would hope they would not easily do that to me. It certainly does not
abide by what we know as the Golden Rule.
Although
there is no mention in the movie of the Golden Rule, which is the last verse
from our passage in Matthew’s gospel, there is a sense that it is implied.
“In everything do to others as you
would have them do to you: for this is the law and the prophets.”
This is not a rule that is unique to
Christianity. Versions of it are found in ancient texts from other
civilizations. It’s found in other religions. It is not only found in religious
circles, but it is the basis for ethical and moral treatises as well.
Philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote about the Golden Rule and its inverse, the
Silver Rule, in his work on moral philosophy.
We were probably all taught this
when we were growing up. It’s a worthwhile aphorism to live by. But let’s look
at the context that we read it in Matthew. The Golden Rule was not meant to
stand on its own. It comes at almost the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. We
tend to think of the Sermon on the Mount as being only the Beatitudes. But that
sermon goes from chapter 5 to chapter 7. So, Jesus is preaching these words in
verse 12 not as something nice to consider, but as a way of living that rests
on both the law and the prophets. And the law and the prophets were about
living justly, living righteously, living as God calls us to live in
relationship with God and in relationship with each other. The prophets repeatedly
condemn those who live at the expense of others, whose lifestyle and ethics –
or lack thereof – come through the exploitation of others, of the least of
these. The prophets spoke truth to power. So, when Jesus says these familiar
words, he also says, “for this is the law and the prophets.”
You see, one of the problems of
taking the Golden Rule out of this context, of seeing it only as a nice platitude,
is that it too easily becomes egotistical. I’m not saying it’s not a good rule.
It is, and it’s one that I was taught and that I taught my children. But
without the context that Jesus gives it, it can too quickly become about only
what I want. I’ll treat others this way because that’s what I want. I’m only
thinking about me and my needs, my desires. And that misses the point of the
law and the prophets. At best it dilutes the call of God to love others without
thought about what that love means for us. We are to love others, even if that
love is reciprocated, and this is not love based only on emotions, but love
that is lived, love that lived in action and deed even more than in word.
In that opening scene of War
Games the human at the controls falters because he knows that mass
destruction and death is about to rain down on people who are living in the
wrong place at the wrong time. There’s nothing Golden Rule about that. There’s
nothing loving in that. In current war zones right now, there are AI programs
that are designed to discern who a leader of the enemy is and target that
leader. While that may sound like basic war strategy, the leaders are targeted
in homes, homes where families live, where children live. And the AI program
does not discern who should be destroyed in that home and who shouldn’t. All
are destroyed. But what parameters does this AI program use to discern
who the enemy leaders are? How is it programmed to make these kinds of
decisions? It seems to me that the human equation with our biases and our
prejudices and our hatred is kept in this AI program, but the human equation
that understands loving one another, loving our neighbor, is removed.
So, what does this have to do with
us? What does this use of AI and a movie and all of it have to do with us and
our faith? I think it has everything to do with us. As people of faith, we are
called not only to take seriously the Golden Rule that Jesus preaches, but to
live it, to weave it into the very fabric of our lives. We are called to take
seriously how this rule is not just something nice to do but is fulfilling the
law and the prophets. We are called to hold those who create technology
accountable for how it is used for humanity and against humanity. Because we are
called to love one another, we are called to consider over and over again
exactly who is our neighbor. And we’re called not only to consider who is our
neighbor, but how we are to treat our neighbor.
Paul writes in our passage from
Romans, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves
another has fulfilled the law.”
Paul puts this discussion of love
into the language of owing, of indebtedness. At first this seems contradictory
when we look at it in the larger context of this chapter. Paul is encouraging
the Roman church to be good citizens, to be subject to the Roman authorities.
As I understand it, Paul posits that being a good citizen is participating in
the will of God. So be law abiding citizens. Pay what you owe in taxes, in
revenue, etc.
But one point was made clear by
commentators on this passage, Paul was not writing about any kind of financial
debt in these words on love. He was talking about allegiance. Listen, pay your
taxes, abide by the laws of the state, but when it comes to your allegiance,
your loyalty, your fidelity, that goes to God and to God alone.
And what we owe God is not money. We
owe God love. We owe God love. And the way we repay our debt of love to God is
to love others. When we love others, any other, all others, than we have
fulfilled our obligation to the Law, not the law of Rome, but the Law of Moses.
And what Jesus conveyed in his teaching was that the way to fulfill the Law of
Moses and the prophets was to love others.
If the use of technology helps us to
love others, and I think that it can, then let’s keep going. But when
technology, when AI, is used against others, even others that we think of as
enemies, then we are failing our call to love. We are reneging on our debt.
Because in the law of love, even our enemies are our neighbors.
What do we owe God? What do we owe
one another? Love. May we pursue this love with all that we have and all that
we are. May it be our daily prayer. May our love bless friends and enemies
alike. May it bind us one to another with bands that cannot be broken. What we
owe God is to love one another. Thanks be to God.
Let all of God’s children say,
“Alleluia.”
Amen.
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