Isaiah 40:28-31
Revelation 21:1-15
One of the requirements of my fifth-grade elementary education was 4H. At least once a month our normal afternoon
class would pause, and we would have an afternoon of 4H learning and working.
For those who may not know what 4H stands for, and I never did, even when I was
participating in it, is Head, Heart, Hands, and Health.
Its original goal, when it was started in the early 1900’s was to tie public
education to rural life. It was designed to be a hands-on program where youth
would learn by doing. In this country, it has been connected to and long
associated with agriculture and farming. My sister-in-law used to talk lovingly
about her days in 4H and how she bottle-raised a calf and showed it at the
county fair.
As I understand it 4H has grown and
evolved to be much bigger than a program for farming kids. It has clubs in at
least 50 countries around the world and does a lot of good for a lot of people.
But when I was in fifth grade I understood 4H to be about farming, yet I lived
in the suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee, and I had no interest in farming. So, I
wasn’t thrilled about being forced to participate in 4H. But I had to, so I
did. That year we had to give a presentation as part of our 4H requirement. The
presentation was supposed to be a “how-to” as in here is how to … fill-in-the-blank.
I decided to do my presentation on
dog care and grooming. I felt that it was a practical and necessary skill to
have for anyone with a dog. I did my research, which at that time was going to
the library and finding books on the chosen subject. I gathered the necessary
tools, such as a dog brush and comb. I wrote my presentation. I created posters
to go with it. I practiced, and I practiced some more. Then I presented at
school. For some unknown reason, my teacher was impressed with my work and
entered me in the city-wide contest. My parents took me. I did the presentation
there, and I think I came in second or third. Whatever rank I had, I didn’t do
well enough to go onto the next level of contest. I received an encouraging
letter from the judges who told me to keep trying, keep working, etc. My
parents were proud of what I’d done even if I didn’t go any further in the
competition. And almost until the day she died, my mother would say that she thought
I would have won had it not been for one problem – I didn’t own a dog. I think
I demonstrated my presentation on dog care on my Snoopy stuffed animal, which a
friend gave me when I had my tonsils out. But there was no real dog in my life
at that time.
My older brother had a dog when I
was much younger. But we were a dogless family by the time of that
presentation, and I wanted a dog of my own. What better way to show that I
could handle the responsibility of dog ownership than to create a 4H project
based on that premise?! I had great hope in my ability to win my parents over
with my obvious sense of responsibility. That’s why I share this story. To me
it is a story about hope, youthful hope to be sure, but it was hope,
nonetheless. Instead of “if you build it they will come,” my hope was, “If I
groom it, I will get a dog.”
I realize that this seems about as
far from Artificial Intelligence as possible, and I guess that it is. But I
think this story also represents where we get confused about hope and A.I. and
about what it can and cannot do for us. I certainly think we get confused about
hope when it comes to our faith. I put my hope for getting a dog into what I
could do, what I could prove, what I could accomplish. And I think that’s where
we humans miss the mark on what we hope for and on what we think hope actually
is. We believe that our hope is something we do, that it rests in our hands,
our ingenuity, our creativity, our imaginations, and our ability to problem
solve. We put our hope in our ourselves.
The
cover article of this coming month’s issue of The Christian Century
is “Transcendence Through Tech?” In the article the author, A. Trevor Sutton,
asks the question, “Can we build our own future?” The author writes about
inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk and philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Musk started
his first tech company in 1995. The sale of that company a few years later gave
Musk enough capital to start SpaceX. Through SpaceX Musk is working on making
humans, as the author writes, “an interplanetary species.” But what Musk has
another company called Neuralink. This company is working on “turning the human
brain into a supercomputer.”
As
the article details, and I quote, “the company has recently implanted its first
human subject with a microchip that enables direct brain-computer interface by
gathering signals from neurons and sending the data to a computer that
processes it in real time. The subject, a 29-year-old quadriplegic, can move
the cursor on a computer screen using only his brain.” The company is not the
first to try this, but it is the first to work on reversing the process, which
means that the computer would also be able to transmit data to the human
subject’s brain. As the author writes, “according to Musk, Neuralink’s implants
will allow for human symbiosis with artificial intelligence.” Human symbiosis
with artificial intelligence.
The author points out that in the
same year that Musk started his first company, 1995, the classic comic strip
“Calvin and Hobbes” premiered. If you remember that comic, Calvin – named after
our spiritual ancestor, John Calvin, was a little boy with a vivid imagination
to say the least. His best friend was Hobbes, who also happened to be a stuffed
tiger. When it was just Calvin and Hobbes, Hobbes would come to life, and would
temper Calvin’s wild ideas with some practical pessimism. Hobbes was named
after the philosopher, Thomas Hobbes. And the author’s point in this Christian
Century article, as I understand it, is that Thomas Hobbes would be a good
counterbalance to Musk.
There
are differences between the two men born in two different centuries, but they
both fear and feared what humanity might do to itself. Hobbes believed that a
social contract and a sovereign was necessary for people to live with each
other, otherwise life would be “nasty, brutish, and short.” And while Musk has
spoken of artificial intelligence as being something that could make humanity
extinct, he also thinks that if used correctly it has the potential to make the
future even brighter for all people, artificial intelligence and human beings
together have the capability of unlocking humanity’s full potential.
The author makes an important point,
and it is the one that I want to highlight today. Both Musk and Hobbes assume
and assumed that humans have autonomy, and therefore our hope lies within us
and us only. For Hobbes, who was pessimistic about humans at best, we needed
ways to live with each other and we needed sovereigns, rulers, who would keep
us from killing one another. But history from Hobbes’ time and more recent
history has taught us that has taught us that sovereigns are not immune from
causing massive destruction of others and are capable of destroying themselves
in the process. Musk, who is far more optimistic, realizes that humans can do
great harm, but if properly linked with A.I. can do great and wonderful things
But there is another way, and that
is the way of hope that we read in our passages today. It isn’t hope found in
what humans can or cannot do, will or will not do. It is hope found in God, our
God, our amazing, awesome, God of love, righteousness, and justice. The prophet
Isaiah proclaims God as the everlasting God. Our God does not faint. Our God
does not get tired. Our God understands more than we can possibly fathom. And
not only does our God not get tired, and not faint from exhaustion, but our God
gives strength and energy to all those who wait for him. We all get tired. We
all get weary, regardless of our age or place in life. But if we wait on God,
our strength will be renewed, and we will rise up like an eagle rises with
wings outstretched into the wind. And even if our weariness is bone deep and
soul deep, God will lift us up to run with renewed energy and spirit. We will
walk and not fall away.
And the writer of Revelation writes
about finally seeing a new heaven and a new earth, a new Jerusalem coming down
from heaven, created and prepared by God. And the home of God will be among
God’s people. There will be no separation of time or space between God and us,
us and God. God will be with us, and we will be with our God. And death will be
no more. Mourning and grief will be no more. God will wipe every tear from our
eyes. God is making all things new.
These are two passages of scripture
that speak profoundly of hope, of what true hope is. It is not hope in
ourselves. It is not hope in what we can do and what we can do only. It is hope
in God. This hope in God does not let humans off the hook. Nor does it dismiss
or deny what we humans have the potential to do – the good that we can do, and
the bad. We were given imaginations, and vision, and abilities to create good. We
have powerful technology at our fingertips, and there is much good that we can
do with it. But we can just as easily go the other way. With all the good we
can do, there is so much bad that we can do as well. Hope only in ourselves can
lead to dangerous and disastrous results.
But our real hope does not lie in
artificial intelligence or in social contracts or in any other thing that we
alone create. Our hope lies in God. It is no coincidence that the two passages
read this morning are both read at funerals, at services of witness to the
resurrection. Because one thing we all know that is certain and sure, is that
none of us gets out of here alive. But in faith we have the hope that death is
not the end. We have hope in our call from God to live faithful lives in the
here and the now and in the sweet by and by. And we have hope that God is doing
a new thing, that God is calling us to live into the future that God is
creating – a future where tears are wiped from eyes and mourning and crying
will be no more.
Technology and the power of our
imaginations, our creativity, our passion, our dreams are all good. We have
been given the ability to do so much. But our hope does not lie in what we can
do, but in what God can do. Our hope lies in what God is doing through us and
in spite of us. Our hope lies in God who created us because of love and for
love and to love. Thanks be to God, the author of our hope, our true and
lasting hope. Thanks be to God.
Let
all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”
Amen.
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