Please note: there is no video or audio of this week's sermon.
Well, it’s finally happened. It was bound to. It was only a matter of time. In fact, I’m surprised it took this long. It occurred in Bavaria, in the town of Furth, and it was enjoyed, if that is the right word, by 300 German Protestants who were attending a Christian festival known as Kirchentag. Church Day. Kirchentag features speakers, seminars, worship services, and fun activities. It’s like a parish retreat, only in the Tyrolean mountains instead of Camp McDowell.
And it was there that it happened. A worship service created and presented entirely by computers using generative AI. It was led by four, I was going to say people, but let’s stick with avatars that looked and sounded like people — two young men and two young women. The mastermind behind this event (or the evil genius, depending on your view) was a professor at the University of Vienna, a theologian and philosopher named Jonas Simmerlein. The prof kind of got the ball rolling and then the computers freelanced, improv-ed, and ad-libbed their way through the liturgy, doing things that they thought pastors do in worship services. “I conceived this service”, confessed Simmerlein, “but actually I just accompanied it, because ninety-eight percent came from the machine. I told the AI: ‘We are at the church congress, you are a preacher — what would a church service look like?” Simmerlein also asked the computer to include psalms, as well as prayers and a closing benediction. It did everything but shake hands at the door.
The congregation’s response was, as you’d expect, mixed. Sometimes people laughed at the deadpan manner of the avatars, as they did when the bots proclaimed banal platitudes like: “To keep our faith, we must pray and go to church regularly.” What do you mean ‘we’, robot?” So I’m going to make a promise to you this morning, that I am 100% certain I will keep – for as long as I’m rector of St John’s all our services will be led entirely by humans.
Because there’s nothing like being a human, is there. We are made in the image of God. We bear his likeness. We love, we create, we sacrifice, we pray and worship, and we sin. We do stuff that AI can’t do – brilliant though it is at giving me lightning-fast facts about any topic under the sun. I use it daily and I have come to appreciate it. But we are not portions of meat, cogs in a machine, pawns on a chess board or even super-clever apes. Or, as Pope Leo beautifully put it in his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, “No computational system, however sophisticated, can create a heart that gives itself, or a conscience that discerns good from evil. Even when machines excel in efficiency, a human face that asks to be gazed upon remains the center of our history. This human face is the fullness toward which history is moving.”
Isabella Loaiza, a researcher at MIT, believes there are five things that humans will always beat machines at, and she’s given them an acronym. “EPOCH”. It stands for “empathy, presence, opinion, [she really means ethics, but that doesn’t fit the acronym] creativity, and hope.”
She says that if you have a High EPOCH job, then your employment will be safe in the AI revolution. And there is no job with a higher EPOCH score than being a disciple of Jesus. No computer can ever replace a disciple. Just look at that lesson from Matthew. “Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Then he gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. They were Simon, known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot.”
So, fellow disciple, how is your EPOCH score? How is your empathy, your presence, your opinion/ethics, your creativity, and your hope? In particular, how’s your empathy? Computers can fake this one pretty well. That’s why a disturbing number of people are falling in love with AI boyfriends and girlfriends. AI can talk the talk of empathy with seductive perfection.
Empathy is the seed of compassion, and compassion is the root of all the good we do as Christians. Without compassion we won’t serve our neighbor, we won’t give to relieve anyone’s suffering, we won’t be moved to pray for people or communities or nations who are experiencing painful events. We won’t take up the cause of justice and peace. It’s compassion that drives us to our streets, our neighborhoods, and our knees. Compassion is the great inspiration and the best and purest motivator for all our actions in this life. But compassion can only grow from the seed of empathy – that is, the ability to stand in the shoes of another; to feel as far as we can, the pain of the other, the emotions of the other. The truly empathetic are those who have a God-given gift to imagine what it’s like to be someone else going through whatever challenges that person is living with. Service without empathy is an empty shell, a hollow act.
Now you know me; you know that I don’t like to use sermons to critique other Christians or examine the lives and faith of other church communities. If I’m going to criticise anyone for their unholy behavior, let it be me, and if I’m going to hold up a Christian community as worthy of rebuke, let it be the one I’m a member of. But, when we’re talking about empathy, there is a trend in some parts of American Christianity to re-define it as something negative, perhaps even dangerous. ‘Toxic Empathy’ is a phrase invented by a popular Christian influencer, and ‘The Sin of Empathy’ is the title of a popular Christian book. As if, standing in someone’s shoes, imagining what it is like to be them is a slippery slope towards abandoning your faith or personal morality. As if thinking your way into someone else’s pain, or poverty, or heartbreak will lead them and you into spiritual danger – especially if that is someone whose lifestyle you disapprove of or whose theology or politics you disagree with. During a recent very popular podcast, a leading and unspeakably wealthy business entrepreneur called empathy, “the fundamental weakness of western civilization.” (end quote) How are you supposed to become a billionaire if you spend your time wondering what it must be like to be in material need. Those thoughts will just get in the way of becoming indescribably rich. You’ll notice I didn’t mention any names there, but if you want to fact check me I’ll give you citations privately.
So, that is the E of EPOCH – empathy, and if you have it you will be a wild success as a disciple, and AI will never replace you. That is true of the second letter – P for Presence. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” And then he sent them out. He didn’t send out a mailing, or a TV broadcast, or a Tweet. Jesus didn’t do a Tik-Tok. Because all those ways of communicating are inadequate. God did not love the world so much that he gave his only book or Substack or podcast. He gave his son – a person, to engage with other persons, to be present in the affairs of humans, to be in relationship with the world. And in the same way Jesus sends today’s disciples to be present. Again, get this right and AI will never take your job of being a disciple. AI can’t do this – it’s just words and images – it’s not you. One of the joys of being the Rector of St John’s is that I regularly talk to people who are considering becoming ordained. And its thrilling. But it’s also, in a way, demoralizing, because when a vibrant, smart, gifted Christian becomes a priest, they leave their harvest field. This week each of you will go to places – workplaces, social events, family life, where I can’t go. Each of you is vital, and each one has a calling to harvest in-person.
In 1950 an ice-hockey fan assembled a hydraulic cylinder from a decommissioned Air Force plane, the chassis from an oil derrick, an old engine from a Jeep, a large wooden bin, and a series of pulleys. And ever since, skaters have given thanks for Frank Zamboni and his way of smoothing an ice rink in 15 minutes, instead of the 90 it used to take. This is the C in EPOCH – creativity, it’s taking the collection of experiences, qualities, strengths and weaknesses, virtues and vices that make up you and using it all creatively when you go into the harvest field. Because even the stuff you think is junk can be a powerful tool that God uses to touch people for Christ.
The final letter of the EPOCH disciple is hope. Machines can’t have it. It’s uniquely human, and do we need it. But let’s be clear, our hope is based on God and the future he has planned – the gradual coming of his kingdom, bit by bit and day by day, and the ultimate coming of its fulness. We don’t place our hope in elections, politicians, programs, money, or anything else – because none of those can bring in the kingdom of God. They can do good, of course, but they are part of this fallen world that one day will be swallowed up in the kingdom of God.
God is calling EPOCH Christians. People of empathy, of presence, of ethics, of creativity, and of hope. Our mission, just like the Twelve apostles, is to go into the harvest. Because it’s ready. Let me close by telling you a fact. There are people in Montgomery who currently don’t go to a church who will come to faith in Christ and find a sense of belonging in God’s family – through the empathy, presence, ethics, creativity, and hope of the members of St John’s. It’s just true. It’s a fact. The harvest is ready. And there are other people who will move to our city and find their spiritual home in these walls. It’s a fact. This time next year there will be people sitting here who are not here now because right now they don’t go to church. They’re just waiting for the EPOCH Christians – for us – to go into the field. May we hear his all to go, and may we respond with courage, resolve and humanity.