Being part of a Diocesan email listserv and serving as a parish priest both mean that I regularly read announcements of death. This also means that I regularly read about death in theologically rich language.
Our sister in Christ was born into the greater life. May she rest in peace, and rise in glory. Light perpetual shine upon her.
You happen to be a student at a fascinating moment in the history of information and technology. It is not unlike being a student in the years when the search engine, or the personal computer, or even the printing press were first popularized.
ChatGPT, and other instances of AI, offer a new way of interacting with information. Decades ago the search engine revolutionized research by giving all of us access to a seemingly endless number of sources. If we have a question about how to replace a radiator in our car, a search engine can point us to thousands of videos and websites that each claim to give us the right answer.
ChatGPT, on the other hand, will take information from those very sources and formulate an actual answer to your question.
Search engines can point you sources where you can find answers to your question; ChatGPT can answer your question itself. Or at least try to. Just as search engines cannot guarantee that the websites, videos, and documents they point you towards are actually good and true, and ChatGPT similarly cannot promise that the answers it gives to your questions are good and true, or even factual.
In our academic context, these AI tools can be used in at least three ways.
As a form of blatant plagiarism
As a shortcut for the hard work of critical thinking
As a potentially helpful tool for initial research
My recommendation in the short-term is this: for now, don’t use it at all for your academic work.
Way One: Blatant Plagiarism
The first way you can use it—as a form of blatant plagiarism—is not only easier to detect than you think, but a serious breach of your own academic integrity. Representing an AI bot’s answer as your own—even if you modified that answer significantly—is a clear form of academic dishonesty. You know this already, but I think it is worth sharing at this point.
Way Two: As a shortcut for the hard work of critical thinking
The second way to use it—as a shortcut—seems better than the first on the surface, but it actually has long-term affects that are just as bad, if not worse.
When new technologies emerge, it often takes some time for a society to recognized the unintended consequences of that new technology. Nuclear technology emerged relatively rapidly in the twentieth century. And it has led to the rise of both nuclear weapons and microwavable bacon. Put mildly, both are detrimental to human flourishing.
This is where we are with ChatGPT: we are impressed that it can do some things well, but we are not quite sure what the long term unintended consequences will be.
What will society look like a generation from now if most of today’s students shortcut the process of learning to think slowly and critically about things that matter most?
What will a church, or city, or family look like if it is made up of a large percentage of people with underdeveloped intellectual muscles, who lack the strength to think wisely on their own, and instead outsource their thinking to an algorithm? (One that, even according to its creators, does not actually think, but rather pieces together what others have thought.)
Using AI as a shortcut to critical thinking is wrong because it falls short of academic honesty, but it is especially wrong because in taking the shortcut you are missing out on developing a mental muscle that your friends, your parents, and your future spouses, children, fellow Christians, and co-workers all need you to have.
Way Three: As a potentially helpful tool for initial research
I do think there could be a way for this new technology to be used properly as a tool that helps you think more deeply about important academic questions you are facing. I have a hunch that when used as a research tool to discover excellent sources—not to answer important questions themselves—it may have something to offer students today and in the future.
But I don’t yet know how to pull this off myself, and therefore I am highly skeptical about your own ability to do so at this point.
We will have more to share about these things with you, your parents, and our wider school community as we prepare for next school year.
There is a lot you can do with ChatGPT and tools like it.
You can blatantly plagiarize, and get caught.
You can blatantly plagiarize, and not get caught.
You can use it as a shortcut to deep, critical thinking and get caught.
You can use it as a shortcut to deep, critical thinking and not get caught.
And in each of the scenarios above, you are doing yourself, your community, and your future self and future community a deep disservice.
So again, let me echo my recommendation in the short-term: leave it unused, for now, in all of your academic work.
Soccer is an icon of virtue ethics, and as such it is a form of leisure that points us to what it means to be a moral creature.
I am encouraged by many things this evening, but I would like to name two of them.
First, I am encouraged to know that this is a place where students are trained to think deeply, slowly, and theologically about things that matter a great deal.
Juniors, your presence here this evening and your work this year is a testament to the many ways you are growing in wisdom and virtue. Well done.
Second, I am grateful that this is a place where adults take time out of their busy weeks to hear students share some of what they have learned this year.
Parents, teachers, and friends of our school: your presence here this evening is a testament to your desire to contribute to a more wise and virtuous Christian witness in the public square.
Our students have selected challenging topics to explore this year, and their teacher has demanded that they read, think, and write wisely about them.
All while many of their peers are being trained to think by social media companies, politicians who want to be celebrities, and celebrities who are famous for being famous.
Though you may—in some cases—find yourself arriving at different conclusions than our presenters, I trust that you will appreciate, honor, and be encouraged by the way our students have thought through these things.
If It Be Your Will by Leonard Cohen is sung from the perspective of Jesus from his arrest and trial through the harrowing of hell, right?
In a cold, dark, room somewhere abroad a small group of naked, tired, hungry, and defeated captives are huddled in the corner.
They’ve lost count of the hours, days, weeks, and years since they've experienced anything close to a normal life.
One night, in the middle of a monsoon, an explosion sends a wooden door, now shattered to pieces, across the room. Light floods the room in the form of half a dozen headlamps. Over the ringing of damaged eardrums, the captives hear shouted commands and see choreographed responses. In the blink of an eye, a row of uniformed men approach the huddled captives, shouting something familiar, but forgotten.
The soldiers are shouting, but the captives don’t budge.
“We’re here to save you,” the soldiers scream in as many languages as they can muster.
Still no response.
Maybe it was the shell-shock. Maybe it was miscommunication.
Or maybe, as another prisoner of war once recounted, these captives have been tricked before. Others have come, claiming to rescue them. Most of them have been defeated. Some of them were nefarious; disguising themselves as Navy Seals before beating their captives senseless for attempting to leave with the enemy.
Time is running out, but the captives have been down this road before, fooled by a would-be savior, and this time, they don't budge.
It may surprise you to hear this, but Jesus of Nazareth was one of dozens of young Jewish teachers to be put to death by the Romans in and around first-century Palestine.
When Jesus of Nazareth’s followers fled the scene and locked themselves in a room following his arrest, they did so because they, too, had been down this road before.
Ingrained in their collected memories were visions of other would-be saviors who amassed a significant following before getting cross with religious and political authorities. Each messiah figure’s life ended the same way: execution at the hands of the Romans, and arrest or worse for his followers.
In the world of the first century, a crucified Messiah is a failed Messiah. And on that Friday afternoon, the disciples began to realize that the past three years of their lives had been spent following a failed Messiah, one who stands in a long line of other failed Messiahs.
When Jesus of Nazareth’s followers fled the scene and locked themselves in a room following his arrest, they did so because they, too, had been down this road before.
And yet here we find ourselves, two-thousand years later.
A Jewish messianic figure publicly executed by the Roman government would not make the back page of a first-century newspaper; how in the world did we wind up here?
The cross has become one of the most universally-recognized symbols on the planet, and Jesus one of the most universally-recognized names.
Why? What made the crucifixion of this Jewish prophet so different from the crucifixion of the others?
On that Friday, the Romans did not nail a revolutionary leader to the cross.
On that Friday, the Romans did not nail a teacher born centuries before his time to the cross.
On that Friday, the Romans did not nail a traveling wise man and miracle worker to the cross.
No.
On that Friday, as one Roman soldier realized moments too late, the Romans nailed God to the cross.
And when God is nailed to a cross, we must respond.
We could respond with detached pity, feeling sorry for Jesus but not knowing what to do about it.
We could respond with debilitating guilt, like Javert who could not even begin to grasp the grace shown to him by Jean Valjean.
We could respond with noise, drowning out the uncomfortable reality of the cross.
Or we could respond with silence.
Good Friday services end in silence, and many Christians spend part of Holy Saturday in some form of silence, too. Not just to remember the silence of the grave, but to reflect on the meaning of the Cross itself.
--
Back in our cold, dark, room somewhere abroad, with our small group of naked, tired, hungry, and defeated captives huddled in a corner, the soldiers cannot believe the captives aren’t moving.
The stalemate continues for what feels like hours, until one of the soldiers stops screaming. He lowers his gun, takes off his own clothes, and crouches down in the corner of the room next to one of the captives.
His fellow soldiers are stunned. The captives hardly notice.
Eventually, one of the captives opens her eyes, and sees what the soldier has done.
One by one, some faster than others, the captives stand and walk towards their rescuers.
Words matter, but not as much as actions.
Do you want to know what God is like?
Do you want to know what God thinks about you?
Do you want to know whether God has love for you, despite what you alone know about yourself?
Look to the Cross.
For you Jesus Christ came into the world:
for you he lived and showed God's love;
for you he suffered the darkness of Calvary
and cried at the last, 'It is accomplished';
for you he triumphed over death
and rose in newness of life;
for you he ascended to reign at God's right hand.
All this he did for you, child, though you do not know it yet.
And so the word of Scripture is fulfilled: "We love because God loved us first.”
In first-century Galatia, a small but powerful group of teachers insisted that anyone who wanted to become a Christian must show that they are truly Christian through some outward sign. A very specific outward sign, in fact: circumcision.
After dismantling this argument throughout his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul proposes his own outward sign of the Christian faith. In what has since been dubbed the “Fruit of the Spirit,” he lists several outward signs (fruit) of a life indwelled by the Spirit.
According to this list, what is the very first thing you should outwardly notice in the life of a Christian?
Love.
Maundy Thursday is a celebration of two sacred moments in the life of Jesus, both of which are wrapped in love. The name itself comes from the Latin work for command (mandatum), since Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment on this sacred Thursday:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
This new commandment is shared in two ways, both of which are celebrated each year on Maundy Thursday.
First, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. Jesus taught that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. And then he followed through by assuming the role of a household slave. Peter’s initial refusal to have his feet washed, followed by his request for Jesus to wash his entire body has always struck me as capturing my own posture towards Jesus: an oscillation between full embrace and keeping what I deem to be an appropriate distance.
After washing their feet, Jesus shares a meal with his disciples. Maundy Thursday is about foot washing, but it is also a celebration of the institution of this sacred family meal.
New Testament scholar N.T. Wright points out something about that evening that is worth considering:
When Jesus himself wanted to explain to his disciples what his forthcoming death was all about, he didn’t give them a theory, he gave them a meal.
Jesus is instituting a very specific meal in the Last Supper, one that has been celebrated every single day somewhere on the planet since the earliest days of the Christian Church. But what is true of the Lord’s Supper can also be somewhat true of each of our meals by extension. I love the prayer below, taken from Every Moment Holy, about all meals and what they can become for us:
Meet us in the making of this meal, O Lord, and make of it something more than a mere nourishment for the body.
What is true of all meals is most true of the Eucharist.
But that Thursday, and this Thursday, are about more than just a meal. When the Last Supper is revisited in 1 Corinthians, Paul reminds his readers that all of this took place “on the night in which he was betrayed.” The cross was on the horizon even as bread and wine were being shared amongst friends on the first Maundy Thursday.
The Last Supper was the beginning of the three most important days in the history of the universe, and so Maundy Thursday is the beginning of the three most important days in our Church Year.
May God use these days to equip us to live out the new commandment he first gave two thousand Thursdays ago.
Because of our sophisticated watches and our ability to schedule our days down to the minute with the push of a button, it is easy for us to misunderstand what time is and how it actually works.
Not all weeks are created equal. And this is no ordinary week.
A quick note before this edition of the newsletter: Holy Week culminates in a final service on Saturday Evening: The Easter Vigil. If you happen to be in the Dallas area this Easter, come see us at Church of the Incarnation for what I find to be the most moving of all services of the Christian Year. I will be teaching a History & Traditions class at 7pm ahead of the service, which begins at 8pm. Let me know if you plan to attend; seats fill quickly.
Because of our sophisticated watches and our ability to schedule our days down to the minute with the push of a button, it is easy for us to misunderstand what time is and how it actually works.
We tend to think of time as being evenly distributed. There are 24 hours in a day—in every day. So it seems right that any given hour or day or week must be the same length as any other hour, day, or week. More often than not it appears to us that all days are created equal.
Not only is this technically not the case universally-speaking, it is certainly not true experientially.
Some minutes last 60 seconds. Others last what feels likea lifetime.
Time can fly, or it can stand completely still.
Some things in our world take a long time to change. But your world can change in a fraction of a second.
Just over two thousand years ago there was a single seven day period of time that has proved to be the most important week in the history—and even in the future—of the universe.
And this is the week where we take that week from the past, and drop it into the present.
Holy Week is the week of all weeks.
This week contains within it all that you and I should expect to experience as Christians.
It has its false hopes. Moments, like Palm Sunday, where it seems that all has been made well, until lofty expectations give way to reality.
This week has the loneliness of Gethsemane, the betrayal of a loved one, the abandonment of friends.
But Holy Week also has its Mondays. The mundane.
Holy Week begins today, but you might not fully notice it until Thursday night. We have a relatively normal Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday ahead of us.
The mundane. False hopes. Betrayal. Loneliness.
Holy Week contains all of this.
This week, if you allow it, will take you even to the depths of sorrow as the Son of God is nailed to a cross.
But only so that you can experience the highest of joys: the defeat of death and the hope of the resurrection.
You can go about your business, maintain your standing calendar. Tomorrow can be, for you, just another Monday.
Or you can embrace this Holiest of weeks.
If you do, you can expect to experience a few things.
First, you will think things that you normally don’t think.
It is not every week that you wonder what it means for the author of life to die.
Or what your private sin has to do with the Creator of all things.
Or what really happens when all of this comes to an end.
This is a week to think about things you normally don’t think about.
But you will also feel things that you normally don’t feel.
Sin that you might normally brush off might weigh a little heavier this week.
You might resonate with Jesus—feeling at least a fraction of what he felt. Your own sorrow will find company in his.
Finally, and most importantly, if you embrace this Holy Week, you will become a little more like Jesus.
Or you will at least want to.
This is the goal of the Christian life.
Have this mind among yourselves—says St. Paul—which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
Perhaps more than anything, Holy Week reminds us that the Jesus we follow as Lord and King is also a wounded Savior.
It is easy to talk about being the hands and feet of Christ in a broken world.
It is harder to remember that those hands and feet still bear the marks of nails.
In the first century, as the persecution of Christians in Rome was growing increasingly intense under Nero, leaders in the Church convinced St. Peter to flee the city.
They could die, but surely their Apostle and Bishop needed to survive in order for the Church to continue.
As Peter made his way out of the city, he encountered Jesus, carrying a cross, making his way towards the city.
Quo vadis, domine? “Where are you going, Lord?”
“I am heading to Rome, Peter. To be crucified in your stead.”
An early Christian history called The Acts of St. Peter tells us that Peter got the message.
He returned to Rome, where he was crucified upside down.
Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus.
There are countless examples of this—some more intense, some far less—between St. Peter and our own day.
Why?
A willingness to be the crucified hands and feet of Christ is there throughout Christian history and today because of the hope of the resurrection.
Because, through Holy Week, we know that death is not the end. That we have a Lord who has gone before us, who fought the battle we could not win, even to the very depths of hell.
And that he came back.
Go to church on Maundy Thursday as Jesus shares his Last Supper with the disciples and is betrayed.
Experience Good Friday afresh, playing the part of the crowd who shouted “Crucify him.”
Embrace the quiet, dark tomb of Holy Saturday.
And then join in the Feast of the Resurrection of our Lord.
It is not convenient. It will throw a wrench in your schedule.
But Jesus is alive and ready to meet you again in new and old ways this Holy Week.
Amen.
To all those who love soccer, and to those who don’t but love someone who does.
The dedication page of Laurent Dubois’ The Language of the Game
