Forgiveness
The 630’ tall (and wide) Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO marks the time and place from which a small band of men, the Corps of Discovery, ventured across the Missouri river into an unknown, unexplored, unmapped terrain… a vast landscape of never-before documented peoples, plants, and animals. When the Lewis and Clark Expedition crossed the Missouri River, a treacherous journey that lasted more than two years and over 8,000 miles stretched westward before them. This was an enormous human achievement which completely changed the size, shape, and future of our - until then - small, still-new nation.
Interestingly, however, it seems the thousands of amazing discoveries catalogued during the Lewis and Clark expedition were so expansive, so significant, so utterly foreign … that it took nearly a half-century for the young nation to actually begin to grow westward with any real consistency. There were fur traders, of course, and occasional traders with Native American tribes, but it took time and a collective percolation of this new reality… for the effects of that exploration, to actually manifest itself in the young nation’s physical - and cultural - self-understanding. One gets the sense that our 19th century ancestors couldn’t quite assimilate all that was suddenly and wondrously opened to them… as if there was a communal questioning: “What does this mean?” “What do we do with all these amazing stories?” “What’s next?” “What now?”
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My name is Pilate, Pontius Pilate
I was, by appointment of Caesar, recently Governor of the Eastern Province of Judea. And it is my pleasure, honorable Senators of Rome, to present my report to you this day.
It seems there have been some malicious rumors floating around lately about a certain Christus who supposedly died there in Jerusalem but came back to life ---- or so people say. Furthermore, some sources blame me as the one who killed him because I am a Jew-hater.
Neither of these accusations are true. Allow me to set the record straight so these falsehoods might be stopped.
Let me give you my first-hand accounting of the actual events:
First of all – being Governor of Judea is a very difficult job. You have no idea how irascible those Jews are! Never has there ever been a people as cantankerous, excitable and rebellious!! One does not govern Judea – One sits on it! You must hold the lid on firmly –- with all your strength!
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God is Love (Easter Day sermon)
We live in such interesting and exciting times. The new wonder is artificial intelligence, and I think it holds great promise for us. I use it sometimes as a research assistant. For example, for my Bible study two weeks ago, I wanted to focus on parts of the Passion that are unique to Luke’s Gospel. I asked ChatGPT to summarize them for me, with quotes from the NRSV of the Bible, which is what we use in worship.
It gave me a list within a second or two. I’ve been studying the Bible for about 50 years now, so I could look at that list and recognize it was correct, and use it to then frame our discussion. It’s not doing my work for me, but saving time the way a calculator helps with math and helping to leverage what I already know.
I saw a news article recently about a doctor who had used AI in a similar way. He had a patient with a particular form of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome related to a particular gene. He fed the patient’s lab work and history into an AI. It suggested he look at a study that folic acid had been effective for this specific issue, and gave him a link to the study. He read it. He tried it. It worked.
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