For much of my life, I did not know my ethnic or familial background. I grew up with a single mother who battled drug and alcohol addiction for much of her life. And it was her addictions, poor health, and a lifetime of struggle that ultimately led to her unfortunate death in July 2023.
Because of my mother’s life circumstances, she never knew who my biological father was. She didn’t know his name, what he looked like, or his ethnic background. And neither did I.
Growing up, and even into adulthood now, it was always a struggle to be asked that unfortunate but fairly normal question…”What are you?”
You know the question. You know…the kind of question that might come from innocent and naive curiosity, but for someone with a family story like mine, it almost always created significant insecurity.
Well…Who am I? What am I? Where do I come from?
And for much of my life, I simply didn’t know. But then, along came technology like AncestryDNA.
Now, I always knew, because of a local United Methodist church on the corner of Park and Fisher Roads in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, that I was a child of God.
It was that church that helped save my life and gave me an alternative vision for my life. A future that didn’t have to be defined by drugs, alcohol, addiction, or overdose.
My faith taught me whose I was long before I fully understood where I came from.
But it was technology like AncestryDNA that helped me discover more about my story.
It was through that technology that I learned I’m proudly 40% West African, with deep ancestral roots in South Carolina’s Black community, and 60% Swiss…West African & Swiss, who knew!
Think about that for a moment.
A technology that can take a small sample of my saliva, analyze hundreds of thousands of genetic markers, and compare them with an enormous database of human ancestry, history, and connection…and then, spit out the answer to the question I’ve wondered much of my life.
It’s remarkable!
And I know the technology isn’t perfect. But through it, I’ve begun what will likely be a lifelong journey of discovering family members I never knew existed. Cousins. Aunts. Uncles. And perhaps one day, I’ll discover who my biological father is, or whether I have biological siblings.
Technology has helped me discover parts of my own humanity that, for much of my life, remained a mystery.
So today, I’m a proud biracial man. West African and Swiss. A husband to Hannah. A father to Lydia, with another baby girl on the way in January. A Christian. A pastor. A friend.
And I’m still discovering who I am.
It’s been my faith, technology, and the people who love me who have helped me along the way.
And here’s what I find so extraordinary about all of this.
Technology didn’t give me my identity or my worth. But it helped reveal something about the life, history, and humanity that God had already given me.
And I wonder if that’s part of our invitation as we gather here.
To recognize that the God who creates, who loves, and who brings life into being is already at work in ways we are only beginning to discover.
Which brings us to the opening words of John’s Gospel.
John, the writer of this account of the life of Jesus, begins with a story of origins, too.
Here are the words of John 1:1-5 CEB…
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word was with God in the beginning. Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being. What came into being through the Word was life, and the life was the light for all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.
John opens his Gospel by echoing the words of Genesis 1, “In the beginning,” and John is taking us back before anything was made, and he tells us that before we ever made a thing, all things came into being through the Word, and then, in Jesus, the Word became flesh.
John is immediately trying to get our attention and remind us that we are mere recipients of this thing that we call life and all of the goods of life that we call technology.
Before church buildings, in-person or online gatherings, before decisions around platforms and apps, before our plans for the future, before any of us had the remarkable capacity to send a text message around the world in seconds, before any of this…the Scripture reminds us that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…Everything came into being through the Word…Through the Word was life, and that life was the light for all people.”
Before we ever imagined, invented, or created anything, there was God. And every act of human creativity begins within a world we did not create, using gifts and possibilities we did not give ourselves. Before we had brilliant ideas, we are already held together by the Divine.
John helps us remember that…We are not at the center of this week’s conversation. The Divine. The Creator God. The Incarnate God. Love is at the center of our work this week.
This is humbling…but I actually think this gives us remarkable freedom and energy. This week, we’re free to be curious about the future, because the future does not depend entirely on our ability to imagine it, just as the entire created order was not a construct of our imagination or brilliance. Our work or invitation is to listen for the voice of the Incarnate God this week, and to learn from a community we did not create.
And this brings us to the heart of John’s gospel (vs 14)…“The Word became flesh and made his home among us.”
Flesh.
The God who created all things became one of us the Scriptures suggest. Jesus knew hunger, exhaustion, pain, joy, and love. He could become tired. He needed food and care. He lived among particular people, in a particular place, at a particular time. God didn’t remain distant from humanity. God entered into the fullness of our humanity.
The eternal Logos through whom all things came into being becomes sarx, flesh, and dwells among human beings.
We live in an extraordinary technological moment. We are exploring artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented realities, digital communities, automated systems, and technologies that can extend our presence across the planet.
We are learning to do remarkable things without physically occupying the same spaces.
Yet the central Christian claim is that God chose to become physically present within the world.
What does it mean that the God who created everything chose to become flesh in a world where we are increasingly learning to transcend the limitations of our own flesh?
Think about that.
The God who was not bound by human limitations willingly entered them.
The God who created time entered time. The God who created humanity became human.
The God who could have remained distant chose to draw near.
And perhaps there’s something here for those of us who are imagining the future of technology and the church.
Because the question isn’t simply whether our technologies can extend our presence, or expand our capacity to connect…
The question is whether all of these extraordinary possibilities are teaching us how to be more fully present to one another. And then I wonder…and I hope you’ll wonder with me this week…What are our practices and technologies cultivating within us?
We often ask what our technologies allow us to do. But I wonder if we spend enough time asking what our technologies are doing to us. Because our technologies are not simply tools we use…they are also environments and ecosystems that form us.
Do they make us more patient with people? More truthful? More willing to listen? More able to stay with someone through grief or disagreement? Do they embody a love that lingers and listens deeply, a love that makes sense for the poor, the tired, the weary, and the persons with their backs up against the wall.
Do they help people know that they are beloved and that their lives matter?
Do they move us toward our neighbors with care?
Or are they cultivating fear? Contempt? Hatred? An appetite for certainty that leaves no room for another person’s humanity?
And are we, as the leaders and co-creators of these technologies, becoming more compassionate? More generous in our spirit/personhood? More just? More like the incarnate Word, Jesus?
Our tools give us remarkable reach. We can hear someone preach from another country. We can pray with a person hundreds of miles away. We can invite people into community who have been told there is no place for them. We can engage in robust creativity with remarkably ease these days.
This is an incredible gift given to us. But what happens when our capacity to connect grows faster than our capacity to care? In the midst of all this technological progress, it’s easy to overlook the very people who make it possible.
The workers who build our devices. The communities impacted by the massive infrastructure powering our digital world. The families who can’t afford access to these technologies. And the people whose pain and suffering become someone else’s content.
Because if we’re not careful, we can become so fascinated by what technology makes possible that we forget the people God calls us to love.
Perhaps John’s invitation is to remember that our calling isn’t simply to expand our reach, but to deepen our recognition. To recognize the image of God in every person. To pay attention to the people we might otherwise overlook. And to bear witness to the light of Christ, who is already present in the world, even in places we have yet to recognize.
Because ultimately, our technology should be judged, evaluated and considered, by the love it cultivates. Our online and in-person faith communities (even our lives) should be judged by the love they cultivate.
Let me use a small example to highlight this…Christian nationalism…it has caused real harm in personal relationships, in churches, and in digital spaces. It’s part of the air we breathe in the USA today (Lord, have mercy). It can wrap the language and images of our faith around fear, exclusion, coercion, and the pursuit of power.
We know that…AI did not invent that ideology. Though, emerging technologies can make it easier to manufacture convincing messages, amplify absolutely terrible prejudices, and distribute harmful narratives at extraordinary speed. This type of technology can reinforce isolationism and tribalism and hatred globally, it can create systems that reinforce these messages when people turn to AI and emerging technologies for answers.
That matters because a message or image or app or AI thread can look impressive, it can help us move and work at significant paces while forming people to see their neighbors as threats, cultivate within us contempt for all people.
And yet, here’s what’s challenging for those of us who love to create and innovate and lead…we do not get to be the only ones who decide whether our work is cultivating love in the world.
We can talk about our intentions. We can explain what we hoped to accomplish. We can celebrate the extraordinary things we’ve created. But the people whose lives are impacted by our decisions have stories we need to hear.
The person who found belonging. The person who experienced exclusion. The neighbor whose life became more difficult because of something we created or a decision we made.
Their experiences and voices matter.
And if we’re serious about love, healing, and liberation, their stories must do more than inform our understanding. They must have the power to change our decisions, our practices, and perhaps even who gets a seat at the table where those decisions are made when it comes to technology.
And that’s difficult work. It requires humility, courage, and a willingness to hear things we didn’t expect and perhaps don’t want to hear.
Our practices and technologies and innovations should be judged by the love they cultivate.
Before any of us can show what, we built. Before we can defend a technology decision. Before we can explain why our ministry has it figured out. We are people who need the love of God, and John says that in Jesus, grace has come near.
That grace gives us the courage to examine our work honestly. So, as we enter these days together, I want us to pay attention to two things.
1. Pay attention to where the incarnate God is already at work.
We do not enter new spaces, places, or technologies to bring God where God has never been. We enter trusting that the God who became flesh is already there. Look for the signs, beautiful and wonderful signs, of the incarnate love throughout the technologies and conversations this week.
I know first-hand the beauty of technology, I’m a proud West African, Swiss man, with roots in deep the South Carolinian black community, who was raised, resides and lives in central Pennsylvania.
Pay attention to where the incarnate God is already at work bringing forth love and goodness in humanity through technology and innovation.
2. Pay attention to what is cultivating love.
Because not everything that advances technology advances humanity. And not everything that expands our reach deepens our capacity to love well.
And I wonder if there’s a challenging question for us this week.
What if our innovations and technologies are successful and impressive, and our capacity is greater than ever, but the very people we’re called to love, our neighbors, aren’t flourishing?
And perhaps even more challenging…Who gets to decide what flourishing looks like?
Is it us, the people creating and leading? Or are we willing to listen to those whose lives are most impacted by what we build? Because the measure of our innovation cannot simply be what we create, but who is flourishing because of it.
So, friends, welcome to Berkely, California…you’re an incredible group, let’s do some dreaming that is so bold where we image new possibilities.
But let’s never become so fascinated by what our technologies can do that we forget the people we’re called to love. Because the Word became flesh and made home among us.
And may our work help make that same love more visible in the world, both in the digital and physical space. Or, as we’re calling it this week…phygital!
Amen.