The Sermon

This is a copy of the manuscript from this morning’s talk on Relocation. I really enjoyed our conversations, and would invite us to use this forum to continue the conversations.

I want to talk about the issue of relocation. I want to also talk about becoming. Because the two are interconnected in a way that is, in a way, mysterious. To further befuddle the matter, I want to talk about the incarnation, that is, the act of God becoming human, in the form of Jesus Christ. One might say that these three things are completely unrelated. One might be right is saying that. But, if you’ll bear with me for just a few minutes, I hope that I can create enough of a web of thought to entangle our imaginations in the ideas of relocation, becoming and the incarnation.
The other day, I was reading an article in a technical magazine about robots. Not just robots in factories that make cars, but actual robots that perform household duties. Our very own Rosie’s being tested, built and developed in labs across the world. In one such lab, at the University of Genoa in Italy, they are taking a different approach to the issue of creating help robots. Instead of programming a robot to understand certain scenarios, like emptying the dishwasher, or picking up a stapler, they are instead programming their robot, named RobotCub, to learn by observing and following the actions of it’s master. This is the exact same way that humans learn from one another. As children, we looked to our parents for how to interact with the world, and then we mimicked them. If they would move a chair, we would throw out our hands and move the one next to theirs. Parents often have to be careful around “impressionable ears” for this very reason. Children grow and learn by observation, be it a tiger cub or a human toddler. The “parents” of RobotCub were basing their experiments in artificial intelligence on this very common natural learning method. They found that in order for RobotCub to learn that it had to have the same features of it’s master. RobotCub has to have two hands, ten fingers and two opposable thumbs if it is going to mimic the way in which it’s master stacks cubes one on top of another. In order for us to learn from our fathers and mothers, we must look like them. There has to be something in common between these scientists and RobotCub if they are to interact and purport meaningful change.
What the Italian scientists are banking on in their research is the natural way in which a parent teaches a child to learn through interaction. What they realized is that this phenomenon works throughout all of nature, and that it requires similarity of parent and child. A common ground and substance must be shared if lasting change is to happen.
As I was reading this article on artificial intelligence, my heart became warm as I recognized that this story of science was reinforcing my journey of faith on the topic of relocation. In our spiritual walk we have a similar story. We are all created in the image of God. We are told in scripture that we are formed in our Creator’s image. We can find similarities, which allow us to find common ground with God in order that we may learn. Our master, like RobotCub’s master, has created us in such a way that we can relate and mimic behavior in order that we may grow and become a people pleasing to our Lord.
But we are not just made in the image of God. The central part of the story between God and creation is the coming of God into creation through Jesus. We call this the incarnation. At Christmas time we celebration this phenomenon and we call this child Emmanuel, God with us. Eugene Peterson, in his adaptation of the bible, states that God moved into the neighborhood. This is a lovely thought and central to the idea of relocation. In order to make effective change, God chose to draw close and move into the neighborhood. Proximity was a key issue for Christ. Part of relocation is proximity. But I think there is more to it.
You see, when God came to be near us, he chose to take on flesh. He became one of us. In the story of the incarnation we have something drastically different than that lab in Genoa, Italy. Not only did the father make his children in his image, but with Christ, God took on the image of humanity. God now had two hands, eight fingers and two opposable thumbs. It wasn’t enough to simply draw near, but God chose to teach us, and save us, by becoming one of us. And in a sense, this is almost more powerful than simply drawing close.
In the Old Testament we have stories of God drawing close to his people in all his glory. It was always a little to intense for his people. They would be overcome with the power and the differences of God, rather than find the common substance. Maybe that’s why Jesus came in the form of man.
What does this mean for us on our own journeys of reconciliation and relocation? I think it means that it is not simply enough to move. That’s important, but we must also become. While we already share physical characteristics, our hearts might be unwilling to open to the others surrounding us and move into commonality with them. One of the core values of being a Christian Community Development church is this idea of relocation. This does not mean that everyone in this room will be required to go home and put a for sale sign in their front yard. It does, however, require everyone in this room to open our hearts wide enough to identify with the other, find value in them, and recognize that part of our own becoming will move us in humanity towards them. Just like it did with Christ. Even though God created us in his image, he was not above taking on our image as a means of drawing near. Most of us in this room currently are middle class. As we seek to draw near to the poor, we must come with the same humility, willing to have equality with our neighbor, by allowing ourselves to become like them.