Sermon
I just finished reading a really good book. I wrote this sermon using an illustration from the book, but I really wrestled with giving so much of the book away in order to make my point. I couldn't decide what to leave out, so I finally decided that the only way not to spoil it was to not tell you which book it's from! Maybe you can tell from what I describe, but leaving out the title was the best I could do. You'll have to ask me, or read the footnotes in the print version of this.
In this beautiful dystopian science fiction novel, the author introduces us to a world where many children have an Artificial Friend. An Artificial Friend isn't an imaginary friend. Artificial Friends are real, everyone can see them, and they are built to be so sensitive to the child's needs that they see to it that the child is constantly happy, improving, and has social needs met. Klara is an Artificial Friend owned by a young girl named Josie. An artist friend of Josie's family, Mr. Capaldi, is supposedly painting a portrait of Josie for the family. But there's a twist. It turns out that instead of painting a portrait that will look just like Josie, he is attempting to replace Josie with a permanent version – an Artificial Friend version, in case of Josie's death. This version you see, will never die. Having lost another child, Josie's mother has entered into this bargain tentatively with Mr. Capaldi. Being a particularly bright and sensitive Artificial Friend, Klara has learned so much about Josie that Mr. Capaldi attempts to use Klara's knowledge of Josie to build a replacement Josie.
Here is Klara reflecting on why the plan to replicate Josie would not have worked [parenthetical emphases mine for speaking]:
“Mr. Capaldi believed there was nothing special inside Josie that couldn't be continued [replicated in a permanent way]. He told the Mother [Josie's mother] he'd searched and searched and found nothing like that. But I believe now he was searching in the wrong place. There was something very special, but it wasn't inside Josie. It was inside those who loved her. That's why I think now Mr. Capaldi was wrong and I wouldn't have succeeded. So I'm glad I decided as I did.”1
There was something special about Josie that could only be found inside those who loved her.
Just imagine then how powerful our relationships are to our very identity. Not just because they help us relate to others and ourselves, but because of the actual relationship. How much I love you makes you who you are. How much you love someone actually adds to who they are. It's like having another appendage!
Coming off of the memorial for Ellen Kross on Tuesday, and seeing and feeling all of those people who loved Ellen, witnessing to her life of love, this statement of Klara's took my breath away. What if that most special, irreplaceable unique thing about Ellen can only be found inside those who loved her? That's you! The special thing about Chris can only be found inside those who loved her. That's you. The special thing about Freda can only be found inside those who loved her. And so on. It's not just memories of people and events that make our loved ones live on in us – it's the very real one on one relationship we had that is still here, in us, now.
I believe that what Mr. Capaldi was trying to do was replicate the exact imprint of Josie's very being. Even Klara, an Artificial Intelligent being knew that there was no way for we humans to replicate exactly the love that lives inside of us.
Only God can.
Leap with me, if you will, back to our scripture for this morning for the mystery of how it relates. We read this morning that God used to speak to us through apostles and prophets but now God speaks to us through a Son, who is “the exact imprint of God's very being.” Only God can replicate the love God has for us into God's Son, Jesus, who lives in us. We who love and follow Jesus and know the love of God, through Jesus, actually have the exact imprint of God's very being in our hearts. A former pastor used to say, “God loves you and there's nothing you can do about it.” This imprint of God's very being is what leads us, guides us, teaches us. Teaches us how to be loving and generous, have empathy, how to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly. Our behavior and our interactions and our decisions reflect that exact imprint. When we act based on our love of God in Christ, I believe that the love of Christ travels along our actions like a stow away. The motivation behind our actions make a difference to how our actions are taken.
The writer of Hebrews quotes psalm 8 when he writes, 'What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels;” and then reminds us that even Jesus who is that exact imprint of God's very being, even “Jesus, [who] for a little while was made lower than the angels.”
Why would God care so much for us? Why would God allow Jesus to be one of us, also made lower than angels, and suffer and die? Because of love. When God sent Jesus he sent us an exact imprint of his very self to live in us. And I am not using a human pronoun he/his. It is that love that cannot be found in any other. That love relationship we have with Jesus is something that belongs only to us. The love we have for Christ is unlike the love anyone else has for Christ. It can't be duplicated or replicated. We are unique because of that love. Klara knew something about irreplaceable love. Thanks to God in Christ, so do we.
Amen.
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1 Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun