"Being Human" | Nathan LeRud | February 18, 2024

A member of this year's Catechesis class emailed Beth Ferguson, one of our Catechesis mentors, last week. She was asking "what's what's the deal with Lent?" Like what is Lent? And Beth's answer was great - she found a description in the Episcopal Church online dictionary (that's a thing). She sent it to me like "is this is this an okay explanation?" and it was great, of course, because Beth knows what she's doing. But I've been thinking about this question: what is the deal with Lent? So I asked my favorite new toy ChatGPT to explain Lent to me in the voice of RuPaul, the host of RuPaul's Drag Race. ChatGPT can do this, right? This is an open AI large language model neural network, and here's what it had to say. Oh honey, let me spill the tea on Lent. Lent is like a spiritual slaycation where you give up something fierce for 40 days and 40 nights, mama. It's a time to work on your soul, honey, to serve some realness by fasting or sacrificing something that's holding you back, like carbs or shade. You feel me? During Lent, you can snatch those bad vibes away and get your spiritual glow up on fleek, hunty. Grab your Bible, work that prayer circle, and let let Lent be your time to shine bright like a diamond, darling. Technology is moving faster and faster every minute, and it's a little bit terrifying that this is something now that I can do from the pulpit of Trinity Cathedral. There's a way in which Jesus did this first, this 40-day Wilderness Retreat that he goes on right after his baptism. Mark gives us the least amount of detail. Matthew and Luke, when they tell this story, go into a lot more detail. There are versions of the story of Jesus in the wilderness where we get the devil come coming to tempt, Satan, you know turn these stones into bread, throw yourself off the pinnacle of the temple in order to prove how powerful you are. But Mark, the earliest Gospel, the one we heard this morning, Mark doesn't give us any of those fun temptation details. All that Mark says is he was in in the wilderness for 40 days. He was tempted by Satan. He was with the wild beasts. I love that detail. We're going to hear a spiritual in a minute that suggests that Jesus had to face his trial by himself and I want to say, not to argue back with the spiritual, but he was not by himself. He had fluffy the wild beast there with him and angels, so you know, not a bad gig. But every year following this this original 40-day renunciation tradition, every year, I would look for something in the season of Lent following Christian tradition that I could meaningfully renounce for 40 days. Almost as a as a kind of experiment to see what I might learn about myself in the process. The traditional stuff is alcohol or chocolate. There are people that go vegetarian in Lent. The closest that I ever came to the Lenten austerity diet was the year that I gave up cinnamon rolls, which incredibly, I used to eat every single morning of my life when I was in college. You know how you can do that when you're in college? The dining hall at the college I went to had these big honkin' things covered with this glaze. It was the best part of my day. So one year I renounced them during Lent, and I had to walk past that cinnamon roll station every gosh darn morning. It was the best reminder of my Lenten discipline that I could hope for. And then on Easter Sunday, right, after a 40-day fast from cinnamon rolls, I finally got to taste one again, and it was a glorious experience. I mean no cinnamon roll has ever tasted that good. And no Lent has ever been that good for me, since the year I gave up cinnamon rolls. Inevitably, I'll get a couple weeks into this thing and whatever my Lenton discipline, whatever I'm renouncing that year, it's pretty well dropped away, forgotten like a dead man out of mind. Last year, I attempted to give up my smartphone for Lent. I had grown increasingly aware of how much time I was spending on this little 3 inch by 6 inch bit of plastic and metal, the computer I carry in my pocket. It was like I felt like I wasn't able to just just sit and be anymore. It's like if I had even 5 seconds of downtime, my instinct was to pull this thing out of my pocket and distract myself, whether it was checking text messages or Instagram or Facebook or some dating app. It was like my my whole life, my work, my family, my creativity, my God, my prayer, my love, and sex– all of my entire life had migrated onto this little computer that I carry around with me all the time, like a- like a second self. And I wasn't sure that I liked that. More to the point of of Lent, I wondered if it was getting in the way between me and God. As Ru says, it was time to serve some realness, hunty. So I hacked my phone. I hacked my phone so that it would only receive calls. No apps, no email, nothing to distract me. And part of why I wanted to take this on last year was because of the gentle and loving pushback that we were getting from a few of you around these online leaflets we had developed for Sunday morning here in the cathedral. I wanted to prove, if only to myself, that you you can actually make it through an entire Sunday morning at the Cathedral without once referring to an Internet-connected device. It wasn't easy, but it was possible. Between a hymnal and a seasonal, a printed seasonal leaflet, it can be done. And then two weeks into the season, I had to get on a plane and fly to Florida for a church conference. And basically what I learned is that being able to renounce a cell phone for 40 days and go analog is a privilege that not everybody can afford. You almost can't fly anymore without a device, right? I mean theoretically it can be done, but not easily. It was a little fun at the outse. I actually got to have a printed plane ticket, which I haven't carried around with me in a decade or better. I got on the plane, everybody's like pulling up their iPads and everything, like, to watch their shows, and I had my like New Yorker magazine. And I settled in with a with a sense of moral superiority, thinking, oh well here I am going analog. But as soon as I landed, I realized there was no way I was going to be able to participate in this conference, I mean much less check into my hotel, without a device. I couldn't even- like, I had to like pull up Uber in order to get a car to the hotel. I couldn't even unlock the door to my hotel room without downloading the virtual key on the app on my phone. I mean, you get the idea, right? So I'm struggling with this thing, realizing like, I have to- I have to have a device to do this conference. What is- what does that say about our world? And I was walking along the beach one morning, I had my phone with me in my pocket because it felt irresponsible to wander off in a town I'd never been to before without something tethering me to the- I was thinking about my mother, right? Like don't you dare leave your phone at home, I want to know where you are. And so I'm wrestling with this with this project, with what I came to realize in some ways was my most intimate relationship, the relationship that I have developed over the past 15 years with the computer I carry in my pocket. And up ahead of me there was a- there was a small group gathered on on the beach. They were pointing, looking out over the ocean, and a woman waved me over and she said there's a- there's a dolphin out there! You can see him jumping in the waves! And there he was, right, this beautiful creature remarkably close to the beach, like one of the- like one of the wild beasts ministering to Jesus in this in this story. Maybe he was an angel, I don't know. My first instinct of course is to like pull out my phone and take a picture. And I was like no, I'm not doing that, and you can't get a picture of a dolphin anyway, that was kind of a foolish mission. But my second thought was, oh there's a sermon here. So I pulled out my phone and I started making notes on the Notes app about the sermon, until I realized: Nathan, you're making notes about a sermon when you could be watching a freaking dolphin in the waves. How much of the world's wildness are you missing staring down at your damn device? Then I had to figure out a way to get back to the hotel so I pulled out Apple Maps and let it walk me back to my hotel. And you know, I was thinking about it on the way back right like I can't survive St. Petersburg without a phone, you know, like I need this thing. And you know, I probably could, right? I could- could survive on printed maps, I could do what I did in college, I could print off turn by turn directions from Mapquest before I leave the house. I remember doing that every time I would go somewhere. I could go- I could go even more lite: I could just figure it out. I could talk to people. I could go by instinct. I mean humans have figured this out before. My ancestors threw their stuff in covered wagons and rolled across a continent. They also never took off their underwear. Like, they bathed once a year, most of them were dead by the time they were 40. Let's not romanticize some kind of technology-free past, let's not pretend that things were better or purer or more honest or more humane back before we had access to this technology that allows us to connect with one another in ways that were I mean unimaginable even a decade ago. What I learned is that I I can't really do my job without a cell phone, basically what I discovered. And it- and it created in me a kind of a deeper sense of gratitude, actually, for this technology that allows me to live my life in a way that was unimaginable for some of my predecessors. It's not perfect. In five minutes it's all going to change again. You'll probably have some AI device with a collar come to say prayers with you in a hospital. If ChatGPT can give you RuPaul explaining Lent to you, I mean, who knows what this thing is capable of. I don't want to depend on a device, but I do depend on a device. I don't want to be enslaved to my device. I want it to do what it is designed to do: to make things easier and smoother, more expedient, maybe more fun. Technology, though, becomes demonic when I let it take control, when I let it become my functional God, when I let it seduce me into forgetting actually what it means to be human. I mean an online bulletin accessed on a cell phone is like the least of my concerns, right? The Devil comes to Jesus in his lowest moment and says, look, you know things can be easier, you have power, you're the Son of God. And essentially what Jesus says is, no, I choose to be a human being. I choose to be a human, fallible, frail limited body. I choose to be a body in relationship to God. So like Jesus in the wilderness, I find myself these days longing for places where I can practice this this different way of being human. I made it two and a half weeks with a dumb phone. I'm really thankful to Steve Jobs and everybody else who made it possible for me to have a computer that I carry in my pocket. The future is here, and at the same time, I don't want to just be another passive consumer. So I found myself seeking places: movie theaters, the symphony hall, places where I can practice a certain kind of gentle resistance, right? For a couple hours, I switch off my phone. You can't put it on silent because it still buzzes. I have to put it on like airplane mode or just turn the dang thing off. And when I do that, I get to remind myself what it feels like just to be a body in a room, breathing the same air as everybody else, participating in a shared experience. It changes how I engage. I listen a little more deeply. I pay attention to the people around me. Funny movies are funnier when there's people laughing around you, moving moments are so much more effective when the person next to you is wiping away tears. We are not individuals tied to our devices, we're social beings connected to one another through our shared experiences. And I think I'm only speaking for myself here, I crave those experiences now in a way that I never did before. Maybe that's the the natural corollary to being stuck inside my house for two years unable to breathe the same air as you for fear of contagion. But I want roomsm I want peoplem I want to sing hymns in four-part harmony. When Nicholas plays that organ, I want to feel it in my body, not just listen to it through my headphones – although the mics that we've got up there right now are pretty good, so those of you who are at home, right, you're welcome. It's not quite the same experience as feeling the floor shake when Nicholas hits the bass notes, but it's a close second. When I come to church, I want to practice this older more ancient way of being human. I think that's actually what Lent is for. So I'm not giving up my iPhone this year, not for 40 days anyway. I'm going to try to do without it on Sundays, though, because my experience is that church is one of the best places to practice this this different way of being human. We might say the original way of being human bodies in a room together, breathing the same air and praying. It's a little trickier for some of us, for Shana and VJ, they're going to have to, like, be on their devices next week to read the prayers that are coming in from our livestream, because that's the other side of this thing. Quite honestly, the reason why I'm- I'm really resisting like going full-on luddite and saying technology is a temptation from the devil to be avoided – I don't actually believe that. And part of it is actually because of the experience that we're having now on Sunday mornings. Because people that I love dearly are worshipping With us online right now. There are like 120 of them out there, and they're dependent on devices, right? Maybe it's a a computer, an iPad, I mean some of you have figured out how to how to stream this to your TV. Or maybe you're like Doug and Liz Capps, you're like pulling up the bulletin on your phone and you are singing along, actually singing the hymns with us in your living room. Maybe you're like you're like Mary Cecilia or Barbara Blakeley, unable to physically be in the community you love, but instead serving as this incredible virtual welcoming committee every single week on Facebook, There are so many of you participating in what we're doing right now because of technology, because of the internet, because of these little computers that we carry around in our pockets. They are not Satan. These things are miraculous. And sometimes it's healthy to get a little bit of distance between yourself and a miracle. Miracles require a little bit of discipline in order to experience authentically. So if like me you are also feeling a little bit overwhelmed, a little bit unsettled by the amount of time you spend on the computer you carry in your pocket, I invite you to join me for these next five or six Sundays between now and Easter in a different kind of Lenten discipline, at least in church. We've got these these fun little canvas bags in the back, you can get them there, you can give your cell phone a Sabbath, just as you take one for yourself. Turn it off, give it a break, let it sleep for a minute. And then when you turn it on, like, thank it for everything that it does for you. These things are miracles, and I don't think we have to go full-on luddite and reject modern technology with all of its– all of its dangers, all of its conveniences. Historically, Anglicans, Episcopalians – we're the ones who have been more comfortable engaging, you might say, an impure, morally ambiguous, complicated, plugged-in, political world. We don't do purity culture around here, right? There's not black and white, good and evil, unambiguous moral posturing. That **** is boring, and it does not contribute, I don't think, to the formation of responsibly ethical adults who are able and equipped to engage a complicated technological world with compassion and savvy and mercy and justice. We don't have the privilege of keeping our hands unstained by this stuff, not these days. Our world is too messy and it's moving too fast for that. I invite you therefore in the name of the church to the observance of a holy lent, by prayer and self-examination, by self-examination and repentance, by prayer, fasting, and self-denial, and by reading and meditating on God's Holy Word, may we be prepared to enter the deep mystery of Easter with a deeper knowledge of ourselves, our foibles, and our follies, our frustrations and our failures. May we come to know how deeply we are loved, how deeply we are capable of loving, how connected we are in this weird and wonderful world of created devices, both flesh and plastic, microchip and mitochondria. All of the devices and desires of our our fragile hearts, hearts that first created technology, right? It's the human heart.

It is miraculous and impure, but good.