"Common Grounds" - Romans 12:1-8 - August 23, 2026

I Googled this passage this week so that I could look through it and think about my sermon.

I came up with a nice little summary on the top of the search results in Google.

You know, Gemini is like the AI part of Google, and it was able to tell me, based on this AI search, the major themes of this passage, even though I didn't ask it for that.

AI is everywhere now, right?

Are you wondering what some of those themes might be?

Well, the first theme is living sacrifice.

Offer your everyday life to God as an act of worship.

Mind renewal, do not copy this world, but let God change how you think.

Humility, do not think you are better than others.

Judge yourself with sober truth.

And one body.

Believers are like parts of one body with different jobs and different gifts.

Use your specific gift like teaching, serving, giving, or leading with a sincere heart.

So that was the summary that came up.

I studied religion in college and I went to seminary for four years, learning Greek and Hebrew to accurately translate a passage.

But apparently all I needed was an AI summary on Google.

In reality, these themes of Romans 12 don't necessarily need to be summarized by AI because they're fairly clear.

The wording of a lot of that summary was a bit odd.

But I will admit, sometimes I use AI to get started on a sermon or do some research or spark ideas for themes and series and help with grammar.

Because while AI is very much becoming integrated in how we explore the world these days.

Many people even use it to make decisions.

Which book should I read next?

Or how do I make my iPhone into a dumb phone?

One that my husband searched incessantly this week to find out how to turn his smartphone into a dumb phone.

Or give me instructions for a good skincare routine.

That was my daughter's search this week on Chat GPT.

But many are beginning to use it both in place of interactions with other people and to help with interactions with other people.

The New York Times had a guest essay this week from Alice Lassman, an economist and author of The Intimacy Economy, and it was called AI Will Affect Your Social Life, Yes, Yours.

She's been exploring how people use AI in their relationships, and she's not talking about AI girlfriends, so that gets a little bit creepy.

But in conversations with Gen Zers, especially, she's seeing that people are relying emotionally on AI more than we realize.

She's been working on a book about the topic and she's been talking to different people about it.

And while Gen Z folks do have full social lives, they're often used chatbots to help them think about their relationships more clearly and deliberately, forming the scaffolding of their decision making and encouraging breakups, even, de-escalating arguments.

Many feel a lot more comfortable talking about their feelings to Chat GPT before sharing those feelings with another person.

Intrusive thoughts can then be nullified through all of that.

And then friends are just there for lightness and laughter.

What friends are for, right?

Lightness and laughter.

She interviewed a psychotherapist of all people named Mike Jesscoat, who says he prefers to do his spiritual and emotional processing alone and with a chatbot rather than share challenging emotions with friends.

Who can and will be truthful?

He wonders.

Hold space and be confident with one's confusing subconscious content.

Now AI still definitely holds some taboos to it, not just for the environmental issues, which is a whole nother thing, but nobody really wants to admit that they're using it for these intimate purposes.

It's one thing to ask for help writing a cover letter for a resume or a Facebook post to advertise something, but asking for a letter to break up with somebody or to help draft an email to not hurt someone's feelings in the process, we don't want to admit that we can't really reach that deeply into ourselves anymore.

And it is going to affect relationships in every direction.

If we can't fully be ourselves with another person, then how can we truly have a relationship with them?

Do we notice when other people are starting to withdraw because of this technology?

Or are we grateful that we don't have to have those deep conversations anymore?

Now, Paul, of course, when he wrote this letter to the Romans, had no concept of artificial intelligence, but they had their own issues going on in that community.

There's a reason the saying is, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, because the culture of Rome was prevalent not only in the city but in the empire.

And people were doing what they could to fit in.

Whether that was by dress or parties or the way they eat, the way they sacrifice and practice religiously, it was hard not to conform to what everybody else was doing.

Now the early church in Rome consisted of people who were part of the Jewish culture, but also many Gentiles and pagans who were having to completely adapt their way of life to become Christian.

In the same manner, in the culture of Rome, Jews and Jewish Christians were being kicked out of life in the town.

So we imagine that they were looked down upon by many of the Gentile Christians.

The conflict became that many Jewish Christians thought that the Gentiles should be more Jewish, and the Gentiles didn't think that the Jewish customs mattered anymore now that Jesus came and changed it all.

This created a lot of conflict within the church in Rome and elsewhere.

And Paul was encouraging both sides that the main thing to be concerned about instead was representing Jesus, about transforming yourself as a result of your faith and sacrificing each day.

Really, it's about becoming who you're meant to be as a child of God, while remembering that those around you are also children of God.

In this realization, Paul reminds each of them that each person in the church is a valuable representative of Christ, and that each person is there for a particular purpose.

The gifts of the body of Christ mean that when people come together with their particular gifts, it shines the light of Christ all that much more.

I think all these articles that I've been reading, and many of us have probably been reading, about AI and the dangers that it holds for our community, are easy to read and just feel really hopeless about the future.

But what it really shows us is a need for grace.

Much like the people of the Roman Church needed.

People are reaching out to AI because people are desperate for connection and understanding in a way that in reality they can't get with AI, but they can get the surface of it.

Because that's where you need human love and acceptance instead.

AI provides an optimism, optimization of one's shortcomings, but not absolution or healing.

The need for grace or even just non-reactive listening seems like it'll only keep growing in our culture.

And to the extent weakness and fault are banished more and more from the social sphere, the role of the gospel and the church becomes even more sharply highlighted in its absolute distinctiveness.

The promise of being fully known and simultaneously fully loved is what people need the most.

Being perfected in Christ means that you're aware of the gifts that you've been given and that others have been given.

I think that when we are truly connected with other people who are so desperate for connection, who may be very different from us and have very different needs than us, that's what makes the body of Christ so beautiful.

We can reach a common ground while being true to who we are in Christ and not conforming to the world.

When we do not think of ourselves higher than others and instead think with a clear head, one that we have been given because we are fully known and fully loved, we may be able to work together in this ever-changing world to make God's love known.

Love of God, knowledge of self, and care for our neighbors are all challenges that this passage addresses.

And we're still dealing with how to do that today.

So invite us as we go from here to know that we are fully loved, to know that we are fully known.

To know that love of God so that the other too will follow.

We will love our neighbors and we will know ourselves as well.

It's all that easy and it's all that hard.

Amen.