Christmas Eve gathers us from many different places. Some of us have been walking through this Advent series together. Others are here simply because it’s Christmas—because the lights are on, the songs are familiar, and for a brief moment, it feels good to be among people who are celebrating.
Wherever you come from tonight, we all share something in common: the sense that the world is changing faster than we can fully understand, and that it’s not always clear whether what we are building is making us more connected—or more distant from one another.
Over the past few weeks, our congregation has dug a little deeper into the world of Artificial Intelligence. Speaking of fast-moving change, new developments and their consequences are coming at us faster than our moral maturity can manage. Regardless of our readiness, more and more of modern life is shaped by tools designed to imitate human intelligence and decision-making.
These systems promise efficiency, insight, and control, yet they also raise a deeper question: What happens when our creations begin to shape us?
As we’ve discovered in our exploration of AI ethics, technology is never neutral. It reflects human values, priorities, and assumptions—and if we are not careful, it can quietly redefine what we mean by wisdom, attention, and even care. The ethical challenge is not simply whether our tools work, but whether they help us remain fully human.
Christmas tells a very different story about power and progress.
Let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God.
1 John 4:7-12
In Luke’s Gospel, God does not enter the world as a system, an idea, or a solution to be implemented. God comes as a child—born into vulnerability, dependent on human care, with no place prepared to receive him. “There was no room for them in the inn,” Luke tells us, yet heaven still breaks into the ordinary world with good news of great joy for all people.
Where human systems fail to make space, God chooses presence instead.
This is the heart of our hope. God does not stand outside the world we are building, waiting for us to get it right. God enters it. In Jesus, God takes on flesh—real, fragile, embodied life—and redeems humanity from the inside.
If God is willing to dwell within human limits, then nothing truly human is beyond redemption: not our relationships, not our fears, and not even the tools we create. What we make does not have to replace love; it can be reclaimed and reshaped by it.
That is why we celebrate Christmas, even in uncertain times. Tonight, we are reminded that meaning is not found in optimization or control, but in presence. Emmanuel—God with us—meets us exactly where we are.
Our invitation is simple: receive this gift. Be present with one another. Choose connection over distraction, flesh-and-blood love over distance, and carry this quiet truth with you into the days ahead:
God is with us, and that is more than enough.
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This is a reminder that we publish a weekly newsletter called the Circuit Rider. You can request this publication by email by sending a request to FlintAsburyUMC@gmail.com, or let us know when you send a message through our website. We post an archive of past editions on our website under Connect – choose Newsletters.
Pastor Tommy
Dr. Mark Coeckelbergh, AI Ethics. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2020. (ISBN 9780262538190).