Come to set us free

Fr Richard Healey discusses the limitations of artificial intelligence compared to human wisdom, particularly in interpreting texts. Reflecting on the book of Deuteronomy and Moses’ insights, the speaker explores the human desire for wisdom and certainty. The episode centers on Jesus as the authoritative figure who speaks with profound wisdom, inviting people to a life of unity and freedom. The speaker concludes by urging the congregation to discern Jesus’ voice of love and mercy, allowing it to guide them away from darkness and towards the life God intends for them.

(00:00:00) – I suspect that one of the things that the current decade will be known for the development of so-called artificial intelligence. It’s an extraordinary thing. You know, these large language models that are being used now to be able to manipulate all kinds of information, to generate information, to generate images. And but I to call it intelligence that at this point is, you know, is a bit suspect because it’s it’s not really yet embodying what we understand of, of what it is to actually ponder, to bring wisdom to a subject. I think that’s the thing that’s still lacking in anything that is, is generated simply by programming, by any attempts to to manipulate information and language. The ability that we have as humans is quite extraordinary. You know, whenever we read anything, whenever we read a text, there’s already an interpretation that happens, you know, as we simply draw the words together, as we make sense about what those particular words mean when they’re gathered into that particular order or the significance of that sentence. And then we bring those different sentences together into the paragraph and begin to kind of think about, well, what does that mean? And we think about how that fits with the rest of our life.

(00:01:28) – And we think about different situations that might have occurred to us and how this bit of information kind of matches something else that we’ve learnt earlier, and how that particular word might have different meanings, and it might have significance because we’ve heard it in another context and another conversation, and we bring all of that together in order to make sense of, of a text. And that is really that experience of interpretation. You know, we don’t just use the black and white words simply as they are. There’s always this process of kind of drawing from things and making sense of this. You know, whenever a priest gets up to spout whatever it is I’m spouting right now, that we do exactly the same thing. It is this process of interpretation, of speaking, probably not with the authority that Jesus has in the gospel today. But we bring our own experience, and we bring the best of what we’ve learned over the years to, to birth within this particular context. And that’s what this wisdom we, we really strive for.

(00:02:40) – That’s what the longing that we saw in our first reading in the book of Deuteronomy, the fifth of the books of the Torah, the the first five books of Moses, that they’re remembering what it would have been like if, when Moses gathered the whole assembly of the people there on the the edge of the Holy Land, they finally made their way after the 40 years or so of wandering through the wilderness, and they finally on the precipice, they gathered on the far side of the Jordan River. And they’re about to to cross the river and to take possession of the land that they will call their own, the land of the promise. And so this Moses, you know, gathers the people, and the book of Deuteronomy happens in real time. It’s envisaged as a single episode, a speech, as it were. I simply delivered in one sitting. As Moses kind of ponders with them, he reflects back on their experiences. And there’s this deep longing that is there, because Moses understood this impulse of God to call a people, to gather a nation together, and to have this intimacy of friendship and relationship with God.

(00:03:56) – But he was also aware of the dysfunction, also aware of their tendency to turn away, to grumble, to complain, to worship other gods, to to hunger for things that had happened in the past, to go back to the fleshpots of Egypt, to go back to a place where at least there was some certainty, even though they were slaves, even though they’d lost all their freedom. And so Moses, in calling them and inviting them to remember and to reflect, also points forward to the possibility, you know, what would it be like if there was someone who was so united to the voice of God that they’re able to speak with this absolute authority? They were able to invite us into that very intimacy with the life of God. What would that have been like? It’s a beautiful reflection that Moses offers to us, and it’s an invitation that when the composers and the writers of the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. In a kind of continued to ponder, well, where is this person? Where is this one who will be able to invite us into the life and the mercy of God? Where is this teaching that has that same authority that we heard when Moses spoke? Where is the one that was able to bring us together? And it’s not until this day in the synagogue when Jesus, like any Jewish person, was able, after the scribes, had already broken open the given text from the Torah of the day, Jesus took his place and began to speak.

(00:05:39) – We don’t know what it was, he said. We don’t know whether it was a sermon like the sermon on the Mount, whether it was something like that, where he was able to remind them. “You’ve heard it said, as Moses has said in the old… But I say to you…” It seems to be one of the characteristics of the voice of Jesus to offer this new interpretation, this new way of experiencing the kindness and the mercy of God. And as he spoke, they were amazed. As he spoke, they were astounded. This is so often the case in the gospel of Mark, those words that the people are astonished, the people are astounded. The people are amazed by what they see in the person of Jesus. Because he speaks like the scribes, he speaks with this profound authority because what he says we feel in the depths of our heart is coming true. It’s this wisdom that is able to be given birth within our lives. I can’t quite do that. Nothing that is short of the majesty of God is able to stir us.

(00:06:47) – In that same way, when we experience what it is to hear and to encounter the wonders of God’s love. So for us, let’s indeed allow that voice of the Lord, the voice of Jesus, to speak with that same authority over our own lives. We all got areas of darkness, all got areas of sin, all got areas of that same dysfunction that this evil spirit represents. And the Lord will invite us with that same authority to come out, to be quiet, to not listen to the voices of the lies. Do not listen to all those voices that confuse us, that threaten us, those voices that divide us. We need to listen instead to the voice that will call us into unity. Call us into life. Call us into freedom. Because that’s what the voice of the Lord is always inviting us into. It’s a simple way to discern whether this is a voice that is from the flesh of the devil, whatever, or the voice of the Lord. The voice of the enemy will always be about dividing.

(00:07:58) – It will always be about tearing down. It will always be the voice of shame. It will always be the voice of reminding us of all the things we’ve done wrong, all the ways we’ve stuffed it up and got it wrong. In the past. All of the times that we’ve hurt someone. All the times that we’ve heard ourselves. But the voice of God, the voice of Jesus, is a radically different voice. Jesus never locks us in shame. He never tells us about all the evil that is present. He reminds us of the victory on Calvary. He’s forgiven our sins. He’s provided us the opportunity to receive mercy and to find freedom. And the voice of Jesus is always quiet, but always powerful, because it’s that same voice of authority that’s calling us into freedom and into life. So today, let’s allow the voice of Jesus to speak with authority. Let’s be astonished. But let’s not stay in that astonishment. Let’s allow the voice of love to call us into freedom, to call us into life, and to allow us to experience what God is inviting us into today.

(00:09:07) – That place where we can experience that absolute freedom, and that place where we can be in unity and we can be together, and we can be the people that God has invited us to be today.