Sermon from Ash Wednesday + February 14, 2024 + Pr. Craig Mueller
Justin Harrison believes that grief is not inevitable. That you never have to say goodbye. That through technology we can tell death: not today.
In his thirties, Justin was in a near-fatal motorcycle accident that made him confront his mortality. Two months later, Justin’s mother, Melody—his best friend—was diagnosed with stage four cancer. She was given three to nine months to live.
Justin was determined. He found a doctor who would perform a complicated Whipple surgical procedure, which extended Melody’s life by three years. During this time Justin set up cameras and microphones to film his mother and record her life story so he would have these memories to turn to when she was gone. But soon Justin realized he wanted more: he wanted an ongoing relationship with his mother. Beyond death.
So Justin turned to artificial intelligence. He took all the recordings, and five years of text messages, 2,800 pages worth! He created a digital audio representation of his mother. Now that she is gone, Justin is able to communicate with his mother’s “versona,” as he names it. He can talk to her and she replies—like Siri does to us.
During the podcast that featured this story, I heard a brief real time conversation between Justin and his mother’s chatbot. Justin says: “Alright, mom, I hope you have a great day. I’m gonna get back to work. I love you and I’ll talk to you soon.” And his mom, replies: “I love you too, Justin. Don’t work too hard and make sure to get some rest. Remember worrying about things too much is never a good thing. Take some time for yourself and enjoy your day.”
Unfortunately, Justin’s marriage ended during this time, and the story if complicated. To read more, I will provide links when the sermon is posted online. But here’s the summary line: proponents of this new technology believe we can disrupt death.1
I had to really sit and think about all of this. In light of my spiritual understanding of human mortality. My theological perspective. And of course, Ash Wednesday. And the strange valentine it gives us today: “You are dust. And to dust you shall return.”
I have another very different story to share. Rachel Rim is a pediatric palliative care chaplain. She tells how Ash Wednesday is the busiest day at the hospital for the spiritual care department. At first, Rachel was baffled how many people—staff, patients, and visitors—desired to receive ashes. As she marked a doctor’s forehead, she thought to herself, I’m marking you with the sign that you will one day inevitably die, as your patients will. For the first couple hours, she cringed as she administered ashes.
Then she had a change of heart. Heart, a good word for today. Especially with Jesus saying: wherever your heart is, there you treasure will be also.
As Rachel went to the pediatric ward, she saw how this strange ash-marking affected parents desperate for hope and healing. As she marked their foreheads, their eyes closed. Their shoulders relaxed a bit. Their heads bowed in gratitude.
Rachel remembers going into the room of a five-year-old girl, living with leukemia. She made a cross with ashes on the heads of the girl and her parents, a family she had visited for months. And Rachel felt both dread and a kind of unexplainable grace.
Rachel writes: “It meant something—it meant everything, perhaps—that I, too, wore
a cross of ash on my forehead as I marked theirs. I was not pronouncing their deaths like some kind of prophet or angel of death; I was joining them, and inviting them to join me, in the knowledge of our universal mortality. In a sense, I was saying, ‘We are all patients here. We are all going to die. We are all called to join Christ in his death and his resurrection.’ Perhaps providing ashes on this day was the deepest embodiment of solidarity with sick and dying people that I possessed.”
When Rachel administered ashes to nurses and doctors, she sensed that she was letting them know that no matter how hard they tried, or how advanced medical science becomes, they would fail. Death would eventually come for all of us. And in a small way, Rachel was relieving them of a burden too great to carry.2
Perhaps that is why I and many others love this day. It is the most honest, the most human day in our liturgical year. We are mortal. We are finite. We will die. And grief will hurt.
It is the price of love. It is the sting of being human. It is what makes life precious.
Most of the time we live in denial. Not today, we think to ourselves. We block out the truth of our mortality with gadgets. Or being busy. Or living as if there are endless tomorrows.
But on Ash Wednesday we pause. We stop. We remember. Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
And we let the season of Lent do its work on us. Turning from sin to divine forgiveness. Returning to the grace of baptism. Eagerly yearning for spring, for rebirth, for a new beginning, for a sign of resurrection, for hope to flood our weary bodies, our tired minds, our burdened souls.
Who knows how technology will change what it means to be human in the coming years and decades. Maybe we will communicate with departed loved ones in ways we cannot yet imagine.
Justin told death: not today. Yet St. Paul writes, now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation.
It may not be the valentine you thought you’d receive today. But is infused with divine love. God’s grace opens our hearts to the treasure of life. Grace reminds us this day is all that we have.
It is a gift to keep death before our eyes. For now we hold those we love a bit closer. We notice the sun and moon, the sky and the lake with a bit more awe and gratitude. We cherish this gathering to sing, to sit in silence, to receive the body and blood of Christ for sustenance. Spiritual food for the journey to Easter.
1 https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/healing-2-0-disrupting-death/
https://www.inverse.com/input/features/yov-ai-chatbot-immortalize-loved-ones-after-death
2 Rachel Rim, “We are all going to die,” The Christian Century. February 2024.