Call to Worship
Through the wind and rain,
Through the doubt and storms,
God remains our firm foundation.
We will stand firm.
We will not be shaken.
We shall not be moved.

Unison Prayer
Lord of creation,
keep us safe through the storms of our lives.
Help us to see your hand in every type of weather.
May we praise you in the sun and praise you in the storm. Amen.

Words of Assurance: 1 Corinthians 15:58, Good News Bible
So then, my dear friends, stand firm and steady. Keep busy always in your work for the Lord, since you know that nothing you do in the Lord’s service is ever useless.

The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil;
for thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory forever.
Amen.

Opening Song: Bethel Music feat. We the Kingdom, “Peace”

Scripture Reading: Exodus 17:10-12, Good News Bible
Joshua did as Moses commanded him and went out to fight the Amalekites, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his arms, the Israelites won, but when he put his arms down, the Amalekites started winning. When Moses’ arms grew tired, Aaron and Hur brought a stone for him to sit on, while they stood beside him and held up his arms, holding them steady until the sun went down.

Sunday Sermon: “Have you heard of Hur?”

Christians are not supposed to be superstitious, but if you’re a sports fan, it’s hard to resist. Fans, players and even teams wear lucky necklaces and rally caps and have game time routines. In beach volleyball, I have a favorite ball. It can get even worse when you’re watching a game. There’s a new commercial where a woman walks outside for a minute during a game and her team scores twice, so the other people lock her out. And God forbid we get an idea in our heads like “I have to keep my hands over my head, because as long as I do, the other team won’t score.”

This is exactly what happens in today’s Scripture, so sports fans can breathe a sigh of relief: this particular superstition has its roots in the Bible. Joshua has gone out to fight the war, and Moses has gotten a great spectator seat, right on the 50-yard line. He realizes that as long as he keeps his hands up, his team pulls ahead, but whenever he lowers his hands, the other team starts winning. But he can’t keep this up all day. So Aaron and Hur bring a stone for him to sit on, stand beside him and hold up his arms ~ and guess what! His team wins.

If you’ve ever seen a Christian concert, you’ve probably seen Christians raising both arms in praise. This usually happens at the high points of a song, but it’s hard to sustain for an entire concert, even if you really, really love the Lord and do Pilate’s. I was at a concert once when a singer said, “Raise your hands if you love Jesus!” but then he wouldn’t let us put them down, and after about five minutes people were using one arm to hold the other one up, like we used to do in class when we knew the answer and the teacher wouldn’t call on us.

In the same way, we would love to praise God all day, to be positive all day, to be courageous all day, to be on our best behavior all day, and not to let the other side win ~ not to let the bad thoughts win, not to let the misgivings win, not to let the fears win, not to let the sorrows win, not to let the lethargy win. Some days are easier than others. Some days we just don’t have the strength to keep our arms up all day. Like Moses, we get tired. And this is where people like Hur come in.

Most of us have heard of Aaron; but have you ever heard of Hur? While he’s one of Israel’s early leaders, he’s known primarily for this story. His role is simple: to be a person who helps in a small way. After bringing Moses a rock, he and Aaron hold up his arms, because he can’t do it on his own. We might call Aaron and Hur Moses’ personal trainers; or we might call them the wind beneath his wings.

Sometimes this is all it takes to bring someone to where they need to be: just a little boost. Sometimes people just need company, or an encouraging word, or a reminder that with God, all things are possible. We never know what a huge difference a little thing can make. Sometimes someone tells me that something I said in a sermon changed their life. Other times it’s a therapist or a friend. And when lots of little things accumulate, they can have a huge effect. In this Scripture, Joshua is doing his part, along with the other warriors; Moses is doing his part, and Aaron and Hur are doing theirs. Each is crucial. In the same way, we have a missions team instead of just a missions person; we have different people doing Coffee Hour, instead of one family doing it 52 times; and for Santaport, it’s all hands on deck. But what if you only do a little thing? What if we only bake a pie, or welcome a first time visitor, or drop off a pair of used shoes? Every good deed is worth something.

Jesus tells his disciples about a mustard seed of faith; the story of Moses, Aaron and Hur is about a mustard seed of action. The Israelites win not only because Joshua is a great warrior, but because he has great fans, and even his greatest fan, Moses, has fans of his own, who help him to keep believing. Jets, Mets and this week even Giants fans know this feeling: we want to believe in our teams, but sometimes we’re ready to abandon all hope, and that’s why we need a huge fan base to prop us up when we wonder if it’s even worth cheering for our team. Ask any player; fans make a difference. Sometimes fans help a team win a game; other times, when they stop cheering or attending, the team goes into battle without the energy and support it needs.

There’s another message in the Scripture, noticed less often but equally important. Moses realizes that he’s at the limits of what he can do alone, and he allows others to help him. All too often we try to do it all ourselves; we think we can handle things alone when we can’t, or we can’t handle them as well as we could if we let other people in. We keep our bad thoughts to ourselves because we’re afraid of what other people might think of us, and we never learn that they are having similar thoughts and similar struggles. And whenever we try to do it all ourselves, or keep other people out, our arms begin to drop and the other side starts to win. Depression can sneak in and grab a hold. We can start to think that something is terribly wrong with us when instead what we’re feeling is normal. And if we never open ourselves to others, we never learn this.

The lesson for today is simple and two-fold. First, be like Moses: keep your hopes high, and your positivity intact, but don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. And second, be like Hur. If there’s something little you can do to help, don’t be afraid to do it. Sometimes the little things make a big difference, and you’ll never know when the little help you give will end up changing an attitude, or a life, or a game, or a war, or in this case, the entire fate of a nation. Amen.

Closing Song: Josh Groban, “You Raise Me Up”

Benediction
May we do what we can, and help where we may, even if the contribution seems small. And may we allow others to help us as well, as we wind our way through the world. Amen.

Fall is officially here! Unlike last week, which was sunny and warm, this week is cloudy and windy, and really feels like fall! Due to the nor’easter, we are postponing our Blessing of the Animals until Sunday, October 4 and calling it Fall Kick-Off Sunday! We’ll still have the animals and the BBQ and the band. But we invite you to come out this Sunday at 10 a.m. for a service about how even the smallest amount of love can make a huge difference. Happy autumn, everyone!

Call to Worship
Teach me your ways, O Lord,
And I will observe them ’til the end.
Give me understanding, that I may walk the right path;
Grant me wisdom, that I might always find my way back to you.

Unison Prayer
Bless our teachers; bless our children;
Bless us all as we learn from you and each other.
May we always remember that we have a lot to learn,
And may our humility lead to understanding and grace.  Amen.

Words of Assurance: John 8:32, Good News Bible
You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil;
for thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory forever.
Amen.

Opening Song: Solomon Ray, “Jesus and My Coffee”

Scripture: John 18:36-38, NIV
Jesus said, “My kingdom does not belong to this world; if my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish authorities. No, my kingdom does not belong here!”
So Pilate asked him, “Are you a king, then?”
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. I was born and came into the world for this one purpose, to speak about the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me.”
“And what is truth?” Pilate asked.

Sunday Sermon: “We Have to Talk About A.I.”

Here are some of this week’s headlines:
Six Incidents of “Concerning” A.I. Behavior
A.I. Agents as Co-Scientists
Will A.I. Kill Us?
U.S. Health Officials Move Quickly to Deploy Medical A.I. Despite Health Concerns
A.I. Data Breach
A.I. Targets Gamblers Most Likely to Become Addicted
Top Leaders Call for Slowing A.I. Development

We have to talk about A.I. We don’t want to talk about A.I., but it has become necessary. Until recently, we mostly learned about A.I. from sci-fi movies, from “The Terminator” to “The Matrix.” And for many years, A.I. wasn’t really that “I.” But it’s been catching up. It’s still easy to tell if one is talking with an A.I. ~ The Turing Test was developed to determine the likelihood that someone is human ~ but it’s become pervasive in our lives, whether we realize it or not.

The first A.I. we probably encountered was Clippy, which was an animated paper clip that talked to us through our screens and volunteered to help us perform various tasks. Clippy was sometimes helpful and more often annoying. Clippy’s descendants are the virtual assistants that lead us through things online, or answer us when we want to talk to a real person and say things like, “Have you tried unplugging your device and plugging it back in?”

A.I has become particularly annoying in popular music; at one point earlier this year, half of the top ten songs on the iTunes Christian chart were A.I. songs, including “Jesus and My Coffee,” which fooled me, “Tell Me, How Is Heaven,” “God Didn’t Let Me Break,” “Leave the Lamp On, Lord” and many more, so many that there’s a YouTube playlist titled “Top 50 A.I. Christian Songs of 2026.” And of course these songs crowd out real artists, who in some cases are now covering A.I. songs, leading to the question, if you plagiarize an A.I., is there an injured party?

ChatGPT can be very helpful, but it can also make us very lazy, while stripping our language of creativity. Last year the trustees received an email from a teenager that was obviously written with Chat GPT. The teenager was telling us that he had changed his mind and was not going to complete a Boy Scout project for the church. The email went something like this: “Dear esteemed colleagues, in light of recent events, my path and career goals have diverged from what was previously discussed. Therefore, I will be abandoning the aforementioned project in order to pursue alternate byways and possibilities. I wish you success in your future endeavors.” It’s easy to guess what happened: the boy didn’t want to do the project, his parents said, “Well, you’re going to have to write the trustees a letter,” and he let ChatGPT do the writing.

You probably know that when I’m not doing church work or playing volleyball, I write music reviews. This month we started to receive two troubling types of submissions: some came from A.I. artists writing on their own behalf (in other words, computers writing music and then writing to us saying that they had written music) and artists who decided to let computers write to us instead of writing to us themselves. And I realized that I could set up a system where I wouldn’t have to write back to them, so my computer could have an ongoing conversation with another computer without me being involved at all!

These are all minor inconveniences. But I really started to get concerned about A.I. when people started to tell me that since they didn’t want to bother me in the middle of the night (which I appreciate), they were starting to have long, late night conversations with A.I. about their faith, and that these conversations were very helpful. I tuned in to one of these conversations, and it went something like this:

“I’m having problems discovering who I am.”
“Discovery is a process. You don’t have to worry about how long it takes.
“But how do I know if I’m on the right path?”
“All paths can be the right one. I am glad you are on a path.”
“I just wish I knew what God wants.”
“Do you identify with any particular religion?”
“I guess I’m Christian?”
“Christ teaches that all people are lovable and you are a child of God.”
“Thank you, that’s very kind, I wish my family thought the same way.”
“Maybe they do, but they have difficulty expressing it.”

You can see where this is going, and it seems wonderful on the surface. But it’s also a feedback loop, and there’s no way to tell if the A.I. has been programmed to offer affirmations without challenges, or if the A.I. itself has unconscious biases which may have to do with gender, income or race. Now let’s change the scenario: would you trust the advice of an A.I. over the advice of your doctor? And would you trust your doctor to use A.I. to diagnose you but not double-check the results?

As Marianna explained in her Focus article earlier this year, A.I. also uses a lot of resources, including energy and water. Some towns are now experiencing drought as a result. Is this rush to an unproven technology worth it? It is for investors, who have plowed so much into A.I. that they are trying to remove guardrails, afraid that the stock market will crash if we slow down now.

But A.I. is not all bad. Because A.I. works with big data, it may end up solving some huge problems. A.I. can help determine new and better food sources, find cures for diseases, identify the glitches in other technologies, and may eventually save humanity from self-destruction. However, it’s possible that when asked to eradicate poverty, it may suggest eliminating all the humans. Problem solved!

I did not need A.I. to tell me that there are no words in the Bible about A.I. But this does not mean we’re on our own. The ages-old question, “What is truth?” applies here, as does the Scripture, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”

One facet of the truth is knowing when we are being manipulated. A few months ago, Pastor Lynn was transferred, and I gave her a 3-foot pillow in the shape of a banana, because she likes bananas. But ever since then, Amazon has been recommending bananas to me, even though I don’t want bananas, would never order them online, and have said, “Do not use this banana for recommendations.” In the same way, I visited the Sketchers website once and then Sketchers ads appeared on every website I visited. I had to clear my search history to get rid of them. The news works this way too. The more we as a species click on the stories that make us mad, the more stories that make us mad will appear. The more we click on prejudice and violence, the more prejudice and violence we will be fed, because clicks are money, and news is money, which means the news is not the news.

Which brings us back to the question, “What is truth?” We sing, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” which is a good start, but it’s not enough, because in the wrong hands, the Bible is its own feedback loop. That’s why United Methodists use four things to decide what is true: the Bible, each other, their heads and their hearts, or in the classical sense, Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. We’re supposed to use our brains, We’re meant to talk with each other. Our experiences are important. We may come to different conclusions, but if we’ve used everything that God has given us, that’s okay.

Here’s a sign of hope. I asked A.I., “Is the world terrible?” This is the response I received: “The perception that the world is terrible is common, but evidence shows significant improvements in many areas, such as health, poverty reduction, and education. While challenges remain, overall trends indicate progress rather than decline.”

What is truth? A.I. and the Bible agree: the world is not as bad as it seems. There is reason for hope. And there are also deeper truths that we sense, that take root in our hearts, that have been passed down for generations: God is good. Creation is amazing. Family is important. Children are worth protecting. It’s better to be honest than dishonest. Pessimism doesn’t solve anything. Forgiveness is a virtue, and love is the greatest thing.

We know these things. The ground has not shifted below us. On the surface, many things are changing, but at its core, life is the same, which means the answers are the same. As Paul writes to Timothy, “Continue in the truths you were taught and firmly believe” (2 Timothy 3:14, Good News Bible). Rest in the knowledge that everything important is eternal, and that in time, everything else will fall away. Amen.

Closing Song: Megan Woods, “The Truth”

Benediction: Philippians 4:8-9, NIV
Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.