In our gospel readings for Transfiguration Sunday, Jesus performs one of the miracles identified as proof of being the Messiah – he restores the sight of a man that was born blind. And the Pharisees object – first, because Jesus did this on the sabbath, and second, because the Pharisees were not ready to admit that Jesus was the Messiah. So Jesus tries to tackle their wilful blindness by giving them a description of his role, using the language of sheep and shepherds. There are many voices calling out to God's people – the voices of thieves and bandits hoping to lure his sheep into disaster. But Jesus is the voice that the flock recognizes and follows, the voice of the good shepherd, who will lay down his life for the sheep. And hopefully, his voice is the voice we accurately echo as we continue the mission to combat blindness, grow the flock, and spread His abundant-life-giving Word....
One of the scarier parts of the artificial intelligence revolution we are in today, is the rapid improvement in the quality of deepfakes. For anyone disconnected from the internet, a deepfake is a computer method that allows you to create realistic looking video and realistic sounding audio...of things that never actually happened. A deepfake uses a deep neural network to find patterns in the facial mannerisms and vocal inflections of famous people, or at least, people who have bothered to video record the hundreds of speeches needed to train this kind of network. Then these neural networks are used in reverse, to GENERATE video or audio of those famous people, performing the actions or saying the words that YOU dictate. All it takes is collecting a few terabytes of data of your victim, a couple of weeks on a supercomputer, and presto - you have video “evidence” of a politician in scandal, a trusted news source giving misinformation, or Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise on a rooftop. Very, VERY soon, it will be AS impossible to determine what is reality – at least in the realms of video and audio recordings – as if we were deaf and blind....
And this must be pleasing to the original master of the deepfake, our adversary, Satan. Ever since he twisted the words of God in the garden of Eden, Satan has run his deepfakes in the CPU's of our brains - trying to say HIS words using the voice of Jesus. And his words to us have three end goals: to steal, to kill, and to destroy. Satan wants to steal our joy, kill our relationships, and destroy our society. And based on the direction our society is going, Satan is getting better and better at it as time goes on.
Take the dialogue between Jesus and his disciples in our first reading, for instance. The disciples see someone suffering, and they want to know whose sin deserved it. Using Jesus' deepfake voice, Satan might try to say to us, "you also DESERVE to suffer. You NEED to suffer to be my disciple. Our Father WANTS you to suffer. If you're a Christian and you're not miserable, you're doing it all wrong." But then again, Satan is too smart to push it too far, because then the fake is too obvious. So we end up with a vague feeling that Jesus told us to suffer, when what he really said was that suffering takes place so that God's works might be revealed. We may suffer at times as a result of pursuing God's kingdom in a hostile world, but it is not to punish us, but to display the results of saving faith.
And take our fourth reading, for instance. Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." Using Jesus' deepfake voice, Satan might say to us, "you too, should lay down your lives for sheep, preferably for complete strangers living far away. Sacrificing your life, or at least, the things that are important for your life, for the sake of random others, is good for you - a moral positive. You and your talents are less valuable to growing the kingdom of God than that other random person. Your LIFE is worth less to me than that other random person. I would PREFER that you would die, so that other person may live fully." But then again, Satan is too smart to push it too far, because then the fake is too obvious, so we end up with a vague feeling that Jesus told us to sacrifice ourselves, when what he really told us was that sacrifice was HIS role in God's plan for forgiveness, and we are to love our neighbour AS ourselves, not to the exclusion of ourselves. Using a deepfake of Jesus' voice, Satan works to steal, kill, and destroy – steal our joy, kill our relationships, and destroy our society.
However, Jesus' ACTUAL words lead us in the direction of happiness, forgiveness, and opportunity! Jesus tells the crowds, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." While there may be some suffering due to the world's stiff resistance to righteousness, and while there may be some suffering due to living on a dangerous planet, the hallmark of the Christian life is ABUNDANT life, a life that is FULL: full of joy, full of meaning, full of wonderful expectation, full of the FUN that occurs when people are living in freedom and harmony.
And Jesus tells the man born blind, “You have seen the Son of Man, and the one speaking with you is he.” It is the completed work of Jesus the Messiah that brings us forgiveness and salvation from God, not our own martyrdom. And so we can reject the current popular theme that humans are a cancer on this planet, and that our duty is to sacrifice ourselves. We can reject the false guilt attached to success, and instead give glory and thanks to God for the gifts and talents he has blessed us with. And in that way, the motives of our generosity become pure: we can give because we think our giving will actually help the situation at hand, not because we want to gain favour or social license or to atone for our prosperity.
It's often very difficult to hear Jesus speaking above the din of our world, with its many distractions and its many overpowering voices! And in this age of the deepfake, it's even hard to know if what we think Jesus is saying is really coming from him! Fortunately, Jesus has provided gifts to us, so that we can be confident that our destination is the feet of our good shepherd, and not the slaughterhouse. Jesus has given us his Word, as recorded by his witnesses in the Bible. Jesus has given us the church, so that we read his Word together, and wrestle with its interpretation together. Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit, so that his Word penetrates our hearts and minds, and creates change in us. And in a few minutes, we will celebrate that Jesus has given us the Sacraments, so that we have the assurance of his own presence within us through his body and blood, given for us.
Gracious God, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ, who leads us to abundant life now and eternal life with you forever. Guard us by keeping us in the protection of your Holy Spirit, and help us to recognize and follow our good shepherd's voice, in Jesus' name, amen.