Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a

“When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind (a breath, or Spirit) from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.”

Then God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear…God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.”

Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed and fruit trees of every kind on earth…And God saw that it was good.”

Then God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years…God made two great lights – the greater [the sun] to rule the day and the lesser light [the moon] to rule the night – and the stars…to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.”

And God said “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the sky. So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves…and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on earth.”

And God said, “Let the earth bring for living creatures of every kind…God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind…And God saw that it was good.”

Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and overall the wild animals of the earth…So God created humans in his image…God blessed them…And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and it was very good.”

Then God rested from all the work that he had done. He blessed the seventh day and “hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.”

This is the creation story. It’s found on the very first page of the Bible in Genesis chapter one. I’d like you to think of this story not as science, but as poetry or lyrics to a song. Think of the seven days of creation not as days in the sense of 24 hour days, but as days in the sense that they are markers for a new stanza or a new verse in a song. And, the line that you heard over and over again in this poem, repeating itself almost like the chorus to your favorite song is this: “and it was so and God saw that it was good.”

Think about what that means. Everything you see and know, everything – from the mountains, to the rolling hills, to the clouds, to the corn that has just been planted, to the huge oak trees, to the birds perched on the sanctuary roof, to the person sitting next to you and in front of you and behind you, to the person you least like and respect, all the way to the millions of blades of grass on the lawns and the ants and the worms who do their magic on the soil – all of it is good, according to God.

But, read between the lines with me and notice what we are not told. We are not told that God saw that everything was “perfect”; at least not perfect in the way we normally use the word perfect to mean “without flaw or defect”. The writers of Genesis were very careful when they chose the Hebrew word for ‘good’, ‘tove’. It is a word that has a moral sense to it. It is a word about God. It means good, beautiful, pleasant, and agreeable. But, it does not mean perfect, as in a perfect body, perfect child, perfect family, or perfect job. I would argue the Bible knows no such state of perfection. Instead, it knows about goodness. The Christian faith testifies, it talks about how God is good and how this good God created the heavens and the earth, you, me, our bodies, the animals, the plants, the sea, the stars, the soil and called it all good. Not perfect. But good.

If you are questioning my line of thinking, consider this: the Hebrew word, ‘tove’, meaning, good, shows up 597 times in the Old Testament. The closest Hebrew word for ‘perfect’ shows up only 18 times in the Old Testament. It is as if to say that God, the God we know in Jesus, the God who speaks through the Scriputres, is far more concerned about goodness than he is perfection.

There are a lot of directions this word from the Lord about the world’s goodness, human goodness, God’s goodness can go. But what has been on my mind this week has been a question – how do you lead a good life (and by good I mean the kind of moral, spiritual, and relational life that the Christian faith points us to) when everything seems so bad? I’ve been thinking a lot about this, especially related to AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the proposed data centers and the Pope’s encyclical (which is sort of the like the Pope’s newsletter article for the world) about AI and the human family.

To start, let me say that I don’t use AI to write sermons. To be honest with you, I don’t really use it much at all in my personal life. I do sometimes use it for my work, mainly to help me with spreadsheets or to understand accounting rules that I am not familiar with. And let me tell you, it is kind of mindblowing how good AI can be with that stuff. The concerns about it replacing people’s jobs are real.

At the same time, AI also sometimes gets things wrong, or hallucinates, or produces digital garbage and slop. If you’ve tried to call customer service for a big company or use their online customer service, it’s likely you interacted with AI and the experience probably was not good. If you have a unique problem (which is probably why most people call into customer service), it gives you standard answers and then sends you down a rabbit hole of silliness when an actual human could have solved the problem in 5 minutes.

AI also has the potential for great evil. When I was finishing up my time in the Army, one of the debates that was going on was how AI would be incorporated into weapons systems. Would AI have a say on when to pull the trigger (so to speak) or drop a bomb, or would a human being have to take final responsibility for that?

How are we as Christians to use AI, if at all? How do we think about the possibility of their being human-like intelligence and capability that isn’t human but is on a computer? What does that mean for our belief and faith in God and God’s creation of the universe? Or more generally, how do you lead a good life (and by good I mean the kind of moral, spiritual, and relational life that the Christian faith points us to) when everything AI seems so to be making our world very uncertain, scary, and at times bad?

Pope Leo recently wrote an encyclical, which is like an essay for the Church on important topics of the day. While we are obviously not a Catholic Church, I think it’s important for all Christians to listen when the Pope writes things like this because the Pope is an important Christian leader in the world. Pope Leo’s encyclical is titled Magnifica Humanitas [which means magnificent humanity]: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.

As our reading from Genesis points out, God created the world – land, sea, sky, humans, animals, plants, fish – and said that it was good. Not perfect. But good, and God gave human beings the responsibility to fill and multiply the earth and have dominion, rule, over it. The question for us with AI and any technology we have – from our phones, to guns, to cars, and tractors – is what does it mean to use technology to ‘fill and multiply the earth and have dominion over it’.

There are two ways of approaching our responsibility as humans. One is in line with God’s commands and the other is not. That is, we can choose to be good stewards of the earth and what we have been given as human beings and fulfill our biblical responsibility to ‘keep and till’ the earth. Or, we can choose to exploit what we have been given, extracting from the earth and other people for only our benefit and not the benefit of the human family or the world at large. This is the way of greed and arrogance.

The same fundamental choice applies to our use of AI. AI can be used for good and good things like medical research. AI can also be used for evil such as generating pornography from people’s pictures, to weapons that kill on demand, or to replace people’s jobs without a new one to take its place. I haven’t read the Pope’s full encyclical yet (it’s 42,000 some words long), but I have read the first part and this is the choice that he is pointing Christians and all people of goodwill toward making. AI is a technology and technologies are tools. We can use technologies and tools for good or we can use them for evil. 

The Pope uses two stories from the Bible to highlight the choice human beings have when we use technology. We can use technology to create our own Tower of Babel or we can use it to help build the city of God.  

The story of the Tower of Babel is found in Genesis eleven. It goes that the people of the earth decide to build a city with a tower that reaches into the heavens. They use the most advanced technology of their day to do it. But their motives are not good. To reach into the heavens is to want to become god (heaven is where God lives and rules from). Dangerous and very evil things happen when we try to play God and control other people. 

The Lord sees what the humans are doing and thwarts their plans. The Lord’s way of thwarting their plans is to confuse their language so there are different languages such that humans can’t communicate as easily. It’s a warning about the dangers of human arrogance and the desire to control everything.

The second story about building the city of God comes from the Old Testament book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah was a Jew living in exile in Babylon (in modern day Iraq) working as a government official in the Babylonian kingdom. When he learns that the city of Jerusalem, the home of his ancestors, is destroyed, he asks the Babylonian king to let him return to help rebuild the city. When he gets there, he uses his leadership skills to bring the people together around a common good – to rebuild the city – and assigns each person a part to play – men, women, priests, small business owners – all work together to rebuild the city. The old school words for this are solidarity and cooperation.

Here is the Pope’s conclusion:

In light of these two images, the Holy Spirit challenges us today regarding our relationship with technology and the ongoing digital revolution. Scientific discoveries are talents entrusted to humanity so that they may bear fruit (Mt. 25:14-30). Technology has the power to heal, connect, educate, and protect our common home; but it can also divide, exclude, and generate new forms of injustice. In the abstract, technology in and of itself is not a solution to humanity’s problems, just as it is not inherently evil. In practice, however, technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate, and use it. Therefore, the primary choice is not between a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem; between a power that claims to dominate the heavens and a people who work together in the presence of God to rebuild the walls of brotherly and sisterly coexistence.

So what are we to do with this?

First, building a city or building anything of value in life, requires building on a firm foundation. That firm foundation is a relationship with God. I don’t mean that in a hokey or super churchy way. But what I mean is that if God is the creator of all things, including our life, then our ultimate end, our deepest needs and hopes are fulfilled in God. Our joy, happiness, and purpose all in the end come from God and God’s goodness.

Second, the choice that we have with any technology – whether it is AI, a car, a gun, a bulldozer, a hoe, a TV, or  a cell phone – is this: will using this technology help me to bear good fruit? Will this help me to love God and love my neighbor as we have been commanded to do? Will it be good for me and my body and soul? Will it be good for my neighbors or family? If the answer is ‘maybe’ or ‘no’, then we need to reevaluate our relationship with that technology.

Third, it is important to realize that no technology or medical advance or wellness technique, or life hack is going to fix us. Remember the word God uses to describe creation, including you and me? It’s good, not perfect. We are still human beings and to be a human means that we have weaknesses and limitations. No technology can cure us of that, no matter how hard someone tries to sell you otherwise on Facebook or Instagram. In the end, we need God.

Fourth, technology should benefit the common good, not just a few with the most money and power. The most important things in our life are our relationships with other people – family, friends, and neighbors. But Jesus teaches us that our care for others shouldn’t be limited only to people who are related to us or who think like us or vote like us or like similar things. The lesson of the Good Samaritan is that every single human being is neighbor to each other. Therefore, we are to love all human beings and seek their wellbeing as we are able. If a technology is exploiting some people or helping others to become very wealthy and powerful at the expense of everyone else, that technology is not bearing good fruit. It is not serving its purpose of bringing people together in cooperation and in brotherly and sisterly solidarity.

Finally, we obviously do not have much power or say in how governments handle technology. But we do have a choice in the technology that we use or not use, in how we vote, and in how we take care of creation. We do have a choice about whether our life will be about serving only me, myself, and I, or whether we will choose to live in community and seek to be sisters and brothers to all who we meet.

May the presence of the Lord Jesus grow among us and his Kingdom take shape. May God give us the grace and courage to bear witness to the glory of human beings, in which God has made his dwelling. May God through his Holy Spirit help us as we go about our days bring about brotherly and sisterly love among us. Amen. 

Work Cited

Leo, Pope. “Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026).” The Holy See, 15 May 2026, https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html. Accessed 31 May 2026.