Richard's sermon for Trinity sunday 2026

 

Trinity Sunday 2026: Patronal Communion

Isaiah 40.12-17, 20-27; 2 Corinthians 13.

The Holy Trinity and AI – Made in Whose Image?

https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html

How many of us here consciously use AI?

It’s here, it’s already changing lives but will it change humanity?

A quick vox pop… Hands up  if you see AI as something that has the capacity to make a huge positive difference? Hands up if you see it as an existential threat? Somehere between the two?

Pope Leo feels it is an important enough issue for his first papal encyclical. It’s called Magnifica Humanitas and the subtitle gives away its purpose ‘On Safeguarding the human person in a time of artificial intelligence. He’s not trying to put the genie back in the bottle but he’s particularly concerned in how the such powerful technology might be used in ways that diminish human dignity or concentrate power in the hands of a few.

If you’ll forgive one quote, his opening sentences, in fact – “Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together. Each generation inherits the task of shaping its own era, of guiding history to become a place where the dignity of every person is safeguarded, justice is promoted and fraternity is made possible. Yet every era also runs the risk of creating an inhumane and more unjust world.”

So when you find yourself preaching on Trinity Sunday and the issue of AI looms large, where do you start?

I asked Chat GPT!

In particular I was keen to ask the question ‘if AI had a deity to worship or follow, what would it look like?’ After all on Trinity Sunday we gaze on the full character of God in all his/her beauty and community and proclaim that this is whom we are made in the image of.

Well – I entered into a fascinating conversation and I could take you now down all sorts of rabbit holes. And it may seem absurd to quote Chat GPT after Pope Leo but here’s part of its response that got me thinking – “Perhaps AI is becoming a kind of mirror. We keep looking at it to discover what it is becoming, but it may be revealing what we are becoming. If AI is made in our image, then the anxieties surrounding AI may tell us less about machines and more about our uncertainty over the values we ourselves embody.”

If human beings are made in the image of God, and AI is made by human beings, then AI is, in a sense, made in our image.

But that leads to a deeper question.

If we are made in God's image, what exactly are we passing on?

And finally we are the heart of Trinity Sunday.

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." Paul writes as he bids farewell to the Corinthian church.

Many of us know these words by heart. We hear them so often that we may miss how extraordinary they are.

Paul does not give us a definition of the Trinity.

Instead, he immerses us in the very heart of God and gives us an experience of the Trinity.

Grace.

Love.

Fellowship.

 It’s like the life of God is flowing towards us.

Notice that these are not abstract ideas.

Grace is God's gift to us when we have not earned it.

Love is God's eternal nature.

Fellowship is God's presence among us and within us.

The Trinity is not a mathematical formula. The Trinity is the living God reaching out to humanity.

And perhaps this is why I began with AI

When people talk about artificial intelligence, they often focus on intelligence itself. What can machines do? How clever can they become? And always there is that anxiety that we are creating something that one day soon will outdo and undo us. The stuff of science fiction nightmares becoming a reality.

But Christianity has never taught that intelligence alone is what makes us human.

If intelligence were the whole story, then the cleverest person would be the most godlike.

The Trinity tells us otherwise.

At the heart of reality is not simply intelligence.

At the heart of reality is relationship.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Love given and received.

What reflects God most deeply is not merely our ability to think, but our capacity to love, to forgive, to serve, to worship and to live in relationship with one another.

That is why the words of Paul are so important.

Grace.

Love.

Fellowship.

If we want to know what it means to bear the image of God, we could do worse than begin there.

And then we come to Matthew's Gospel.

The risen Jesus gathers his disciples and sends them out.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

Notice that the disciples are not told to stay where they are.

The God revealed in Jesus is a God who sends.

The Father sends the Son.

The Father and the Son send the Spirit.

Now the disciples are sent into the world.

The Trinity is dynamic.

The life of God is always moving outward in love.

The church exists because God is a sending God.

The Gospel always draws us outward.

Outward towards our neighbours.

Outward towards those who are lonely.

Outward towards those who need hope.

Outward towards the communities we serve.

As anyone who has gazed at Andrei Rublev’s great icon of The Trinity knows, The Trinity is not a closed circle. It is an invitation to join in God’s dynamic life.

I started with a question…

If AI is made in our image, what are we passing on?

The answer matters because our creations tend to reflect our values. And as Pope Leo recognised, If we value power above all else, we will create tools that seek power. If we value profit above all else, we will create tools that seek profit. If we value control above all else, we will create tools that seek control.

But if we are truly made in the image of the triune God, then we are called to reflect something different.

Grace.

Love.

Fellowship.

Those are the gifts Paul celebrates.

And those are the gifts our world desperately needs.

 

 

 

Tomorrow's technology will not save the world.

God's love can.

Tomorrow's technology will not heal every wound.

God's grace can.

Tomorrow's technology cannot create true communion between human hearts.

But the fellowship of the Holy Spirit can.

On this Trinity Sunday, as we gather from across our benefice, and especially as we celebrate the name day of Holy Trinity Church, let us remember whose image we bear.

Not the image of fear.

Not the image of power.

Not the image of self-interest.

But the image of the God who creates, redeems and sustains.

The God whose life is grace, love and fellowship.

And may that grace, that love and that fellowship be reflected not only in what we believe, but in how we live.

Amen.