Homily Outline Combining Resources

Possible preaching outline on forgiveness and experience

• Artificial intelligence has captivated the human imagination for decades
  • It feels as though we’ve finally reached the era once dreamed about
  • Thanks to “machine learning,” computers are now capable of composing articles, writing complicated computer programming code, even creating and manipulating images when given a prompt
  • Machines even capable of performing certain jobs which seem complex
    • Logistics in a factory warehouse
    • Medical image processing
    • Even driving
  • A fear may arise: will Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning somehow surpass human life? Is there a limit to what machines can do?
• Machine limits: machines cannot experience.
  • A machine learns by being fed data and being allowed to form conclusions based on that data
    • More data leads to more accurate conclusions
    • Mistakes are often made, however
    • When prompted for a recipe, a popular AI program wrote a recipe for “chocolate chicken chicken cake” (https://www.aiweirdness.com/ai-recipes-are-bad-and-a-proposal-20-01-31/) with steps and ingredients as absurd as the name!
  • Machines lack experience
    • Machines can interpret data but can never enjoy a perfect meal, feel the success of a victory, the sorrow of a defeat, the joy and challenge of human love
    • Experience is what sets us over and above artificial intelligence and always will
  • Humans unlike machines can learn through experienc
    • Every experience is an opportunity to learn; we are not bound to learning only by being fed information
    • Significant experiences—good and bad—can influence our values, decisions, and responses for the rest of our lives
• The servant in today’s gospel has one such experiences
  • He owed a “huge amount” of money. The actual amount is clear in the Greek: Ten thousand talents
  • This is an insurmountable debt, which the servant would have no chance of repaying
  • The forgiveness he receives should be lifechanging
  • How does he respond? By failing to forgive as he has been forgiven!
    • Might expect this response from a machine, but not from a human
    • It’s tempting to make excuses for the servant: perhaps he was in debt due to others like this fellow servant, who were indebted to him
    • The difference in amount is clear, though; he owed a “huge amount” and was owed “a much smaller amount”
    • Even so, one would hope that his being forgiven and freed completely from the need for restitution would lead him to forgive others, especially those indebted to him.
    • Was he not aware of the gift he had been given in this forgiveness?
• We have received forgiveness even greater than a huge financial debt
  • Christ’s victory over sin and death, his extension of salvation to us, is the highest form of forgiveness we can receive
    • Do we respond accordingly, forgiving those who have wronged us?
  • Is it possible that what keeps us from forgiving others is our lack of awareness of the supreme forgiveness we have received in Christ?
    • We may know that we have received forgiveness, but have we experienced it?
    • What does it mean to have an experience of this forgiveness, an experience which transforms our approach before others who have wronged us?
• Experiencing forgiveness begins with recognizing that we are not defined by our past faults and failings
  • We all have things in our past—both big and small—which we regret
  • Is Sacramental Reconciliation just a “spiritual power-wash,” or an experience of God’s great mercy?
    • Take time after Reconciliation to sit in God’s mercy and love, to experience yourself as beloved of the Father
    • Connect mercy received to love outpoured for us in Jesus’ desire to remain with us, and unite us with Himself, in the Eucharist
    • Then realize that what we have received, we must extend to others.
  • Often those who have experienced greater forgiveness—recovering addicts, reconciled convicts, family members in similar situations to today’s main character—find experiencing God’s forgiveness much easier
  • Our experience of Jesus in the Mass, in our brothers and sisters, is not reserved for the perfect, but rather is always available to us
  • Our true identity is as children of God—imperfect and at times sinful, but always beloved, with opportunity to try again.
    • Our sins do not define us in God’s eyes, but rather become opportunities to experience His love for us once again.
  • Thanks to Jesus’ gift of salvation, his supreme forgiveness, we have been given the power to forgive.

We have been forgiven perfectly; we pray that what we have received, we can extend more perfectly to others.