"Pay Attention. Be Astonished. Tell About It." (February 1, 2026 Sermon)

Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Texts: Proverbs 4:25-27 & Philippians 4:6-9

What happens when Scripture sits on the bench and your phone takes the stand? We put social media and AI through a playful mock trial, using Philippians 4 and Proverbs 4 as the judge and jury, and followed the evidence toward a surprising, practical middle way. Instead of a simple guilty or not guilty, we asked sharper questions: Does technology pull our gaze off the path or help us walk it with others? Does it feed panic or deepen prayer? Does it form people of peace or keep us on edge?

We share stories from both sides of the aisle. On one side, the all-too-familiar cycle of doomscrolling, outrage, and comparison that scatters attention and crowds out silence. On the other, real wins: livestream worship that welcomes homebound neighbors, prayer chains that mobilize care, clergy across the country organizing on Zoom to support immigrant and refugee communities in fear. The tool isn’t the villain or the hero; the heart of the matter is attention—our most precious, finite resource. Where we aim it shapes who we become.

You’ll hear simple, repeatable practices to reclaim focus: adding friction with a “brick” that locks news and social apps after 9 p.m., batching updates, removing home-screen temptations, and using a daily digital examen to notice what feeds the soul and what frays it. We end with Mary Oliver’s three-line compass—pay attention, be astonished, tell about it—and a charge to let technology serve love, not steal it. If you’re longing for less noise and more peace, for tools that help you serve your neighbor without mastering you, this conversation offers a grounded, hopeful path forward.

If this resonates, share it with a friend, subscribe for more thoughtful conversations, and leave a review with one practice that helps you guard your gaze.

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Transcript

Opening Prayers And Readings

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Holy God, open our hearts to the truth of your word as we hear it proclaimed. May we take a break from the busyness and the noise of the world to have our hearts stilled, that we may rest in the redeeming word that comes to us this day. Amen. All right, friends, our first reading this day comes to us from Paul's letter to the Philippians, chapter four, verses six through nine. Let us listen for what God is saying to God's church. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. As for the things you have learned and received and heard and noticed in me, do them, and the God of peace will be with you. Friends, holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God. And now let us listen again for what God is saying to God's church using the words of Proverbs chapter four, verses twenty-five through twenty-seven. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Keep straight the path of your feet, and all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil. Holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Amen. So you may not have heard it on the news. It didn't make the news, but I still think it was newsworthy. Here at Guilford Park Presbyterian Church, we had a trial just a few weeks ago. Not a real trial, of course. No gavels or subpoenas, but a faithful one. A trial held in the Court of Christian Discernment. We had this trial with the group of the Word This Week group that we get together most Tuesdays to talk about the scripture for the upcoming Sundays worship service. And we decided to have a little bit of fun and have a bit of a mock trial. We imagined what it would look like if we put social media and maybe artificial intelligence too on trial. What was the charge? Well, the charge was pretty simple that social media and artificial intelligence and the like too often distracts the people of God from presence, peace, and the straight paths of discipleship. We entered two pieces of evidence into the record. Exhibit A from Proverbs that we just read. And then exhibit B from Philippians, where Paul urges us not to be consumed by anxiety, but to pray and to fill our minds with whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, and life-giving. So we had some fun with this. We divided the group up into two teams, the prosecution and the defense. We went to separate rooms and they came up with their arguments, and then we came back. I put on my black robe. I didn't have a gavel, though. That was the only thing that was missing. And then they gave their arguments. The prosecution, led by Laura Peck and her team, made a very strong case. They argued that our devices are designed to pull our eyes everywhere except straight ahead. That endless scrolling trains us to swerve away from the people in front of us, away from silence, away from prayer. They talked about how anxiety, comparison, outrage, and how easily our minds can become crowded with things that leave little room for precious peace. But then the defense stood up. This was led by Tim Peck, who is an actual lawyer in real life. And the defense told different stories. Stories of people who are homebound or sick and or traveling and can't get to church but still are able to worship with us because of our live streaming ministry. They told stories of prayer chains, pastoral care, justice work that is organized online. The defense argued that the problem isn't the tool itself, but whether it serves prayer and love or replaces them. Technology, they said, can be a servant of the gospel, but it makes a terrible master. And even though I had on the robe, the real judge was scripture, the scripture that we read from Proverbs and from Philippians, and those scriptures asked the hardest questions of all. Does social media and artificial intelligence, technology, does it help us keep our eyes on the path? Does it draw us toward prayer or toward panic? Does it shape us into people of peace or people perpetually on edge, on edge? So when it came to a verdict, no one could really say guilty or not guilty. Instead, the best we could do was something like this. It was a really fun exercise, and I invite you to kind of have your own sort of mock trial and to assess how your use of social media, artificial intelligence, and technology, and we'll add news consumption to this as well, how that is affecting your spiritual life. It's a really tricky thing. And I just wanted to share with you all kind of both of the arguments of the prosecution and the defense in my own experience. I am really grateful for how social media has helped me stay in contact and in collaboration with my fellow colleagues in ministry. I have served churches in Georgia, New York, Kentucky, and now obviously here in North Carolina. So I have colleagues from all over the country. Many of you all know of the unrest and the violence that is taking place on the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul right now, where there's a lot of fear, and there are a lot of our immigrant and refugee neighbors that are scared to go out, to go to doctor's appointments, to go to school because of being targeted by ICE. So I used, I worked with some other colleagues of mine, and we used social media to get a bunch of clergy together from all over the country. It was about 140 of us on the Zoom call to meet with some clergy that are on the ground in the Twin Cities to hear what they're doing, what those churches are doing there to help their neighbors. And it was a really great conversation. And it's a conversation that couldn't have happened if we did not have the tools that we used, social media, Facebook, Zoom, and we shared best practices and we prayed with one another and for one another. And that is a really great example of how social media can help the church be the church and to do the work of discipleship. So that's kind of my case for the defense. Um I've already mentioned today that our live streaming ministry here at the church is so very important. Um, and not only because studies have shown that shown that first-time visitors at your church, at this church, in any church, there's like a 95% chance that before they ever physically step in the door, they've already checked out your live stream. Um, so that is a really important way that we get the message of Jesus Christ. Um, we share that beyond the doors of our church. So that's, I think, a strong case in the in the in for the defense. However, I must also confess the prosecution has some really good arguments as well. I have, like so many of you, have learned that I'm just getting overwhelmed and anxious and doom scrolling way too often. Uh, and it's something that I think is important to recognize that it needs to be reined in. Um, so I wanted to share with you all one of the things that I've been trying on for size the past few weeks. Um, this is my my phone, my my brand new iPhone 17 that I love. Um, but I cannot currently read the news. I cannot use it to read the news. I cannot use it to scroll social media because all of those apps are currently disengaged on my phone. The reason for this is because I got something that's called a brick. And what it is, it's it's it's a little magnet. I meant to bring it with me, but I forgot. It's a little magnet that stays um on our fridge. And if I want to read the news with the app that I use, I I regularly read the New York Times and NPR and other sources. Um, those apps are blocked along with Facebook and TikTok and Instagram. And the only way I can use those apps is if I physically go to my fridge and I tap my phone against it and I unbrick it, so to speak. And then it lets me use those apps. Um, and there's a schedule so that it turns those apps off. I have it set for 9 p.m. So every night at 9 p.m., all those apps get um get blocked. And it really helps me. It means that I can't doom scroll in bed. I'm actually doing this wonderful thing called pleasure reading, and I don't get distracted, and I don't uh, you know, I if I want to scroll on Facebook, I have to actually get out of my cozy warm bed and walk downstairs and tap my phone against the fridge. So again, I'm not ret I'm not withdrawing from the world. I'm still reading the news, I'm still engaging with my colleagues and friends on Facebook and TikTok, but I'm trying to do it with more intentionality because what I've learned is this. Some people think that the most precious commodity that we have to give or to receive is money. But I've actually come to a bit of an epiphany during the season of epiphany that it's not money. The most valuable, precious commodity that you and I exchange with one another is attention. Where we give our attention is so very important. I have the same capacity for attention as the richest man in the world does. So where we choose to give our attention is often where we focus our passion, our discipleship, our empathy, our curiosity. And so I want all of us to be mindful about where we are choosing to give our the commodity of our attention. So as you engage in social media, artificial intelligence, technology, news consumption, just be mindful of that with me. And let's do this work together. And so I want to leave us this day with one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver. It's on the door of my office, so next time you walk by my office, you can you can read it. And it's simply called this Instructions for Living a Life. And the poem is very simple. Mary Oliver's three instructions for living a life is pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it. So, friends, do that this week as you go about. Stop the scroll for a little bit, pay attention, find something that astonishes you, that blesses you with love and curiosity and wonder, and then share it with your neighbor. And you just might find a little bit more peace, a little bit more calm, and a little bit more energy for when the time is ready to get back to work, bending that moral arc of the universe towards the justice that God has promised us. Friends, in the name of God, the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us God's beloved children say. Amen.