MaryBeth LaMont

Remember back in the day when people used to take their dog for a walk? Or perhaps they pushed a baby stroller taking their little one for a walk. Now I have noticed people instead seem to take their phone for a walk. Really! Look at their posture: bent over, head down, right or left arm out, phone in the hand with the screen facing up to the face which generally has a serious expression. You pass and grunt out a 5:30 am hello and they don’t even hear you due to ear buds.

Before you dismiss this as the rantings of a grouchy old man who spends a lot of time with college students, let me assure you: taking a phone for a walk crosses all ages. All. What is so important that we can’t look up and nod a friendly greeting to other phone walkers? What is so fascinating on Tik Tok that people can no longer look around and check out the scenery? And, at 5:30am?
Cell phones, virtual communication, and technology have their place. I remain convinced; however, they are too often misplaced when used to take the place of humans and fool us into thinking virtual relationships are the same as real relationships where all parties in a relationship are present with one another.

Many of you have heard me quote from the various speakers who address us campus pastors from Arizona State University Counseling Services and other similar offices, psychology professors and counselors. They say almost exactly what the speakers tell us when we Lutheran Campus Pastors gather in the West and around the US. Studies have shown again and again with only slightly different data that today’s young adults are simultaneously more connected and communicate with others more than any previous generation and are also lonelier than any other prior generation. When I mention this to students, I get almost instant agreement from them with no push back.
That is why church and campus ministry are so valuable especially to the young. The CDC reports young adult suicide rates increased 30% from 2000 to 2016. This is, of course, before the pandemic. Teens and young adults have the highest suicide rates in the US.

We cannot, of course, blame it all on technology or virtual “relationships”. There is more to it than that. One thing certain, however, is that such relating and attempts at conducting and sustaining relationships electronically are of very little assistance in combating loneliness.

“Where two or three are gathered, there am I in the midst of them”, Jesus says. I wonder, does that count when the 2 or three are on Zoom? It almost seems to me that somehow only part of Jesus might be present in such media. While God can and does use anything and anyone, I’m not so sure Virtual Jesus is equal to Jesus of scripture.

God so loved the world God didn’t send a Smart Phone. God sent, instead, a person of real flesh and blood. We have proclaimed since the first Christmas this is how God mostly relates to us; through each other and personally, not distant. The God of the Bible can literally look us in the eye or touch us by grasping our hand when we receive a caring grasp from another.

This is not a call to get rid of your phones, destroy your laptops or tablets or delete your Facebook accounts. It is a call to put them in place. They are useful, they really help out when we absolutely cannot be present with others, but never are they are replacement for you or for me or for any others. They are, instead, a helpful, but weak substitute.

So put them aside. Grab the leash and Fido, bundle up the baby and head out. Smile and nod at your neighbors, when you can speak by phone instead of text, call and speak. Let others know they aren’t on your work checklist or something you do while also doing something else. You are not multi-tasking with those for whom you care, you are relating and focusing on them. I wonder if those on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize Jesus because they were engrossed in their phones? Probably not, but in personally being present with others Jesus does have a better chance to show up.

Virtual Jesus died on a virtual cross. No real blood shed there. The real and in person Jesus makes sacrifices right before our eyes and in our presence.