Faith, Care, and Change: Imagining What Doesn't Yet Exist

In the name of the one who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist.

Amen. Amen.

In the Roman Empire in the 4th century, if you got sick, your options for treatment

were limited, and they were dependent on your class.

If you were a soldier, the government would take care of you.

If you were wealthy, a doctor would make a house call, and your servants or

the members of your household would care for you as you recovered at home.

If you were poor, you could go to a dispensary for medicine and hoped to heal

at home, but if you were poor and homeless or if you had an incurable disease

like leprosy, you had no place to go.

But in the 4th century, in a small eastern province of the Roman Empire,

the bishop of Caesarea imagined something that didn't yet exist.

He oversaw a monastery that had already turned its attention to the needs of its community.

Rather than praying and working just within their own walls,

they had opened their doors and opened a kitchen for anyone who needed it during

a recent famine, and they had brought on a few trained doctors to help.

And this bishop, Basil, imagined something that didn't yet exist.

He built a whole complex where the sick could come for treatment and also stay

during their recovery or until their death.

There were also rooms available for travelers and strangers,

and the whole complex was connected to a church, a continuum of care for whoever

needed it for as long as they needed it, financed by the Christian community.

What Basil imagined was inpatient care, and God called something into existence

that did not previously exist—the hospital.

The inspiration for all of our modern hospitals was born there.

And it was not born just out of a need, but out of a theology that countered

prevailing cultural views.

Because Rome said there's a

hierarchy among people. Some are more valuable and deserving than others.

But Christian theology said all people are beloved of God and deserving of care.

Rome said take care of yourself first. There's not enough to go around.

Christian theology said our God doesn't know the word scarcity.

Rome said the gods require sacrifice. Christian theology said, no, God is love.

Rome said the emperor is the image of God.

But Jesus said, I and the Father are one.

And Jesus also said, I was sick, and you looked after me.

I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. Christian theology said the

poor are the image of God.

So by faith in God, with the Holy Spirit baptizing his imagination,

Basil saw Jesus in the face of lepers and the terminally ill and those who could

not afford to pay for medical treatments.

And God called something into existence that did not previously exist.

In the beginning, God created. We read that last week.

And God created out of nothing.

God spoke and it came to be.

That's how God works. From nothing, a whole planet of lively,

gorgeously, whimsical creatures that previously did not exist were called into existence.

And then in his continuing quest to bring blessing to all that he had created

god chose abraham and god told

abraham to leave his home and to go to the place that god would show him,

where would that be abraham couldn't imagine it yet he didn't know but by faith

he packed his bags and kissed his mother goodbye.

God promised Abraham that his descendants would be as many as the stars in the

sky and the sand on the shore.

Decades passed, and Abraham's wife turned 40 and 60 and 80 with no child born.

Abraham's own body, Romans tells us, was as good is dead.

But Abraham believed that this is how God works.

From barrenness, from nothingness, God creates, and creates more abundantly

than we could have asked or imagined.

Last week in Adult Forum, we were actually discussing all of this,

Basil's Hospital, the way God calls us to act in faith that those things which

we can't see now, those things which don't yet exist, can come to exist.

And Dan Matthews spoke up, and he said, I've been a priest in the Episcopal

Church for over 60 years,

And I've seen this happen time and time again in the Episcopal Church,

first with integration.

All we could see in the churches around us, and here he named a few denominations

that we don't need to get into, all we could see in those churches around us was separation.

Black people and white people worshiping separately in different churches or

in the same church but in separate locations. within the church.

But God called us to imagine something different, and we began sharing pews.

Then it was women, he said. A woman came to me and wanted to be on the vestry.

We'd never imagined such a thing.

But the vestry discussed it and agreed that God called women into leadership too.

And then it was gay marriage. We had never imagined that a same-sex marriage

could not only exist but be celebrated, and God called that into existence.

Thanks be to God.

This is how God works. God creates out of nothing, and God calls us by faith

to imagine things we can't yet see.

Always things that deepen and expand our beloved community.

Hospitals, integration, women preaching.

Marriage equality,

I wonder what God will call into existence next.

Because one thing our Christian faith teaches us is to simultaneously see the

world as it is and also to hold in our minds the possibility of what it could become.

Abraham could carry around his tired bones and sagging skin and still believe

that through God he would be the father of a nation.

Basil could look at the dying and ostracized people his culture said were disposable,

and still believe they belonged in the body of Christ, that the Christian body

was incomplete without them.

And we can take off our rose-colored glasses and look at our damaged world as it really is,

and then by faith we can act believing change is possible because we know that

it is we have seen God do it.

The homily was offered by the Rev. Amy Peterson. Musical contributions were

performed by Dr. Kevin Seal.

Introduction and closing reflections were shared by the Rev. Amy Peterson.

Sermon audio was prepared by Nanette Popa. Production was guided by Karen Marie Frederiksen