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Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God\u2019s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. (Ephesians 2:19-20)

If you recall from earlier this week, Paul reminded these gentiles in Ephesus of how they were once defined by all the things they were not: \u201cNot-Jews\u201d \u201cUncircumcised.\u201d \u201cSeparate from Christ.\u201d \u201cExcluded from citizenship.\u201d \u201cForeigners to the covenants of the promise.\u201d \u201cWithout hope.\u201d \u201cWithout God in the world.\u201d \xa0Seven negative identity markers covering all the things that the Ephesians were not. \xa0

How many of us define ourselves this way? \xa0By our not-having? \xa0\u201cNot skinny enough.\u201d \xa0\u201cExcluded from the property market of our peers.\u201d \xa0\u201cNot part of the group.\u201d \xa0\u201cDon\u2019t belong.\u201d \xa0\u201cNot enough money.\u201d \xa0\u201cNot what she has.\u201d \xa0\u201cNot what he can do.\u201d \xa0\u201cNot happy.\u201d \xa0\u201cWithout the right job.\u201d \xa0Many of us do it\u2014it is much easier to see what\u2019s lacking than all the things we have.

How many of us define our experience of church the same way? \xa0By what it isn\u2019t? \xa0\u201cNot welcoming enough.\u201d \u201cNot my style.\u201d \u201cNot progressive enough.\u201d \u201cNot conservative enough.\u201d \u201cNot loving enough.\u201d \u201cNot serving enough.\u201d \u201cNot enough money.\u201d \u201cNot enough volunteers.\u201d \u201cNot the right programs.\u201d \u201cNot diverse enough.\u201d \u201cNot doing enough.\u201d \u201cWithout all the people who used to attend.\u201d \u201cWithout hope.\u201d

Our eyes get good at seeing the things we pay attention to. \xa0And what we human people tend to pay attention to are all the things that aren\u2019t there. \xa0The things that should be better, fuller, faster, more pleasing, and more aligned to our values, but aren\u2019t. \xa0As Christians, this simply is the wrong way to see the world. \xa0It is an immature way of using our capacity of attention.

Paul will have none of it. \xa0In Jesus Christ, neither we nor the church are defined any longer by what we are not, but instead, by what we are. \xa0We are defined by what he has made us to be. \xa0Paul begins rattling off the positive identities we have received in Christ through the peace and salvation he has given. \xa0We are \u201cfellow citizens.\u201d \u201cWith God\u2019s people.\u201d \u201cMembers of his household.\u201d \u201cBuilt on the foundation of those faithful ones who have gone before throughout the generations, including Jesus Christ himself.\u201d \xa0

We are to train our attention on the unseen things, yes. \xa0But not the unseen things that aren\u2019t there. \xa0Our eyes are to be trained for the unseen things that are there: reality as it really is. \xa0Like a Holy Spirit stirring about, forming Christ in us. \xa0A God who has always provided and will continue to do so out of his Creation of abundance. \xa0A living Lord who beckons us to see his gifts that are abundantly more than all we could ask or imagine. \xa0

If we are to live Christian lives, we need to know who and what we are, not what we aren\u2019t. \xa0And we need to know what the church is too, rather than what it isn\u2019t. \xa0It is the place where we citizens of God\u2019s household and Kingdom gather to train our eyes to see the unseen reality of a living God at work, making us ever more fully into who we already are in Jesus Christ and giving us every good gift with which to bless this world along the way.

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