Last fall, we reflected together on the Christian doctrine of creation. We built that doctrine on four foundational statements. One of them is central to the sermons that start today. That central statement says: "We believe that the heavens and the earth serve as the setting in which God seeks to be united in covenant love with the human family."

Knowing what we know about the size of the universe, someone might hear that statement and think it to be small-minded and selfish. Within the Milky Way our solar system is a speck. Within deep space the Milky Way is a speck. To treat that magnificence as nothing more than the setting for the human drama seems like a retreat into pre-scientific arrogance and ignorance.

Christians disagree. We say that humanity holds this exalted place, because God created man in His image. To bear the image of God means that God implanted in us some measure of the reason, will, power, and freedom by which He created the universe. That likeness makes it possible for God to be united in covenant love with mankind.

These sermons will attempt to show at street level part of what it means for humanity to be united in covenant love with God. In this series I am proposing that the vocation of the Church to be holy both defines and fulfills the human longing to be authentic and to be free. I hope to connect many biblical passages into a coherent presentation of this proposal. Ephesians 1-2 reveal the vocation of the Church.

An Act of Imagination
I need you to perform an act of sympathetic imagination. This will enable us to move quickly and meaningfully through the first two chapters of Ephesians. Try to read them through the eyes of the Apostle Paul. I will assist this act of imagination by the way I read what Paul wrote in these two chapters.

So, think Jewish. Paul was a Jew. Think Christian. Paul believed Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. Think outside the box. Paul the Jew took his message of the Jewish Messiah to the Gentile world. Think visionary thoughts. Paul saw in what was happening in his ministry a clue to God's ultimate purpose for the human family.

If you are ready, here is a word to the wise. The way I read these chapters turns on the pronouns we and you. Chapter 2:11 said to its original audience: Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Genitles by birth .... The pronoun you clearly refers to Gentiles. So, I assume that most of the time the pronoun we will usually refer to Jews. With that distinction in mine, let's begin reading Ephesians 1:3ff.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us Jews in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in the Messiah. For he (God) chose us Jews in union with the Messiah before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us Jews to be adopted as his sons through Jesus the Messiah, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us Jews in the One he loves.

In him we Jews have redemption through Messiah's blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us Jews with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us Jews the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in the Messiah, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment - to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even the Messiah. In him we Jews were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we Jews, who were the first to hope in the Messiah, might be for the praise of his glory.

And you Gentiles also were included in the Messiah when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you Gentiles were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those, Jew and Gentile, who are God's possession - to the praise of his glory.

If this reading is true to Paul's meaning, then he was saying to the Ephesian church: Before the creation of the universe, God's plan was to give us Jews unique access to His blessings, the greatest of which was Jesus, the Messiah. Now, because of Jesus, those blessings are accesible to the rest of the human family, whom we Jews call Gentiles.

In the rest of chapter one Paul was saying to Gentile Christians: "I know this is all new to you, and I'm praying to God that you'll get it." He said it eloquently in verse 17. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ , the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you Gentiles may know him better. He elaborated on that prayer in verses 18-23.

Then, in the first ten verses of chapter two, he said: "It's not just that it's new to you. It contradicts the way you and your ancestors have lived for generations." Listen to the first three verses. As for you Gentiles, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us (Jews included) also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we Jews were by nature objects of wrath.

But God has intervened, say verses 4-5. But because of his great love for us, Jew and Gentile, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with the Messiah even when we were dead in transgressions. Verses 8-9 put that mercy in a nutshell. For it is by grace you Gentiles have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. Your past life wasn't much to write home about anyway. But your future life in this world? Well, God has something good in mind for you.

Verse ten summarized the goodness for them. For we, Gentile as well as Jews, are God's workmanship, created in the Messiah, Jesus, to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. But Paul was not ready to talk about that goodness; and neither am I. First, he held before the eye of faith a vision of something glorious.

A Vision of the Church
He began in verses 11-12 with a powerful reminder of Gentile alienation from the life and purpose of God that Israel had enjoyed. Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men) - remember that at that time you were separate from the Messiah, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. That painted a bleak picture of the non-Jewish world.

But now, he wrote in verse 13, in the Messiah, Jesus, you Gentiles who once were far away have been brought near to the blessings of Israel through the blood of Christ. And how, exactly, did that happen? Verses 14-15 explain that he, Jesus himself, is our peace, who has made the two (Jew and Gentile) one and has destryoed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility that separated Jew and Gentile, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. Circumcision, Sabbath-keeping, kosher tables, and sacriifces were still good, but they were no longer mandatory for Gentiles to be admitted to the blessings of the Messiah. For Paul the Jew to say such a thing was radical. If God was behind that radical change, what was His purpose?

Verses 15-16 answer. Christ's purpose was to created in himself one new man out of the two (out of Jew and Gentile), thus making peace between them, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

Paul said it a second way in verse 17-18. He, Jesus, the Messiah, came and preached peace to you Gentiles who were far away and peace to those (us Jews) who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

And so what? Fasten your seatbelt and start reading at verse 19. Consequently, you Gentiles are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people (the Jews) and members of God's household (Israel), built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with the Messiah Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building, the one new man, is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you Gentiles too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Growing out of the age-old hostility between Jew and Gentile, like a lily on a stagnant pond, the apostle saw a new reality beginning to emerge. This new reality, the Church, is made up of diverse humanity and is gathered around Jesus Christ. It serves as the dwelling place where God the Creator and Redeemer lives within the human family - a kind of beachhead from which He has begun the liberation of the nations of this world from the disorders of sins.

The Vocation of the Church
To be God's dwelling place within the human family is the vocation of the Church as long as the world shall last. That's what it means to be holy. It isn't the vocation of megachurches or successful churches or American churches or new churches. It is the vocation of the whole church throughout the world, throughout time.

It isn't the vocation of churches that finally got it all together. It isn't the vocation of perfect churches. It is the vocation of the Church as it actually exists on any given Sunday at any given location. That's what makes the apostolic vision in Ephesians seem unreal. It sounds inspiring to say that the Church is to serve as the dwelling place where God the Creator and Redeemer lives within the human family - a kind of beachhead from which He has begun the liberation of the nations of this world from the disorders of sin.

But, then, you look around you at the actual people sitting near you in their ordinariness. You remember the person you had words with at the church supper or committee meeting. You fight to shake off your drowsiness or your distractedness. You remember the scandals and the frauds and the Televangelist that turned you off. It's just too much. You can't connect the dots between the thing you actually experience and the high-sounding words of scripture and sermon. It would be nice, if it were true, but this is the real world. Let's not kid ourselves.

That's the counsel of despair. I don't for a minute deny the gap between the sainly vocation of the Church and the seeming void of the Church. Everything the counself of despair says about the Church is true, and there is worse. But the counsel of despair does not say everything there is to say about the Church. Let me show you how to take seriously the apostolic vision and remain unflinching realists about the Church.

In Ephesians 5:25-27 the apostle said this: Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy ... and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. God is the ultimate Realist. He knows all that the counsel of despair knows and more; but He bet His life that He could turn the Church into something beautiful.

For me that sucks the poison right out of the counsel of despair. If He is at work to turn the Church into something beautiful, why shouldn't we do the same? If he never forgets what the Church can be, why should we forget what it can be?

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
Ephesians 4:1 tells us in a heartbeat what we should do about it. As a prisoner of the Lord, then, I urge you - the Church - I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling, the vocation, you have received.

The vocation of the Church is to be the global community that is gathered around Jesus Christ and serves as the dwelling place where God the Creator and Redeemer lives within the human family - a kind of beachhead from which He has begun the liberation of the nations of this world from the disorders of sin. That's what it means to be holy.

I say to you, the only part of this global community that I know and love and have this kind of access to: This is our vocation, our calling. Let us live a life worthy of it! The apostle went on in Ephesians 4-6 to detail what a life worthy of this vocation looks like at street level. This sermon series will do the same.

Again, in this series I am proposing that the Church's vocation to be holy both defines and fulfills the longing of the individual to be authentic and to be free. What I don't want you to miss is that the good life, as Christ reveals it, is closely bound up with the vocation of the Church. The Church is not an irritating appendix that coiuld be excised without noticeable loss. It is the vital organ without which the plan of God for the liberation of humanity fails.

We often hear people express admiration for Jesus and disdain for the Church. That is easy to do. It is understandable why people do it. I would never want to diminish any attraction that people feel toward Jesus Christ. However, people who admire Jesus and despise the Church have to ask themselves if they are not patronizing Jesus, inasmuch as they disdain the community, which He died to create and for whome He professes to have high hopes and a splendid future.

Perhaps they are mistaking signs of life for signs of death. When Christ raised Lazarus from the dead, and he came lumbering out of the tomb, bound hand and foot in strips of linen and the burial cloth fastened to his face, he looked more dead than alive, and he smelled more dead than alive. But he was alive. What he needed was for someone to removed the grave clothes and let him wash up. As one of those still encumbered by grave clothes and contributing my own share to the disagreeable smell, I know there is life here, not death. Let's remove more of the tokens of death that make the Church lumbering and smelly. Underneath is something beautiful, if we have the faith to seek it.