Opening Prayer:

Holy God, May Your Word uncover truths that will shape our journey together and support us as we lose our lives for Your sake. Amen.

Two weeks ago, my six month old son, Ryan, was baptized here at Pilgrims. Two weeks ago, my husband, Bob, and I were Bonnie and Bill Noonan---parents waiting and anticipating a baptism.

We've created an incredible liturgy around the sacrament of baptism here at Pilgrims. Ryan's baptism was no exception. Our family walked away from Pilgrims two weeks ago feeling deeply connected: our vocation as parents was re-affirmed in the sacrament, the vows we took solidified a moral vision for our family and we released Ryan into the loving hands of the Church.

After all the hoopla ended, we headed home and the car ride was quite.

We parked our mini van in our parking lot and the car was barely in park before Sam jumped out and started running towards our house yelling, "Maddie, lets race. I'm first!"

Maddie's little legs started going as fast as she could and within seconds she was screaming at Sam to slow down. This only made Sam laugh and taunt her with his 5 year old speed. Bob and I trailed behind with Ryan asleep in the car seat and dragging numerous bags and gifts. As I looked ahead to the chaos of Sam and Maddie, I thought to myself, "Back to the grind." My next thought was, "OK, how are going to make this work."

How are we going to make this work?

What does the experience of baptism look like once the dazzle and glory of the sacrament
is finished and we are back to the daily grind?

Ryan's baptism was a mountaintop experience; it transfigured us as parents and will hopefully transform Ryan's life.

If you look up the word transfiguration in the dictionary, you find the word means
"exalting, glorifying, spiritual change." The word transfiguration dates back to the 14th century, so when this story was established in the Gospel of Luke, the word "transfiguration" didn't even exist. At some point, this word was created and attached to this mystical experience of change on a mountaintop.

Change might have been on the minds of Peter, John and James as they climbed the mountain with Jesus. At this point in the Gospel, ministry with Jesus was becoming grueling. They were exhausted. Jesus had been asking the disciples "who am I?" and they kept messing up in their answers. Right before the transfiguration, Jesus foretells his death and resurrection by saying,

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.

While somewhat clarifying for the disciples on the nature of discipleship, if they were tired I'm sure this statement seemed more like a downer than a call to action.

What started out as a prayer session on the mountain turned into an experience of the glory of God for Peter and his companions. As the vision of God fades, Peter's reaction is to make three booths. Biblical scholar, Robert McAfee Brown, paraphrases Peter's reaction this way: "Let's stay up here. Let's build a retreat center, complete with meditation chapels, and hang on to this ’Äòreligious experience' so that it won't fade away."

This might have been an attractive suggestion to the others since the only alternative at this point was crosses in Jerusalem. God disrupts the moment as Peter, John and James were covered over by a cloud and God's voice declared, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" These words are an echo, we've heard them before---we hear these words when Jesus is baptized in the river Jordan.

Pay attention today at the font, you might just hear these words again when we baptize Phoebe Andrea Noonan.

"Listen to him!" proclaims the voice of God. Listen to Jesus! In our world, throughout our days, we are bombarded with voices that demand our attention: TV, media, jobs, political rhetoric, consumerism’Ķthe voices are many, the voices are powerful and seek to dazzle us and make us believe that glory can be found elsewhere.

But what cuts right through those voices is the voice of God to the disciples proclaiming
you listen to what Jesus has to say---this is the voice you follow.

One of the most profound moments for me at Ryan's baptism was when we recited
an affirmation of faith together. I felt the intensity of our "one voice." Together, at once, we proclaimed that as we live in a broken and fearful world, we will live our lives as one body, committed to trusting the one triune God whom we worship and serve.

We declared at Ryan's baptism that we will listen to Jesus and live our lives for Jesus and God alone.

We will do the same today when we baptize Phoebe. Pay attention at the font in a moment of affirmation when we join together in the Apostle's creed. When we affirm our faith around the font, we live out this part of the transfiguration. We are, in a way, responding to God's voice "Listen to him. Follow him" In our one voice at the font, we will proclaim, "Yes, God, we will listen and live our lives for the sake of Jesus."

Living your life for the sake of Jesus. Peter, John and James heard these words before they headed up the mountain. The words mean you can't stay on the mountaintop forever.

We need the mountaintops of faith. I needed Ryan's baptism’Äîit pushed me out of the ordinary to experience something extraordinary. But we aren't called to build memorials to memories. Faith isn't about preservation, particularly self-preservation. Before Peter and friends head up the mountain, Jesus declared the nature of discipleship: if one puts their own life first they shall lose it. But whoever lays their life on the line for Jesus shall come out on top.

Peter's idea of booths represented comfort, security, preservation. But that isn't the nature of what we do together as disciples. We are called to invest our lives n the well being of others. If we don't, well, according to Jesus, we've pretty much missed the point.

Ryan doesn't know it yet, but we baptized him so he would lose his life for the sake of others. We handed Ryan over to the Church so he can learn how to risk listening to the one voice--- follow Jesus---meaning we want Ryan to resist living a self-centered life and invest himself in the justice making that needs to happen in the world.

Right before Ryan was baptized, there was a moment in the liturgy when Bob and I handed Ryan over to Jeff. After Ryan was baptized, Jeff handed him over to Betty Rudolph who, after Ryan was clothed with a stole by Kesley and anointed by Mitch, welcomed Ryan into the life of this congregation.

Those "handing over" moments are intentional. Those moments symbolized our letting go of Ryan. The church is the body that will teach Ryan how to lose his life for the sake of others. We handed Ryan over so his life won't be about self-preservation’Äîa life lived for his own sake and glory.

As stewards of our children, Bob and I had to let Ryan go so he can learn how to lose his life and live in the movement of God.

Pay attention today at the font. When Bonnie and Bill hand over Phoebe to Jeff and, after the baptism, Jeff will hand Phoebe to Calva, you are witnessing, again, the nature of discipleship come alive.

Since faith isn't about self-preservation and personal glory, Jesus takes his students down the mountain and, the next day, is greeted by a crowd. Within the crowd is a father, beside himself with anguish for his only son is possessed by a demonic spirit. But this isn't just any child, this is an only child.

This is a child who shrieks. This is a child who is thrown into convulsions until he foams at the mouth. This is a child mauled by a spirit. This is a human being that most of us would want to run from, flee the scene, and escape the agony that would come from witnessing such pain.

But Jesus doesn't flee the scene or assess the situation from afar.

Jesus confronts the demon, or the evil, that is ravaging this only child's body.

After a declaration of the nature of discipleship, after a mountain top experience with God's voice declaring the One whom we should follow, we have Jesus living out
what discipleship looks like in daily existence, or our daily grind: we confront the demons or evil of the world, particularly those demons or power that keep people from being included in the body of faith and society at large.

When Jesus confronted the demon in this child, the healing that took place wasn't a supernatural experience. In ancient Mediterranean world, illness was perceived as a "socially disvalued state," a defective condition that threatened community integrity.

Healing was an act of re-socializing the defective person. Imperfections were thought
to mirror vulnerabilities in the community. In this healing, Jesus restored this child back not only back into society but the community of faith.

Jesus confronts the status quo culture and its rejection of the child, he also confronts
the temple establishment and its corruptions. This child would not have been allowed
into the main part of the synagogue. He would have been considered unclean.

The Gospel of Luke has Jesus reaching out, confronting the status quo and some of
the religious authorities who were denying this child the holy welcome into the community of faith that he so deserved.

Jesus transfigured, or changed, that welcome by confronting the powers that be. Healing came when the exclusion ended.

First, before the child could be healed, the father had to hand him over to Jesus.

For those of us who have been baptized, we were handed over at the time of the sacrament’Äîentrusted into the care of the church so that, together, we could confront the powers that keep us from one another and from God.

Pay attention today at the font at that "handing over" moment. When Phoebe is handed over to Jeff, the wheels will be set in motion for her to live a life of faithful resistance
to a world that still has boundaries and barriers that keep us from living and interacting with one another, especially those who live on the margins of society and our church:
the poor, the sick, the mentally ill.

If we want to share our life with Jesus, if we want to lose our life for Jesus' sake,
we walk away from that which preserves comfort and security to a life that confronts
what scares us the most. We engage the demons of the world and declare that God's love
is stronger than all that evil put together.

Jesus shows us that we have to confront the powers that deny our human existence and we are called to welcome each person as if they were the only child of God.

Pay attention today at the font. This story will come alive yet again. We will be asked if we will confront oppression by renouncing evil and its power in the world.

After Phoebe is baptized, Calva will welcome Phoebe into the community of faith.

This welcome goes beyond a public nicety. Calva will declare God's holy welcome.
This is the welcome we all deserve.

To sustain the journey, we need to gather at the font. The waters of baptism take us from ordinary to extraordinary. But we can't preserve the moment forever. We move on, together, back to the daily grind, where we are called to engage in a ministry that confronts the powers that deny every child, every being, full participation in the life of the church and society.

Listen.

Jesus calls us to a ministry that loves the rejected and the despised. As Phoebe is baptized
into the Church universal and Pilgrims in particular, this is the kind of discipleship we are called to teach to her.

Bonnie and Bill will hand Phoebe over to us today and we are being entrusted to teach Phoebe how to look for Jesus while standing with the ones who are rejected by church and society. Together, now with Phoebe, we lose our lives for the sake of the world.

Let us listen to the voice of the One we are called to follow. Let us greet each other
at the waters of baptism.

Let us pray.

God of transfiguration, God of change, You call us to a deep engagement with your Word. May we experience that connection with You and one another as we gather at the font.

                        ✞

© 2006 Ashley Goff