The Transfiguration-2023

The Feast of the Transfiguration August 6, 2023 A letter to Maisey Elizabeth Liipfert upon the occasion of her baptism. Dear Maisey, Today is a very special day to be baptized. It is the feast of the Transfiguration, a day that we celebrate on a Sunday only every six years. Today we remember the day that Jesus took his closest disciples up to the top of a mountain and they saw his face shining with God’s glory. Today we remember the voice that speaks from the clouds to Jesus and to all, proclaiming Jesus as God’s Chosen or as God’s beloved. Today in your baptism, your parents and godparents are making promises to God and to the Church, your faith community about how they want to raise you in the Christian faith, and we, the people of God, are making promises to you that we will be faithful companions to you along the way. Sweet Maisey, you have already been claimed by God as God’s beloved since even before your birth. Today your parents and godparents and all of us gather around you to accept your belovedness on your behalf, and we promise to teach you what it means to live as God’s beloved throughout the course of your life. So, what does it mean to be beloved? I watched you a couple of weeks ago shine in your own little baby belovedness as your mamma danced with you in church while the VBS children sang “This little light of mine.” So, I know that you grow up knowing what it means to be beloved. It is that sense of pure belonging, of being cherished, of long-held longings being fulfilled, of knowing that you are not alone. Belovedness is tasted when we discover unexpected gifts or delights, when we can see the synchronistic weavings of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the world around us. As we go through this sometimes hard and weary world, it is easy to lose sight of our belovedness. And it’s when we lose sight of it, that we live in ways that are not pleasing to the heart of God. We treat each other badly; we are unkind or disinterested in anything or anyone beyond ourselves; we don’t live up to our own capacity for sharing our belovedness with the world, shining a light of the good news of God’s love beyond ourselves to those we encounter. The Christian faith and life is all about being grounded in our own belovedness so we can share that with others. It’s why we come here, week after week, because we need each other to help us remember that each one of us is God’s beloved. We are fed from God’s table so that Christ’s body and blood can give us a belovedness-infusion every week, and we are sent out into the world to remind everyone whom we encounter that they, too, are claimed by God as God’s beloved. As we renew our baptismal vows today alongside your parents and godparents, Maisey, we remember that we, too, have said “yes” to God’s call and claim of each one of us as God’s beloved. We are confirmed and strengthened in that belovedness today. And we promise that as you grow, we will help you learn and remember it too. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+