We try on many identities throughout our lives.  Some of you have changed careers, moved into a new neighborhood, gone back to school, maybe become parents – all things that change us just a little bit.  Some of our identities we are ready to proclaim from the roof tops.  There are others, however, that we want to keep quiet – those we would prefer people not know.  When I first came to Old South, I sat in the very back pew.  It took me a long time to begin moving up front.  Then it was a bit longer until I joined.  Then it was even a bit longer until I started participating.  Oh, I was hiding.  I wasn’t ready for people to know that part of me.  I just wanted to sit and worship and be close enough to the front of the sanctuary to get a glimpse of the stars in the cupola.

Faith is one of the most intimate parts of our lives.  We may hesitate to talk about it with colleagues.  We may have trouble explaining to our friends why we are part of a religious community.  Faith is very personal because it is at the very core of who we are.  It is how we define our existence and our meaning of life.  It can take a great deal of courage to share this part of ourselves for fear of judgment.  Even being accepted for our beliefs can be scary for, that can carry the fear of commitment.
Nine years ago, no one here knew that I had been very active in United Church of Christ churches throughout my life.  If asked how faith played a part in my life, I would have felt more comfortable telling you about the costumes – the temporary identities – I wore to the church Halloween parties.  The best costume was what I called Beegiffee.  Beegiffee was a cross between a bee and a giraffe.  There is a photograph of me dressed in yellow long johns – top and bottom.  The Bee stripes were made from black electrical tape around my limbs and torso.  I had a black Zoro mask, wings and makeup.  I stood with my hands on my hips with my strong, assured ten year old shoulders pulled back in perfect posture.  I was a church kid in the disguise of a hybrid giraffe bee superhero.

Instead of hiding today, some of us are taking this opportunity to celebrate our ministries.  It is a day to take off our masks and let people around us know who we really are.  Sure, there are people around the world celebrating Mardi Gras or Carnival.  It is fun to dress up.  It is fun to assume other identities, to try them on for size.  It is even more amazing when we feel safe enough to be exposed as who we really are.

Today marks the last Sunday before the beginning of Lent, named Transfiguration Sunday, and the end of the season of Epiphany.  We celebrated Epiphany with the arrival of the kings and their gifts.  As we gather today to celebrate theological education and church vocations, we rejoice in the ephiphanal moments in our lives and our ministries.  Epiphanal moments are those ah-ha moments when something that was puzzling suddenly makes sense or when we find peace with something we have been wrestling with.  They are gifts of clarity from God. Today, Transfiguration Sunday, is a time when the identity of Christ in our lives is clarified before we depart on our Lenten journeys.  We gather to bear witness to the identities that have come into being as a result of our being in the church community.

In the scripture that Maggie Keelan just read; Peter, James and John witness one of these ephiphanal moments of Jesus’ ministry. He has gone through a major transformation in the midst of his friends.  They are all up on a mountain top, they turn around and see Jesus in robes of dazzling white.  This transfiguration is not simply a costume change, but a revelation of what is already there.  He was coming into his true self.

There is a familiar phrase in this morning’s Gospel text.  We have heard something similar before at another pivotal point in Jesus’ life.  We heard it at his baptism in the Jordan.  “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  Today we hear the same address, but a different instruction as Jesus begins his journey towards the end of his life.  “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to Him.”  These two periods in his life are bookends or highlights to the importance of his ministry.  What faces him in the weeks ahead is a huge challenge.  At that point no one knows what really is about to happen.  Jesus may need the reassurance of blessing from God.  His friends are reminded that Jesus is indeed both fully human and fully divine by his dazzling garments as well as the presence of Moses and Elijah.  Divinity may be limited to those on the mountaintop that morning, but there is Good News for the rest of us.  We are already Beloved of God.  We are already blessed.  You already have the tools to become an active meaningful member of the Body of Christ.

Most of us have been baptized.  Many of us have made a formal commitment to membership in this church.  We celebrate the new members that are joining this morning.  Through baptism we recognize the covenant in the participation in the Body of Christ.  Through our membership in a congregation we are being public in our commitment to a particular community as well as the wider Body of Christ.  As active participants in this body, we have the tools of the embrace of the community and the blessing of God.

I remember another dress up session when I was around ten or eleven.  Fortunately or not, I do not have a photo for proof.  I was with a babysitter and my younger brother.  Being the bossy older sister, I decreed that we were going to play church and I was going to be the minister.  I put my on white knit nightgown and then my father’s black and white L.L. Bean sweater with a scarf around my neck.  I found a box, covered it with a tablecloth and put flowers and a Bible on the box.  I then stood behind the box raised my hands, looked at my congregation of two and was at a complete loss for words.  “Don’t tell anyone,” I instructed, “I don’t want anyone to know.”  Maybe I threatened them.  Maybe I bribed them.  Or maybe they just forgot.  In any case, it was several years later that I felt an actual call to ministry and more than a decade beyond that until I was ready to tell anyone here.

One morning at Old South, I finally revealed my secret to Jennifer Mills-Knutsen, a former minister at this church.  I told her about my call to ministry.  The thing was, that I was really interested in pursuing it, but I didn’t want anyone to know, because I didn’t want anyone to get too excited, in case it didn’t work out.  I couldn’t go to Bangor Theological Seminary in Maine, because people knew me there.  I couldn’t go to Andover Newton, because I knew a lot of graduates.  So, instead, for the next few months I pondered the mountain of theological education from the bottom staring up at the top filled with anxiety and fear.
Rarely do we find a ski lift just waiting to transport us to our mountaintop experience.  More often than not, however, they involve a lot of work and climbing on hands and knees.  Climbing is not easy.  Anyone who has done any hiking on an incline knows this.  If you are not in the best of shape, you rely on the patience of your friends to ascend.  We do all of that work and find that there are yet more mountains to climb.  To make it up these we need to rely on friends and family again and again.  We have the wisdom of those who have preceded us.  Jesus had Moses and Elijah standing beside him.  We have family and friends and hidden gems of acquaintances beside us just waiting to help us through.

When I announced my decision to our former senior minister, Jim Crawford, he looked at me, put his hands on his hips, smiled and said, “Well, my dear, it is about time.”  Then there was the issue of telling my parents.  After telling my mother that I had been accepted to Andover Newton, she admitted that she knew something was up and had half expected me to announce that my new husband was waiting in the car.  Mind you, I was not dating at the time.  Evidently, the smile on my face was just that huge and mischievous.

We continue to wrestle with our faith journeys all of our lives and have to reassess where we are going and who we are in the life of Christ.  Our celebration of theological education continues as we journey together through Lent.  During Lent we wonder anew how Christ works in us and through us.  In the coming weeks, you will hear from three of my beloved professors; Matthew Myer Boulton, Mark Burrows and Beth Nordbeck.  All three of whom have been beside me during parts of my journey.  They are joining us here at Old South on our Lenten quest for a deeper understanding of who we are as a congregation.  My prayer is that during their Lenten discussions that they will help you with your own sometimes steep path to discernment about how God is calling you to minister.

Although I have wrestled at points wondering why I waited so long, I have come to know that God is never finished with us.  God also doesn’t call us until we are ready even if our teeth are chattering and our knees knocking.  All of those identities that we have taken on over the course of our lives become part of us and our calling.  Beneath this robe, I am a mixture of the identities that I have had over my lifetime including; BeeGiffee and even that little girl dressed up as a minister.

In the four years since I started at Andover Newton, I have been blessed to don many of the costumes of ministry.  I have been a camp counselor and dean in my jeans and t-shirt.  I have worn the outfit of a hospital chaplain including gown, gloves, hat and booties.  I wore my bathing suit to an event termed as hot tub ministry at a young adult conference.  I have even ministered in my pajamas at youth, young adult and women’s retreats.  I have been anointed with glitter by children in Nicaragua.  I wear a favorite well-worn paint splattered sweatshirt to service projects and art workshops.  You know, once I started wearing these costumes in the context of ministry, I realized just how blessed I felt.  It was as if I had been wearing these costumes all along and never fully acknowledged their full meaning.

Saying yes to Christ working in and through our professional lives, means taking risks.  The ministry that we do may be as teacher, nurse, gardener, accountant or even computer expert, but it can still be ministry.  When discussing my ministry in the church, there have been people who have stared at me in wonder and puzzlement about my choice of vocation.  They look at me as if I have told them that I plan to go through life wearing an outfit of yellow long johns decorated with black electrical tape.  The concept can be that difficult for some to grasp.   As many who enter theological education can tell you there tend to be far more positive responses than negative.  There are people who are not surprised at all.  “I always knew,” they say.  “You had it in you all along.” With these words of recognition, you can almost imagine a voice from a cloud saying, “This is my Son or my Daughter, the Beloved.”

Alleluia.  Amen.