I wanted to personalize everyone's bulletin this morning - and I am very pleased with the results! If you have not yet looked at the sermon title in the bulletin, take a look and you will notice that it has been created with you, and you,only in mind. And to complete the effect, I would like everyone to take a pen or pencil (there are pencils in the pew racks in front of you), and fill out the little form that is the sermon title, so you can have that special feeling that someone went to great effort to help you feel special this morning. Go ahead...fill it out...I'll wait. Now, hold your bulletin at arm's length, admire the composition of the entire bulletin, admire the typesetting of the sermon title, admire the calligraphy that spells out your name, admire the fact that this bulletin was made with you, and you only, in mind!

How many times during the week do you get a piece of mail that purports to be just for you? The bulk mail stamp seems to suggest that thousands, if not millions of others, are getting the same piece of mail as you, but the copy is written in a way that makes it sound as if the writer actually had you in mind: Dear Dan, I am writing to you because I know your commitment to our great cause. During this times of government cut-backs, Dan, we more than ever need supports like you, Dan. Doesn't that make you feel warm all over? This practice of personalizing mass-produced letters becomes especially hilarious when they get your name wrong. It seems that many computers cannot make sense of my hyphenated last name. Linda and I have gotten on to some mailing list as Little Andersonlittle. No hyphen, no sense of irony. And so we regularly receive letters that say: Dear Little, I am writing to you because I know your commitment to our great cause. During this times of government cut-backs, Little, we more than ever need supports like you, Little.

I think fund-raisers and politicians use these kinds of letter because they know that deep down, we all want and need to be recognized. We all want to matter to someone. When I was a kid, I was a decent enough ballplayer that I was never the one picked last - I wasn't great mind you, but I was good enough. I never went through that awful punched in the gut feeling of being the last boy standing there, one team or the other having to take you because you are the only one left. But I used to feel bad for those boys - it was often my best friend, who while a great playmate, was not the most coordinated of kids. He was gawky and clumsy and no one wanted him on their team. While I didn't experience this feeling of not being recognized and noticed while playing sports, I did experience it when applying to college and applying for jobs. You put yourself out there - your whole academic record; you write essays that reveal a bit of your inner self; you take some risks and hope that you will be noticed. And then on April 15 (which used to be the day when colleges would tell you their final answer), you would scan the mail for thick envelopes and thin envelopes. Thick envelopes meant that you had been noticed - that you mattered. Thin ones meant you weren't even going to get picked last - in essence, a thin envelope meant that they didn't want you on the team. Now these disappointments can be good lessons for us - we are not always appropriate for every college or every job or every opportunity that comes our way. But we do have a deep human need to be affirmed for who we are and what we can do - and the writesr of form letters know that and hope that maybe their letter will catch us at a moment when we need to feel important and needed - even if they didn't get our name quite right.

Which brings us to Jesus. The story of the transfiguration is a weird and wonderful story. The story appears in three of the four gospels - John doesn't have a record of it. In each of the versions, the main details are the same: Peter, James and John accompany Jesus up a high mountain, Jesus' appearance is transfigured (that is he looks the same, but also looks different - as any of us do when we have a personal encounter with God), and Moses and Elijah appear. But what I find interesting is the small difference between the three stories. This is the only version where the disciples fall asleep. It is also the only one that mentions what Jesus must do in Jerusalem. And in the other two versions the voice from heaven says: "This is my Son, the Beloved." But in Luke's version of the story the words from heaven declare, "This is my Son, the Chosen."

I think this difference if significant. It is a wonderful thing to ourselves to be beloved of another - we just had a holiday marking its importance. We all need to know that we are loved by God - as Jesus did in his own life. But we also need to know that we are chosen, that we have been noticed that someone wants us for who we are. Now we may ask ourselves, didn't Jesus know who he was? He was the Son of God after all - how much more self-knowledge does one need? Yes, Jesus may have been the Son of God, but he was also the son of Mary, that is he was fully human, and like all of us, he needed the assurance and affirmation of being chosen, of being wanted, of being valuable for who he was. And this was especially important as he began his long journey to Jerusalem. There has been and will always be speculation about what Jesus knew about his life and death and when he knew it. Did he live his life knowing that on a certain day he would be betrayed by one of his own, charged by the religious leaders, arrested by the Romans, and put to death on a cross? I don't know whether he knew those details or not, but he had to know things wouldn't go well in the capital city. He was constantly in trouble out in the hinterland - so you could just imagine how his teaching and healing ministry would threaten to push the central authorities over the edge. And to make sure we don't miss the showdown that coming, Luke places the transfiguration well before the halfway point in his gospel. (As a comparison, Mark puts it exactly at the halfway point and Matthew is two-thirds of the way into his gospel before Peter, James, John and Jesus make their important ascent up the mountain). But most of Luke's story is a slow motion collision between Jesus and the religious and civil authorities. Chapter by chapter, the tension mounts until his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his death five days later. Luke's Gospel is consumed with this showdown, with the awful and terrible conclusion of Jesus' life.

If Jesus is going to endure that kind of awful pressure, with all of its attendant doubts and questions (is this really what I am supposed to do? I'm not sure this is going to end well. What if they kill me and nobody cares?), he is going to need a counterweight of faith and courage. And the counterweight, that infusion of faith and confidence comes in the words on the Mount of Transfiguration - "This is my Son, the Chosen." God doesn't just love Jesus, God has chosen him. For all of the abandonment, fear, and pain that Jesus must bear, he will do so knowing that God has embraced him at his very core - that God has taken notice of him and wants, not just anybody, but him, God's chosen. With that confidence and faith, Jesus is able to turn his face to Jerusalem and live out his calling to proclaim the Good News of God's Kingdom and to demonstrate God's love for all humanity by loving us even when we did not love him.

For the past year we have been talking about and moving toward an equipping ministry at Trinity. I know that many of you don't completely get what we are aiming toward and I have heard some genuine concerns about what this will mean for you - and I want you all to know that I and the others who are working on this new effort hear those concerns and we take them seriously. This is new terminology and it isn't completely clear to any of us what this ministry direction will evolve into. But this story from Luke today is at the core of equipping ministry - indeed it is at the core of all that we are as Christians. God has called each of us, that is, God has given us spiritual gifts and put us in specific places where we can use those gifts to share God's love, to live God's peace, and to work for God's justice. These callings aren't just lived out when we are at church, but in every area of our lives - in our homes, in our places of work, in our community, in the world...and in and through the church. Equipping ministry begins with the bedrock assumption that every person, no matter who he or she is, no matter what their station in life, is chosen by God, is called to do God's work, is called to ministry.

Equipping ministry is concerned with two parts of this equation - first, what is that work, what is that ministry to which each person is called. That is discovered in conversation, surveys, and prayer. And the second part of equipping is to provide support as each person lives into his or her calling. This can include training, team building, recognition, and resources. But first and foremost the support that any equipping ministry offers is spiritual. To help each believer, each inquirer, each disciple live into the knowledge and assurance that God loves you and that God has chosen you. Think about that - God. Has. Chosen. You. With God, there is no sitting on the sidelines wondering if you will ever be noticed. No waiting to be picked. God has created each of us, and like Jesus, God has chosen each one of us. Psalm 139 declares: For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. Fearfully and wonderfully made - each of us - and chosen by God to experience God's mercy and share God's love.

If our equipping ministry does no more than help each of us know that we wonderfully and fearfully made and that God has chosen each of us, each of us by name, we will have succeeded beyond our wildest hopes - for when we know that God has chosen us and given us the faith and the gifts to do the work for which God has chosen us, we can do anything - we can travel to Guatemala and minister to God's children; we can serve our community through our Food Pantry; we can bring hope to the people of New Orleans by participating in clean up efforts; we can teach our children faith; we can literally change the world. Because Jesus knew he was not only loved, but chosen, he could turn his face confidently toward Jerusalem and bring his earthly ministry to its culmination. Because we know we are not only loved by God , but that we are also chosen, we can do likewise.

I want you to take your bulletin out one more time - the one that is "personalized." I want you to read those words to yourself and not hear them as printed words for which you filled in the blanks, but as Gods' words to you.

This is my Son, Matt, my Chosen.

This is my Daughter, Jane, my Chosen.

This is my Daughter, Spirit, my Chosen.

This is my Son, David, my Chosen.

You are God's sons and daughters... God's chosen... God's beloved. Know that you are the children of God, and nothing can separate you from God's love, and from being chosen, because we dwell in the love of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.