God's Tattoos
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series I, Cycle A
Have you noticed that tattoos are in? Once only for sailors, professional wrestlers, and bikers, they now have become mainstream. Formerly only folks like the comic strip character Popeye had tattoos on their bulging forearms. Hell's Angels sport tattoos with mystic meanings, and some sport graphic eroticism from which mothers shield their children. Even some of the women bikers have these red and blue etchings on their bodies. Now athletes and soccer moms think them fashionable.
Traditionally tattoos conveyed some religious meaning or told of one's accomplishments, such as how many times a sailor had rounded Cape Horn. Tattoos sometimes suggested mystic meanings or indicated some religious group. We might compare these to the colorful "fruit salad" little rectangle pins decorating the chests of military persons. Bumper stickers are like tattoos, boasting that we have been to Rock City, wherever it is.
Now the significant meanings of tattoos are often replaced by personal concerns. You can't watch a basketball game without noticing the tattoos. Some tattoos are artsy, some are personal mementos, and some are just for the flash and dash. Most of us have seen persons, mostly men, who have tattooed almost every patch of skin on their body, becoming walking art museums.
The problem with tattoos is that they are quite permanent. You can't easily get rid of them. During World War II enlistees with lurid tattoos were not accepted into the U.S. Navy. Many of them went back to their friendly tattoo artist and had appropriate clothing tattooed on those objectionable body parts of the original. We might be excused from wondering how some manage things when they aren't feeling so wonderful about their tattoo. Or we could remind athletes thinking of tattooing their team's logo on their body that they might be traded to another team some day. Most difficult must be the guy who has "T.R. loves S.M." tattooed on his arm only to find that his new love, D.R., doesn't like to be reminded that her honey once had a thing for S.M.
Tattoos have some Christian history, also. Perhaps the most arresting Christian tradition is the stigmata, the appearance of marks resembling the nail wounds of Jesus on his cross. Reddish splotches form on the hands, the feet, and the bodies of these folks. Most seem to be people of genuine faith, but others have been revealed as frauds - perhaps unwitting and innocent frauds. Whatever their cause, we can wonder whether there is valid spiritual meaning behind these stigmatic incidents.
I
Even if we are skeptical about human stigmata, a case can be made for the stigmata of God. Grasping our sense of the mysterious reality of God, let us listen to an old word from Isaiah. God is speaking through this unknown person we call "Second Isaiah" during the days when the Israelites were held in captivity in Babylon. Longing for the familiar sights and sounds of their homeland, they think that they will never return: "The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me" (49:14). God then speaks to their discouragement: "See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands" (v. 16a). What? God has tattooed the plight of Israel on God's own hands, declaring that they will not be forgotten and that God has plans for their return.
The thoughtful will say this is nonsense. They will say that if God exists, it is not helpful to do picture--thinking about God. By and large the church has done a disservice to these "questioning folks" - more numerous in the church than we think. The cChurch has not done a very good job of helping these people see that there are truths and realities too big for our space--time lives. Much important wisdom has only poetry and metaphor going for it. We have allowed many to assume that if they cannot literally affirm our God--talk, then the faith is not true.
We smile at the story of Billy busy drawing a masterpiece in Sunday school. When his teacher asked him what he was doing, he said he was drawing a picture of God. "But, Billy," she said, "no one knows what God looks like." "Well, they will when I get done," said Billy. Our resident critical church folk think that the church majors in clear, direct teachings which they find incredulous.
II
When are we going to evangelize these thoughtful skeptics in the church? Way back to the book of Hebrews the church is urged to get on with it - to move beyond the simple basics of Christian faith and offer the rich, meaningful, and intelligent faith that squares with the truth standards of one's own time. Some say we build churches with ceilings so low that one must remove their mental capacities before entering worship. We cringe at the young girl surviving a church bus crash that killed several companions around her, saying she was alive due to the hand of God. There could come a day when such a childlike faith proves inadequate to her life. Her faith, childlike and unquestionable, may not survive that terrible moment. But the church has done little to help her grow theologically.
Isaiah 49 gives us an opportunity to make the case for religious simile and metaphor as windows to truth beyond our normal, everyday, and scientific truth standards. Poets have long burst the bondage of everyday truth with the help of simile and metaphor. They will say, "The sunny day was like the shouting of God's love." They don't literally mean God shouts divine love to them. They mean that they sensed the day provoking an understanding of God's love. Or choosing a metaphor the poets will write, "The sunny day blew away my sadness." Again the poet doesn't literally mean that the sunny day huffed and puffed away one's depression. The poet is saying that in the experience of a beautiful day, the joys of life were renewed. This is language used poetically, not literally, the way religious beliefs are often stated.
Religious talk qualifies as serious poetry, true, but not literally true. If we do not grasp this, we find our faith draining away as the literal approach becomes inadequate or unbelievable. The other frightening result of not understanding the image and symbol part of faith is that in becoming literalists we are condemned to do battle with everything that challenges our literal understanding of God--talk. This is an exhausting task, wholly unnecessary. Some have noticed our frantic drive toward a certitude forever beyond doubt, occasionally prompts us to an un--Christian meanness toward those who think otherwise. The true believing literalist is seldom a happy camper.
But some fear that our poetic, non--literal religious language is like the emperor's clothes. Fearing what they hear in sermons, Bible classes, and media religion many conclude that there is nothing substantial in picture talk. Again the church's leaders and pulpiteers have never taken this challenge seriously. The church needs to make clear that poetic, religious speech's images and metaphors point to the reality of God who is behind, above, below, and within our existence. Folks need to be helped to understand that this reality is incapable of being encompassed by literal speech and image. In his Lymann Beecher preaching lectures, Finally Comes The Poet, Walter Breuggemann says that when we reach this limit of literal language all that we have is suggestive poetry. The poet becomes our theological hero. It is the poet--like speaking that puts us in touch with the saving reality of God's grace.
Thinking about Isaiah's tattooed God helps us offer the faith to many thoughtful skeptics receiving so little attention from most local churches and denominations. We fear challenging the child--like faith of the church, fearing they will leave and go over to other churches. This means conflict and perhaps losing members either way. For many thoughtful people who cannot sign on the dotted line of conventional Christianity have already left or in staying have checked out mentally and perhaps spiritually. We win or lose either way, and we must take our choice. Real revival might follow choosing to cater to the uneasy, thoughtful people in the pews. When J. B. Phillips wrote his little book, Your God Is Too Small, he might also have written a sequel titled, Your Faith Is Too Small. He could have used as his centerpiece the Apostle Paul, who battled those narrow believers wanting to keep the faith small.
III
We must not forget Isaiah's message in our wanderings. Through the image of a tattooed God, Isaiah preaches a God who does not forget us, especially when we are in tough times. Isaiah believed God would not forget to redeem Israel, allowing her to return to her homeland.
But does God's reality hang on Israel's return to her homeland? Was God forgetful of Israel during her years in Babylon? Was God not also, in the advice of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, to settle down in Babylon for the duration of their exile?
To what extent does God remember us? Is it only when we are delivered from disease, natural disaster, moral disintegration, or historical calamity? Let us be quite careful of linking God's remembering love only to the avoidance of evil, or deliverance from the various "pits" and "miry bogs" the Psalmists grumble about. Is not the Pauline "Christ crucified" a call to believe that God is down in the pits and the slimy bogs of human existence just as fully as God is in those glorious moments of deliverance? Biblical deliverance in our time means the presence of God's companionship in whatever painful circumstance in which we may be.
It seems that theological and biblical honesty might push us to unhinge our doctrine of God's providence and tender rememberings from personal or social deliverances. History is at the mercy of the human good and evil, preventing the guarantee of any godly outcome, and the elements of nature always come to us in a rough uniformity, allowing for occasions that favor neither God nor human well--being. Granted that God can work amid the ambiguity of history and nature, but it is not a fruitful thing to have a God who tweaks the tides of human or natural life to holy and righteous purposes. Such a faith remains childish. Jesus called for a childlike response to God, but not a childish one.
Many inside and outside the church have already come to this conclusion. Today's church outsiders were once insiders, but have left because the message they hear is piously deceptive. Many inside the church have split themselves into religion and all the rest of life. They cannot allow these two chunks to come together, for this might create inner disturbance. Increasingly they are carrying the heavy tension of this split and their religious life becomes neither understandable nor consoling to them.
Isaiah declares that God remembers us. How does God do this? Can we offer a revision of a little story that many already know? It begins with someone walking with Jesus along the beach. Together they make two sets of footprints in the sand. Suddenly there appears a stretch where only one set of footprints is noticed. When questioned about this by Jesus' walking companion, Jesus explains that when his friend no longer had the strength to walk, he picked him up and carried him along.
Now this is a touching story, but touching stories can be quite wrong. Does God carry us over our troubled moments in life? We all wish that this were so. But such a deliverance may stunt our maturity by ministering to our childishness. It would be better to know that God gives us the strength to walk by ourselves, with his aid, than to expect him to carry us through without any effort of our own. It is in walking like this that we grow in spiritual strength and faithfulness.
Isaiah's message stands. God is with us - always. God does not forget us. God has us written into the palm of God's hands. So whether we succeed or fail, live or die, we are always "companioned" by the God who goes with us but does not do for us what we must do for ourselves. What God can promise us is that God will be beside us wherever nature, history, or our personal choices take us, and while this may not fully satisfy our desires for safety and success, it is quite sufficient for a mature faithfulness toward God.
Traditionally tattoos conveyed some religious meaning or told of one's accomplishments, such as how many times a sailor had rounded Cape Horn. Tattoos sometimes suggested mystic meanings or indicated some religious group. We might compare these to the colorful "fruit salad" little rectangle pins decorating the chests of military persons. Bumper stickers are like tattoos, boasting that we have been to Rock City, wherever it is.
Now the significant meanings of tattoos are often replaced by personal concerns. You can't watch a basketball game without noticing the tattoos. Some tattoos are artsy, some are personal mementos, and some are just for the flash and dash. Most of us have seen persons, mostly men, who have tattooed almost every patch of skin on their body, becoming walking art museums.
The problem with tattoos is that they are quite permanent. You can't easily get rid of them. During World War II enlistees with lurid tattoos were not accepted into the U.S. Navy. Many of them went back to their friendly tattoo artist and had appropriate clothing tattooed on those objectionable body parts of the original. We might be excused from wondering how some manage things when they aren't feeling so wonderful about their tattoo. Or we could remind athletes thinking of tattooing their team's logo on their body that they might be traded to another team some day. Most difficult must be the guy who has "T.R. loves S.M." tattooed on his arm only to find that his new love, D.R., doesn't like to be reminded that her honey once had a thing for S.M.
Tattoos have some Christian history, also. Perhaps the most arresting Christian tradition is the stigmata, the appearance of marks resembling the nail wounds of Jesus on his cross. Reddish splotches form on the hands, the feet, and the bodies of these folks. Most seem to be people of genuine faith, but others have been revealed as frauds - perhaps unwitting and innocent frauds. Whatever their cause, we can wonder whether there is valid spiritual meaning behind these stigmatic incidents.
I
Even if we are skeptical about human stigmata, a case can be made for the stigmata of God. Grasping our sense of the mysterious reality of God, let us listen to an old word from Isaiah. God is speaking through this unknown person we call "Second Isaiah" during the days when the Israelites were held in captivity in Babylon. Longing for the familiar sights and sounds of their homeland, they think that they will never return: "The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me" (49:14). God then speaks to their discouragement: "See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands" (v. 16a). What? God has tattooed the plight of Israel on God's own hands, declaring that they will not be forgotten and that God has plans for their return.
The thoughtful will say this is nonsense. They will say that if God exists, it is not helpful to do picture--thinking about God. By and large the church has done a disservice to these "questioning folks" - more numerous in the church than we think. The cChurch has not done a very good job of helping these people see that there are truths and realities too big for our space--time lives. Much important wisdom has only poetry and metaphor going for it. We have allowed many to assume that if they cannot literally affirm our God--talk, then the faith is not true.
We smile at the story of Billy busy drawing a masterpiece in Sunday school. When his teacher asked him what he was doing, he said he was drawing a picture of God. "But, Billy," she said, "no one knows what God looks like." "Well, they will when I get done," said Billy. Our resident critical church folk think that the church majors in clear, direct teachings which they find incredulous.
II
When are we going to evangelize these thoughtful skeptics in the church? Way back to the book of Hebrews the church is urged to get on with it - to move beyond the simple basics of Christian faith and offer the rich, meaningful, and intelligent faith that squares with the truth standards of one's own time. Some say we build churches with ceilings so low that one must remove their mental capacities before entering worship. We cringe at the young girl surviving a church bus crash that killed several companions around her, saying she was alive due to the hand of God. There could come a day when such a childlike faith proves inadequate to her life. Her faith, childlike and unquestionable, may not survive that terrible moment. But the church has done little to help her grow theologically.
Isaiah 49 gives us an opportunity to make the case for religious simile and metaphor as windows to truth beyond our normal, everyday, and scientific truth standards. Poets have long burst the bondage of everyday truth with the help of simile and metaphor. They will say, "The sunny day was like the shouting of God's love." They don't literally mean God shouts divine love to them. They mean that they sensed the day provoking an understanding of God's love. Or choosing a metaphor the poets will write, "The sunny day blew away my sadness." Again the poet doesn't literally mean that the sunny day huffed and puffed away one's depression. The poet is saying that in the experience of a beautiful day, the joys of life were renewed. This is language used poetically, not literally, the way religious beliefs are often stated.
Religious talk qualifies as serious poetry, true, but not literally true. If we do not grasp this, we find our faith draining away as the literal approach becomes inadequate or unbelievable. The other frightening result of not understanding the image and symbol part of faith is that in becoming literalists we are condemned to do battle with everything that challenges our literal understanding of God--talk. This is an exhausting task, wholly unnecessary. Some have noticed our frantic drive toward a certitude forever beyond doubt, occasionally prompts us to an un--Christian meanness toward those who think otherwise. The true believing literalist is seldom a happy camper.
But some fear that our poetic, non--literal religious language is like the emperor's clothes. Fearing what they hear in sermons, Bible classes, and media religion many conclude that there is nothing substantial in picture talk. Again the church's leaders and pulpiteers have never taken this challenge seriously. The church needs to make clear that poetic, religious speech's images and metaphors point to the reality of God who is behind, above, below, and within our existence. Folks need to be helped to understand that this reality is incapable of being encompassed by literal speech and image. In his Lymann Beecher preaching lectures, Finally Comes The Poet, Walter Breuggemann says that when we reach this limit of literal language all that we have is suggestive poetry. The poet becomes our theological hero. It is the poet--like speaking that puts us in touch with the saving reality of God's grace.
Thinking about Isaiah's tattooed God helps us offer the faith to many thoughtful skeptics receiving so little attention from most local churches and denominations. We fear challenging the child--like faith of the church, fearing they will leave and go over to other churches. This means conflict and perhaps losing members either way. For many thoughtful people who cannot sign on the dotted line of conventional Christianity have already left or in staying have checked out mentally and perhaps spiritually. We win or lose either way, and we must take our choice. Real revival might follow choosing to cater to the uneasy, thoughtful people in the pews. When J. B. Phillips wrote his little book, Your God Is Too Small, he might also have written a sequel titled, Your Faith Is Too Small. He could have used as his centerpiece the Apostle Paul, who battled those narrow believers wanting to keep the faith small.
III
We must not forget Isaiah's message in our wanderings. Through the image of a tattooed God, Isaiah preaches a God who does not forget us, especially when we are in tough times. Isaiah believed God would not forget to redeem Israel, allowing her to return to her homeland.
But does God's reality hang on Israel's return to her homeland? Was God forgetful of Israel during her years in Babylon? Was God not also, in the advice of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, to settle down in Babylon for the duration of their exile?
To what extent does God remember us? Is it only when we are delivered from disease, natural disaster, moral disintegration, or historical calamity? Let us be quite careful of linking God's remembering love only to the avoidance of evil, or deliverance from the various "pits" and "miry bogs" the Psalmists grumble about. Is not the Pauline "Christ crucified" a call to believe that God is down in the pits and the slimy bogs of human existence just as fully as God is in those glorious moments of deliverance? Biblical deliverance in our time means the presence of God's companionship in whatever painful circumstance in which we may be.
It seems that theological and biblical honesty might push us to unhinge our doctrine of God's providence and tender rememberings from personal or social deliverances. History is at the mercy of the human good and evil, preventing the guarantee of any godly outcome, and the elements of nature always come to us in a rough uniformity, allowing for occasions that favor neither God nor human well--being. Granted that God can work amid the ambiguity of history and nature, but it is not a fruitful thing to have a God who tweaks the tides of human or natural life to holy and righteous purposes. Such a faith remains childish. Jesus called for a childlike response to God, but not a childish one.
Many inside and outside the church have already come to this conclusion. Today's church outsiders were once insiders, but have left because the message they hear is piously deceptive. Many inside the church have split themselves into religion and all the rest of life. They cannot allow these two chunks to come together, for this might create inner disturbance. Increasingly they are carrying the heavy tension of this split and their religious life becomes neither understandable nor consoling to them.
Isaiah declares that God remembers us. How does God do this? Can we offer a revision of a little story that many already know? It begins with someone walking with Jesus along the beach. Together they make two sets of footprints in the sand. Suddenly there appears a stretch where only one set of footprints is noticed. When questioned about this by Jesus' walking companion, Jesus explains that when his friend no longer had the strength to walk, he picked him up and carried him along.
Now this is a touching story, but touching stories can be quite wrong. Does God carry us over our troubled moments in life? We all wish that this were so. But such a deliverance may stunt our maturity by ministering to our childishness. It would be better to know that God gives us the strength to walk by ourselves, with his aid, than to expect him to carry us through without any effort of our own. It is in walking like this that we grow in spiritual strength and faithfulness.
Isaiah's message stands. God is with us - always. God does not forget us. God has us written into the palm of God's hands. So whether we succeed or fail, live or die, we are always "companioned" by the God who goes with us but does not do for us what we must do for ourselves. What God can promise us is that God will be beside us wherever nature, history, or our personal choices take us, and while this may not fully satisfy our desires for safety and success, it is quite sufficient for a mature faithfulness toward God.
