Rethinking Tatoos

I have a confession to make. For years, my stereotype of people with tattoos was that most of them were bigoted, rode motorcycles, and were often delinquents or criminals. So you can imagine my surprise when one of my esteemed colleagues shared that he had decided to get a tattoo in honor of his first grandchild. (He was in his mid-50’s at the time.) He did indeed follow through, but was obliged to get three additional tattoos because more grandchildren kept being born. Now he proudly has four of them, and is delighted with every single one --- and with his grandkids too!

What I learned from John, my kids, a few of my aging friends who have them, and from prominent church leaders like Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber (pictured above) who has quite a number of them, is that tattoos are signs of peoples’ journeys and their individuality. They have become not only much more accepted, but also more acceptable, even to stick-in-the-mud folks like me. And while I will never get one myself, I can appreciate, and not deprecate those who have them.

Whenever I read the text from Jeremiah appointed for this Sunday, which is Reformation Sunday, I’m always deeply moved by these words: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts…” God’s law, says the prophet Jeremiah, is written on our hearts. It is like an internal tattoo, always pointing us to the good news of God’s unrelenting love for us, which comes in the form of both law and gospel. It drives us to God in our brokenness and sin (law), so that we may be enveloped by God’s amazing grace given to us through the gift of our faith in Jesus.

Another invisible tattoo is given to us in our baptism, when a sign of the cross is made on our foreheads as these words are spoken: “Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” We have been, as the songs says, “signed, sealed and delivered” to the One who makes all things new, including you and me. On this Reformation Sunday, I give thanks for the invisible and indelible tattoos with which we have been eternally marked. Thanks be to God!

Pastor Gladys G. Moore