Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Let's pray.
Loving God and good shepherd, by the leading of your spirit. Help us to listen for your voice.
And follow in your path all the days of our lives.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
The first scripture reading this morning is from the book of Genesis, chapter 17, verse one through ten. Listen for God's word to us.
When Abram was 99 years old. The Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God almighty. Walk before me and be blameless.
And I will make my covenant between me and you.
And will make you exceedingly numerous. Then Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, as for me, this is my covenant with you. You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham.
For I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I'll make you exceedingly fruitful.
And I will make nations of you. And the kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you. And your offspring after you throughout their generations. For an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give it to you and to your offspring after you. The land where you are now an alien.
All the land of Canaan for perpetual holding. And I will be their God.
God said to Abraham, as for you, you shall keep my covenant. You and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised.
The second scripture reading comes from the book of Colossians. Chapter two, verse eleven through verse 15.
In him also, you were circumcised with the spiritual circumcisions. By putting off the body of the flesh and circumcisions of Christ. When you were buried with him in the baptism.
You also raised him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead, in the trespasses and the uncircumcisions of your flesh. God made you alive together with him. When he forgave us all our trespasses.
Erasing the record that stood against us with the legal demands.
He set this aside.
Nailing to the cross, he disarmed the rulers and authorities. And made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.
This is the word of the Lord.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: So I've been intrigued for some time now with tattoos.
And by tattoos, I'm talking not about the temporary kind. Those that you keep for a few days and then wash off. I'm talking about the kind in which you go to a tattoo parlor and have ink literally inserted by a needle, not just into your epidermis or onto your epidermis, but into your dermis so that it stays there permanently. Or at least so permanently that if you ever do want to get it removed, you can anticipate some, somewhere around 30 laser treatments. And even then, there may be some remnant afterwards. And if after the sermon, you'd like to show me your tattoo and it's appropriate, I'm delighted to see it.
But so that you choose your tattoos carefully, if you're thinking about it, learn from this example.
This person thought Megan would be the love of their life, but oops know. Turns out Holly was going to be the love of this person's life.
According to two Pew research, nearly a third of Americans today have a tattoo. And if you're a millennial, roughly half of you have a tattoo. And when people have been asked why they have a tattoo, what led them to do it far and away? The number one response when they're asked to check boxes is this to honor or remember someone or something. To honor or remember someone or something.
A woman named Madison got this tattoo to remember places that had touched her heart and been home. This is a tattoo showing the state flowers and the state insects of Maryland, Connecticut, and California, three states where Madison had lived by the age of 19, which is when she got this tattoo. And she says this about the tattoo. Growing up, I moved a lot. I never really knew where my home was, but I yearned for a place to call my own. I realized I felt connected to each of these three states in different ways. I realized they all played a role in making me who I am today. So now when she wonders where home is, she can look at that tattoo and remember.
Another woman named Taylor got this tattoo when she was 19. This is a word in Serbian, which is pronounced otporna, and it means hard to kill or bulletproof or resilient. Taylor explains. I got this tattoo to honor my grandfather, who fled Serbia along with his parents after World War Two to start a better life in the US. Today, she says she often wrestles with mental health issues. And when she does, she really likes to look at this word meaning resilient, and remember she's part of a family going back to her grandfather, who is resilient. Bulletproof.
Morgan got this tattoo when she was 16. It's the Cherokee word for strength. She says it's a tribute to her great great grandmother, who is Cherokee all the people in her family on her mother's side who are Cherokee have this tattoo. So it binds them together and it reminds her that her ancestors were strong and that she, like them, is strong. She loves looking at it when she feels alone, vulnerable, or like everything is just too much. That tattoo reminds her she's part of a family defined by strength, marked by a person you love or who loves you, marked by place, marked as part of a family. These are some of the key reasons that people get tattoos together, to remember those marks that are on our heart. And I don't know about you, but it makes a world of sense to me why we would want to mark our bodies by family, people who've loved us, experiences that have touched us today in our highly individualized and mobile culture, in our consumer culture, where we're often atomized and feel alone and on our own, it is good to remember we're connected to others. We're part of a family. And that family is defined by things like strength or resilience, that we have a home, a place that has taught us something of home.
Today's sermon is the third in a series of sermons in which we're looking at connections that make us who we are. I've called this sermon series freedom in a bind. Freedom in a bind. And in this series, I'm looking with you at covenants or agreements that God makes with God's people and with all creation. And while we often think of a bind as confining or stifling the kind of bonds that God makes with God's people, we read actually free them to thrive, free them to be all who they were meant to be. Free them to be not isolated and alone, but rather connected to others and linked to God's presence and God's purposes. These covenants, they function as tattoos on the heart. To quote that great book by Father Greg Boyle, the jesuit priest who worked for so many decades with gang members in Los Angeles, these covenants function like tattoos on the heart, making a people, and more broadly, marking creation as the recipients of God's presence and provision and care.
When I preached three weeks, some three weeks ago, we looked at how God made such a covenant in the story of Adam and Eve. Two weeks ago, we looked at a covenant God made in the story of Noah. That was a covenant, you'll recall, that was made not only with Noah and Noah's family and descendants, but with every living creature and the mark of that covenant. You'll recall the sign of that covenant, the tattoo that God put on creation was a rainbow that was to remind the people of God and all creation. Noah and his family and his descendants, this special family, but also every living creature. That God would not again flood all creation as God had. Instead, there was this promise of God's presence and care, and it was shown in the rainbow. It's a great thing to remember. Today we read of a covenant God makes with Abram. And we will read later with Sarai too. Sarai would be given a new name, as Abram is given a new name in this text. Abram would be called Abraham. Sarai would be called Sarah. And along with Abraham, Sarah too would be a legendary progenitor of multitudes, of a grand family who would be part of this covenant we read about today.
Now, in each of these covenants we read about in scripture, you'll note God is always the initiator. God initiates the covenant. God's portrayed as a gracious giver of good things, like the beauty and wonder of the earth and the gift of human community and of the gift of God's presence and care and blessing. But these covenants God initiates, they call for a response from human beings. In turn, after giving Adam and Eve the gift of one another and of all creation around them, portrayed like a garden, God then calls upon them to respond to that covenant, to respond to God's love by observing creation, caring for one another, caring for creation, and keeping within the proper boundaries that God had set so they and creation could thrive. God initiates the covenant. God reaches out in generosity and love, but then asks for people to respond in turn with care for one another and creation.
We are told in the covenant of Noah that God tells his family and all creation to respect creation, to honor flesh of other people and other creatures. And then in today's passage, we get this call to respond to God's covenant. With the covenant of circumcision. God's gracious action calls for human response, but God acts first. That's one reason we baptize infants as young as Lizzie, children as young as Lizzie, and infants as young as Matthew. We want to celebrate God's initiative in reaching out to us in covenant love even before we're old enough to know exactly what it means to respond in faith. But the covenant does call for a response. And eventually, Lizzie and Matthew two, and each one of us is called to declare our own faith in Christ, to choose to follow Christ ourselves. But the covenant that continues even when human beings fail, even when we fail to honor that covenant, when we sin, God doesn't give up on us, we read. Rather, God renews God's covenant with a new generation after making covenant with Adam and Eve in the garden of creation. God then does so with Noah and Noah's family and every living creature. And then God makes this new covenant with Abram, Sarai and their descendants, a renewed covenant or relationship between God, human beings and the good earth. We worship a covenant making God and a God who renews the covenant even when humans fall short in keeping our side of the agreement.
Now, by the time of today's passage from Genesis 17, by the time of the so called abramic covenant, we've already learned this about Abram and Sarai. They've already been promised that they will be descendants of a great family. God had promised to bless this family, and God had called this family in turn, to be a blessing to all families of the earth. It's not meant to be an exclusive blessing just for them. Instead, this chosen family is meant to receive and then extend to all families of the earth this blessing God had bestowed on them in life and love and land. They're called to be a light to the nations and share the goodness of God. And as I've preached before, a great challenge to people of any religion or people who claim to be a part of the family of Abram and Sarai, the family of Abraham and Sarah, is to consider this question posed time and again in scripture. Are we responding to God's love by being a blessing to all nations and to all creation? If we dare say we are children of Abraham and Sarah, if we dare claim we are recipients of God's generosity and presence and provision extended in covenantal love, are we in turn or anyone claiming to be children of Abraham and Sarah, extending blessing and care and sharing God's provision with other peoples and nations, too? This question gets pushed on God's people time and again in scripture. God reaches out in graciousness and generosity and love. God marks us as beloved of God. And then God calls us to obey God's law, not killing our neighbor, but rather loving them. It's a kind of covenant that binds us, but it also frees us and our neighbor and creation to thrive, to be all we were meant to be and to be so together.
Well, in today's passage, we read of this tattoo called covenant God makes on the hearts of Abram and Sarai and their descendants. It's a tattoo of provision and care, and it's a tattoo God doesn't want them to forget. But that's the problem, isn't it for you, for me, the problem that goes back to Abram and Sarai, back to human beings. From the beginning, we are prone, if we're not careful, to forget, to forget who we are, to forget we are beloved. And so God gives this family a practice to place a kind of tattoo, not just on their heart, as God has done, but a tattoo on their body. Every male child we read is to be circumcised as a mark of the covenant. Now, if you think tattoos are permanent, try circumcision.
My uncle knows this. Well, I called my uncle this week because I remembered a story he used to tell of being asked to reverse a circumcision. And he said, yes, Matt, here is what happened. My uncle on my dad's side had served as a general surgeon for years and years, and only once he got this particular request.
A german gentleman had made an appointment with him. And when he met with my uncle, he made this request. He said, here's my story. I was away in Germany on business, and my wife gave birth to our child here in the United States. And once she had given birth, she was asked whether or not the child should be circumcised. And she asked, what's the common procedure? And they said, well, the ordinary procedure is circumcision. And she said, fine, go with that. The couple had not discussed circumcision before the birth. Good word to the wise. A good thing to talk about before that.
So the boy had ended up being circumcised. And this man, with no small amount of anti semitism that my uncle heard in his voice, wanted the circumcision reversed. So my uncle said he could not do it. The man asked, are you sure there's no way? He called up a plastic surgeon to see if this plastic surgeon would be willing to. And that surgeon said, no way. Some things, friends, are permanent.
Now, I know already, some of you are going to come up to me after the service and say, well, Matt, I hear of these reverse circumcision procedures. And just to be clear, there are ways that you can recreate cosmetically the look of circumcision, but you can't return the body to its pre circumcised state. You know what I mean? That's done. That's final.
And I believe one of the reasons that God shows such a permanent mark on the body is to indicate how permanent this tattoo God was placing on their hearts would be. It's got a permanence to them, and that is part of the point God wanted to say, my presence will be with you. My care and provision will be with you and your descendants permanently. You can't undo it, so mark your bodies to remember that well. As Christians, we believe God gave us a new kind of mark with God's covenant love shown to us in a new way. In Christ, a new kind of circumcision was given to us that we call baptism. In Christ, we believe God cleansed and renewed creation again as God had done in the time of Noah. Only this time God brings renewal to God's people, not with a full but through the waters of life, the waters of life, and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ our savior. We read in today's passage from Colossians of how in our former life we were dead in trespasses, dead in our trespasses. Colossians compares that state to uncircumcision.
The record then stands against us, the record of our faults. And we read that in baptism it is nailed to the cross. It's forgiven by Christ, and in him we have new life. By faith. We're raised with Christ. We read to life that's now marked by the very presence of God as we know it in Christ. Now, you might say that transformation happens inside. The inside is what counts. But if something's happened inside and you really want to remember it, you mark it on the outside, too, don't you? You do that for yourself, your children, for generations to come. You want to mark your body as Taylor did with the word otporna, resilient, bulletproof. You want to mark it as Morgan did with the cherokee word for strength, recalling her great great grandmother. You want to mark it as Madison did, with an image that speaks of home and family. And so as Christians, we have this poor practice that marks us as family with God, one another, and with all that God has made. It reminds us of a home we have with God. It's a practice that thankfully can be extended to all, whatever one's race, ethnicity, family of origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, job, personality, language, culture, you name it. Whatever identity markers you have had or choose to have after baptism. This core identity marker has touched you. At baptism, you are beloved God's child.
You are touched by a divine love that cleanses and renews. You're called by that to faithfulness, to Christ and his teaching. But God's love is not dependent on that permanent. It's carved on your heart.
And so that we don't forget it, we celebrate baptisms here in community. We try to have the baptismal font visible every Sunday so it can remind us, like a tattoo on our corporate body, of our baptism. And each time there is a baptism, like there has been today with Lizzie and Matthew, we can all remember. I too was baptized. I too am part of God's family. I too am beloved by Christ, marked by him and the qualities that were shown in his life, like justice and courage and strength and deep love of God. I too am called to follow that savior who first loved me.
I still remember a retired pastor named Blair Moffat telling a group of us gathered at a conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, I am leaning on my baptismal identity these days.
I had known Blair back when he was a pastor at a church in Connecticut, very near to the church where I served, and he was assigned to me by the local regional body to be my mentor. He had been in ministry a number of years. This was my first call as associate pastor at a church in Connecticut. So the local presbytery of southern New England wisely assigned me, a seasoned pastor to have lunch with me and advise me and offer counsel and encouragement. And so when I had known Blair and met with him every month or other month for lunch and for his counsel and to talk through things, I knew him as a pastor, a senior pastor, a longtime pastor. That ordained identity was what I knew of Blair when I saw him at this credo conference, he said, now I'm retired. I'm no longer serving as an active pastor in a church. My ordained identity is not as important as it once was. Instead, he said, I'm leaning into my baptized identity. That is what I find I am leaning on more and more. And I thought about that and thought, oh yes, that's it. You know, so many of us pastors, and perhaps you as well, we can lean on our jobs and think that job is our identity. Even when we've got a great job, an ordained position like pastor or elder or deacon, and then suddenly we find ourselves between jobs or we retire from work or we find ourselves in a moment of crisis where we say, wait, I'm more than just what I do. I'm more than just my job. But what is that something more? What is that something more than just our family of origin? That something more than just our friendship networks or just the place where we live? For Blair, it was that baptized identity that was the something more friends you have that it is yours in baptism. So this Sunday. And always remember, remember you are beloved. Remember you, we are part of God's family. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, amen.
