It was a typical off-island family outing. A trip to the mall, a stop at a fast-food restaurant: then pick up some pet food at the farm-supply store, and finally an appointment at the tattoo and piercing parlor.
WHAT?! Yes, that was the family-day itinerary of one young family we know here on our little island. The mom and daughter both decided to get an eyebrow ring together. The dad got a new tattoo on his shoulder. For them it was a fun way to share time together and enjoy common interests as a family.
Body piercing and tattooing have become absolutely commonplace, middle-class, mom and pop activities. What was once a sign of rebellion, or a symbol of a tough-guy often related to military service, is now a normal look sported by nursery-school teachers, corporate lawyers, ten-year-old boys, and fifty-something grandmothers.
People are treating their bodies like texts: textualizing their skin. Our bodies are becoming storyboards where in colors and cuts and carvings you tell your story. As of 2001, 1 in 6 American adults have or have had a tattoo or body piercing ("Ink Me, Stud," American Demographics, 23 [December 2001], 9).
How ironic: the more we strive to distinguish ourselves with our own unique look, the more we all end up looking alike.
The seal or mark that Paul alludes to in today's epistle text refers to an equally common sign among individuals in the first century. Slaves were branded, tattooed or marked in some indelible way to establish their status and inform others to whom they belonged. Livestock have always been marked to determine ownership and keep mixed herds easily separable. Soldiers have long borne marks that identified them as members of elite squadrons or specially selected troops.
But marks or seals were also used to prove the authenticity of goods and the quality of a product. Artisans placed unique symbols on their work, identifying pieces as genuine creations by a master craftsman.
In pottery the first recognized marks were where the makers' thumbs were imprinted on a piece, set before it was fired so that everyone knew the artist who had created the work. Whether it was Samaian-ware of the second century or Wedgewood china of eighteenth century Staffordshire, the maker's mark became the all-important sign to look for.
In 1266 we find the earliest English law on trademarks, the Bakers Marking Law. Bakers stamped a mark on the bread, or scored and pricked the bread in a certain way distinguishing it from the products produced in all other bakeries. In England the maker's mark was required by law starting in 1363, when Edward III ordered that "each Master Goldsmith shall have a mark unto himself, and which mark shall be known by those who shall be assigned by the King to supervise their works and allay." The legal status of marks was established even further when in 1452 we find the earliest litigation over a mark as a widow petitioned for and was granted use of her deceased husband's mark.
Of course, in preliterate civilization the earliest maker's marks were symbols, either of the shop sign or a rebus (e.g. pun of the maker's name: John Duck's maker's mark was a duck, etc.). The more print culture dominated, the maker's marks were no longer symbols but initials. By the mid-18th century almost all marks were initials.
Gradually maker's marks began to be less associated with individuals than they were with a school or a guild. By the thirteenth century trade guilds in Italy had begun using watermarks or papermarks to distinguish the works of one house of trade from another. In our own recent history we know that a signed Tiffany lamp is probably NOT made by Louis Comfort Tiffany himself, but by the skilled artisans of the Tiffany Studios that created that unmistakable glassware with the distinctive markings.
Today we're all too aware of the hold brand-names have on this culture. Although there are signs of a shift away from brands, especially among tweeners (witness the Avril Lavigne phenomenon), ask anyone with a trend-conscious member of their family and they will be able to tell you just how much more it costs to wear a hot name-brand than it does to get the imitation or knockoff.
The maker's mark, the trendy cost-hiking logo, not only denotes brand but, as all kids can tell you, is synonymous with reputation. A brand is what people think of you. Ten years ago when the body-piercing, multiple-tattooing craze began, that kind of branding was meant to convey a certain attitude, a counter-cultural, in-your-face different-ness Now that stockbrokers, basketball players and fashion models sport on their arms tattooed-on barbed wire, and classical cellists play concerts with pierced tongues, the message isn't that clear. They may still be trying to project an image, but it's a hazy one.
Now is the time to decide how we want people to think about us. Who will we let brand us? Who will we let shape us? And to what image?
Are you wrapped up in making your mark in the world before you reach 30 or 40 or 50 . . . or 100?
Have you slipped up along the way and feel you have missed the mark because of sins and shortcomings?
Is there an identifiable maker's mark on you?
If so, whose mark is it?
Paul states in today's epistle text that all those who have received Jesus Christ into their lives are marked by a specific seal from God the red-hot presence of the Spirit in their hearts.
What are the signs that reveal the marks of your Maker? Do you bear the Maker's mark?
Or let me put the question another way: Is your life project life-giving?
Giving life to new ideas? Giving life to old friendships? Giving life to eco-friendly consumerism? Giving life to neighborhood-friendly businesses? Giving life to schools for the youngest in your community? Giving life to programs for the oldest in your community? Giving life to long-established outreaches in your church the Sunday School, the Prayer Circle, the altar guild, the choir program?
Giving life to new, emerging ministries in your church the e-mail visitations, the nontraditional services, the flexible ideas of community? Giving life to support those in need continents away from you? Giving life to support those in need right next door to you?
Or is your life project bloodsucking, mind-crushing, soul-searing? Are you more concerned with making your mark than with looking at any marks, any scars, you may leave on others as you claw and climb towards the top?
What is the Maker's mark on you? Is it the mark of his Spirit in our hearts (verse 22)? Or is it a self-made mark that tries to establish the myth of a mastery over your own life?
In today's epistle text Paul is deeply troubled by doubts voiced by the Corinthians about his integrity. Doubting Paul's word is akin to doubting the word he preached, that is Christ himself. Paul isn't concerned here about his reputation. But he is concerned that a bad reflection of him might warp or distort the image and message of Christ that he's committed to communicating to the world. Paul wants nothing less than to put Christ's mark on the world, and to do so he has to be believed, he has to be trusted that he is who he says he is: a man of his word, a man of The Word.
Too many of us are laboring along, day in/day out, with nothing to guide us but the motto noticed recently on a T-shirt: "I'm my own role model."
"During my freshman year at Miami University [Ohio], while still an atheist, I was asked by my English professor to write a paper about the most important person in my life. In a move reflective of the warped way in which our culture increasingly thinks, I wrote an autobiography. We think about ourselves first; our highest regard is reserved for ourselves." (Pastor/writer David W. Henderson, Culture Shift: Communicating God's Truth to Our Changing World; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998, 103.)
What would happen in this world if we stopped trying to make our mark and started focusing on how we might better illumine the Maker's mark that's been tattooed on our souls, the Spirit of Jesus Christ. When we're trying to make our mark we're trying to become rich, famous, notorious, or invincible. Our mark will be the mark of the best, the biggest, the toughest, the strongest.
Yet Jesus Christ made his mark by being the least, the humblest, the poorest, the simplest.
The weakest.
It was in his humility that Christ saved the world. It was in weakness that Christ sacrificed himself for our sake. Do we think we can do better than Christ?
We can't even save ourselves. Only when we dedicate ourselves to a life of service, humility, and caring concern instead of vested self-interest, can we begin to make our mark. Indeed our mark isn't ours at all . . . it's only the mark of God's grace, of God's intentionality in our lives, that enables us to make a mark in this life at all.
Extended ending:
(Editor's note: After looking at available evidence, it's not possible to verify the following illustration as factual. However, it's still a powerful and heartwarming story that could be used to inspire your congregation.)
Joseph N. Hankin, President of Westchester Community College, tells a story about a school teacher, Jean Thompson, and a fifth grade student, Teddy.
On the first day of school, Jean Thompson told her students, "Boys and girls, I love you all the same," but little Teddy was a boy Jean Thompson did not like. He did not sit up in his chair, did not pay attention, his eyes were always looking down, his clothes and hair were messy with dirty. Unknown to her he had a learning disability. He was an unattractive boy, and Jean Thompson did not really like him!
Students have records. And Jean Thompson read Teddy's first grade report: "Teddy's a good boy. He shows promise in his work and attitude. But he has a poor home situation."
Second grade: "Teddy is a good boy. He does what he is told. But he is too serious. His mother is terminally ill."
Third grade: "Teddy is falling behind in his work; he needs help. His mother died this year. His father shows no interest."
Fourth grade: "Teddy is in deep waters; he is in need of psychiatric help. He is totally withdrawn."
The holidays came, and the boys and girls brought presents and piled them on Jean's desk. They were all in brightly colored paper except for Teddy's. His was wrapped in brown paper and help together with scotch tape. And on it, scribbled in crayon, were the words, "For Miss Thompson from Teddy." She tore open the brown paper and out fell a rhinestone bracelet with most of the stones missing, and a bottle of cheap perfume that was almost empty. When the other boys and girls began to giggle, Jean put some of the perfume on her wrist, put on the bracelet, held her wrist up to the children and said, "Doesn't it smell lovely? Isn't the bracelet pretty?" and, taking her cue from the teacher, they all agreed.
At the end of the day, when all the children had left, Teddy lingered, came over to her desk and said, "Miss Thompson, all day long you smelled just like my mother. And her bracelet, that's her bracelet, it looks real nice on you, too. I'm really glad you like my presents," and when he left, she buried her head on her desk and cried.
The next day, when the children came, Jean had begun to change. She had always cared for all the children, but now she especially did for those who needed help. Especially Teddy. She tutored him and put herself out for him. By the end of the year Teddy had caught up with a lot of the children, and was even ahead of some.
Time passed and Jean lost track of Teddy. Seven years later, when she had just about forgotten what he looked like, Jean Thompson got this note: "Dear Miss Thompson: I'm graduating and I'm second in my high school class. I wanted you to be the first to know. Love, Teddy."
More time passed. Four years later she got another note: "Dear Miss Thompson: I wanted you to be the first to know. The university has not been easy, but I liked it. Love, Teddy Stollard."
Four years later there was another note: "Dear Miss Thompson, as of today, I am Theodore J. Stollard, M.D. How about that? I wanted you to be the first to know. I'm going to be married in July. I want you to come and sit where my mother would have sat, because you're the only family I have. Dad died last year."
And she went and sat where his mother should have sat. She was a decent and loving human teacher who had changed in part because of Teddy Stollard.
You and I know that there are millions of Teddys all over this nation, children who are left out and left back who will never become doctors or lawyers or teachers or police officers or much else partly because there was no good teacher or other person with a heart to make a difference." Joseph N. Hankin, "Make a Difference, Have No Regrets," Vital Speeches, LXVIII (1 June 2002), 506-507.
Jean Thompson put a Maker's mark on Teddy . . . and on her students. Are you putting the Maker's mark on everything you do, on everyone you touch? Is the mark you're making in life the Maker's mark?