Sermon on Isaiah 44:1-5, Lent 3 Midweek, "Marked!"
“This one will write upon his hand–‘Belonging to Yahweh.’” Isaiah 44:5. Rob Poulos is a walking piece of literature. He has tattooed on his left wrist, “ B-A-C-K – period.” Like it was lifted from the end of sentence. It was. A few years ago Poulos joined a worldwide effort to help author Shelley Jackson tell her story on people’s bodies. Appropriately titled Skin , the “book” has 2,095 words. Each person bears on their body just one word. “It’s not that everything I do has to be tricked out with gimmicks and games,” she said. “I’m just interested in exploring the range of what a text can do.” Poulos heard about it in a literature class at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He said, “I always told myself that if I got a tattoo, it had better be important.” At last count, Shelley Jackson was still looking for 400 people to bear her final 400 words. Just think, we could contact her after church, offer our human hides, and be part of an alternative publi...