The Great Cover Up

Since I was about sixteen, I have had no love for painting. Tom Sawyer and I have something in common when it comes to painting, fences or walls or anything else. Try to find some way to get someone else to do it!

The fact that I don’t like painting is a learned attitude. Had I been introduced to it in a more gentle manner, I might have taken to it, and loved it today. But I was not, and I do not!

When I lived in Oshawa, one of our neighbours was in need a someone to paint all the vents, ducts and air intakes on a quite large factory. My father, seeing that I was enjoying the summer holidays from school, and that my time might as well be used constructively, landed a contract for me to do all the painting on the factory’s flat roof. Scores of metal vents that stuck up above roof level were to be painted, including several little rooms made of metal.

At first I was quite happy to get the job. Since it was a flat, tarred and pebbled roof, a few spilt drops of the boringly red oxide paint, would not matter. I took the job, thinking of the rewards of cash in hand for a job well done. I was happy until that first day on the roof. It was stifling hot on the roof, but that’s not what bothered me. What bothered me was what went on under the roof, and the smells it produced. I’m not sure anyone had told me that it was a tannery.

Raw cow hides were processed and turned into leather. The smells, nay the stink, that came from all that fleshy mess under the roof came right out through the vents I was to paint. I just have to see a paint brush, and I am filled with revulsion. Yet, in the past month or so I have taken paint brush and roller in hand, and with minimal complaints (in my opinion), have painted and painted and painted.

To do so is a measure of my love for Mary. She stands back and watches me with a slight smile on her face, fingering her wedding ring. Love is a strange thing. It makes you do things you wouldn’t otherwise even consider.

The Bible even says that. Look at 1 Corinthians 13:4

“Love suffers long and is kind.”

But paint is symbolic of an even greater cover-up, engineered by God. Like paint, love covers, conceals and hides. God’s love does this. In Psalms 32:1

“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”

And again in Romans 4:7

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.”

As Christians, we are commanded to exercise love in our relationships, even with those who have done something terrible, hurtful, and mean.

It has been said that the Church is the only institution which shoots its own wounded. That’s not always the case, but altogether too often we use our tongues to lash out at, and bring even greater harm to people who have sinned, and who need love, not a battering. In 1 Peter 4:8

“And above all things have fervent love for one another, for "love will cover a multitude of sins.”

Sometimes it’s not easy, with love, to cover a multitude of sins! It is much more easy to talk about it with others, simply adding to the pain. There are some who experience a certain amount of glee in revealing the weaknesses and faults of someone who has sinned.

Your sins were covered by God, and it was not just the work of a paint brush. Should we be any less ready than God to cover a persons sin? Then, just leave it between them and God.

The only exception to that is where someone persists in their sin, we are told to go directly to them about it, not broadcast it to the whole church.

So, I paint sometimes, whether I like it or not!