GROUNDED: SANDPAPER, NAILS, AND COLOUR PATCHES
MAUNDY THURSDAY
I invite you to hold your
sandpaper heart.
One summer I was hired as a
student summer worker by a woman who was redoing the entrance hall of her
Victorian house. The hall was typical for a home of this era. To the right of
the door a stained-glass widow, under it the start of a long set of stairs that
rounded up to the second level. To the left of the front door were pocket doors
closing off the parlour. Straight ahead there was a door to the back of the
house and to the right of that a coat rack and bench. The entrance could hold 10 people comfortably.
The wood floor was well-worn and various
coloured stains were visible, some had gone tacky.
The staircase had been
painted a few times, the last was in a thick white oil paint. The 12inch high baseboards
that continued up the stairs, the spindles, railing, Newel post, and window
frame were also painted white.
The woman decided it was
time to return everything painted and stained to the oak that was buried
underneath.
Did I tell you that that was
my sandpaper summer?
Sandpaper in a plethora of
grades from gritty to soft, was aided by scrapers and heat guns; no toxic
strippers were used to remove all the paint and stain. The most ridiculous tool
was a double handed electric floor sander, where the user, me, bent over holding
both handles for dear life, as the sandpaper disk whisked all over the flat
entryway floor. It was dangerous and dusty work. It took all summer and then
some to finish the project.
When the wood was freed from
layers of past sin, I mean paint, it was beautiful to behold. It was smooth to
touch.
It is amazing that I still
like sandpaper. But I do, I really do.
I appreciate the texture –
textures. I appreciate the repetitive and meditative movement of sanding. I appreciate the satisfaction of seeing and
feeling the results of the physical effort put in. I appreciate that simple
sandpaper can transform something so completely.
Maundy Thursday is a liturgy
of tactile experiences.
The rituals of anointing
with oil, foot washing, communion, and stripping the altar, engage all our
sensate senses. We see. We hear. We smell. We touch. We taste. We embody the
journey of the cross.
Maundy Thursday is the
sandpaper of the Three Days. We come this evening covered in thick white oil
paint and tacky stain. Each Sunday in Lent we were dismissed to go in peace. Do
justice. Love mercy. And although we went and lived like nice people, we didn’t
strive to do justice, we loved those we love but were shy on mercy, and in a
troubled world went in peace but didn’t always surrender to that same peace to stay
grounded. We are covered in layers of missed opportunities, nudges from the
Spirit that were not put into actions, and hopes for justice in the prayers of
others that we left undone.
Maundy Thursday is the
sandpaper that works on removing the layers that bind and bury us.
Feel your sandpaper heart.
Whoever you are. Wherever
your heart is. Whatever the condition of your spirit. However you live. Whatever
has been done or left undone. Regardless of your perception of worthiness,
forgivability, and belonging – the meditative rituals embrace us where we are,
and sand away the layers that bury us.
Motion of
sanding
Anointed, washed, fed, uncluttered
Oscar Romero said: A
church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word
of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch
the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed --- what gospel is
that?
Sanded – our skin unburied- we-
are grounded in an uncluttered place. Beautiful to behold.
With our senses engaged we
embody the walk to the cross. Identifying and reflecting on the layers that
bury us from going in peace, doing justice, loving mercy. As the story unfolds in
these days we follow the disciples, paying attention to their layers, and through
the experience we confess our sleepiness, betrayal, abandonment, and denial of
Jesus. We openly lament our human nature that when confronted or bullied by
Empire, religious authority, societal expectation, or cultural convention, we
shy from proclaiming the gospel.
The gospel that is sanding
away layers, provoking a crises, unsettling, getting under the skin – comes as
heart shaped sandpaper. God’s heart - that was and is and will be poured out
for all – embodied through Jesus’ incarnate action proclaims peace, justice,
and mercy. And to the accepting and unaccepting alike the proclamation to each
heart and community is simple: you are worthy, forgiven, belonging.
The sanding down of layers,
with time and patience and care, transforms completely. Just like the entrance
way in the Victorian home, once uncovered, freed, the wood was beautiful to
behold.
Feel your sandpaper heart. Gospel
is sandpaper. You are: Anointed. … Washed.
… Fed. … Uncluttered.
Gospel transforms
completely.
Gospel is in the shape of a
heart.
GOOD FRIDAY
Last night -
Anointed. Washed. Fed.
Uncluttered.
Sanded by rituals, freed
from that which buries, we encountered God’s heart -
We left the upper room, with
the disciples, following Jesus. Although not understanding, knowing in our bones
- the
Gospel transforms
completely.
Gospel is in the shape of a
heart.
I invite you to hold your
nail.
Good Friday is represented
in this tactile object.
In our world, nails fix
things. Build things. Secure things. Connect things.
Nails we understand.
Gospel in the shape of a
heart, not so much.
Jesus – God incarnate- is
nailed to a cross.
The cross, a human
instrument of torture and death, used by God to connect human beings, human
hearts, human will, to the lengths to which God will go to love; to what
lengths God will go to nail down connection and relationship --- to nail to our
human nature a compulsion to peace, justice, and mercy for the healing of the
whole world.
Oscar Romero in The
Violence of Love wrote:
We have never preached
violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the
violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such
cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the
sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood, the
violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work.
The nail pierces the heart. push nail
through sandpaper heart
God’s heart – and it stops –
This love – tears, sweat,
blood, life
Is poured out for the world
–
The nail pierces the heart.
Our heart – and it stops-
To be filled with this incarnate love
NAILED.
Heart to heart.
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