It’s a perpetual bad joke about Ash Wednesday: reading the Gospel that says don’t practice your righteousness publicly and then putting ashes bold and black for all to see. Conscientious souls ponder whether they remove the ashes and, if so, when. Debates about tradition and gospel teaching ensue.
All of it misses the point. In fact, in worrying about the ashes on our foreheads, we failed to hear the gospel. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6 that our piety is not about us. Yet our arguments are centering ourselves.
Maybe Ash Wednesday, we hear the Gospel reading. Maybe we should pay attention to the invitation Jesus offers—to go and hide ourselves with the Father. Maybe in the ashes we can find a little bit of camouflage and be hidden. Because when we aren’t seen, we can join the hidden God. When we aren’t seen by others, maybe we can finally be seen by the Father. People worry about the reward, but in this divine game of sardines, we have the reward of being with our Father as God does the hidden work.