St. John’s Episcopal Church
Tallahassee, FL
Genesis 3:8-10 Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
About twelve or thirteen years ago,
my family and I were the lucky recipients
of a pound cake . . .
and not just any pound cake.
This, my friends, was a church lady pound cake.
You may not know this,
but pound cakes made by church ladies
are just better than other pound cakes.
And even more than that,
this pound cake was made by
one of the true saints of that church.
Her pound cakes were coveted.
They were delicious.
They were fought over at auctions.
And this one? This one was ours.
So one night, when the house was quiet
and everyone was doing their own thing,
I spied my little baby-child—
who was about three years old—
slinking out of the dining room,
her head down low, her hands behind her back.
“Kendall, baby,” I asked,
“what are you doing?”
Stopping dead in her tracks,
she mumbled,
“Nuffing, Daddy.”
“Kendall, honey, come here.
What do you have?”
She inched closer.
“Nuffing, Daddy.”
“Kendall, what are you hiding?”
At that, she raised her head—
her cheeks packed fuller than a chipmunk’s,
crumbs all down her shirt—
and she showed me her hands.
Each held two colossal, squished chunks of pound cake.
As her eyes met mine, she burst into tears,
and buried her face in my chest.
All I could do was hold her . . .
pound cake,
tears,
slobber,
and all.
Without me saying a word,
she already knew the full weight
of her three-year-old transgression.
She knew she could never really hide it.
And the truth is,
none of us can.
It is the oldest story ever told.
We all know what it means
to go after things we do not truly need,
and to try so feebly to hide.
* * *
Our dear Adam and Eve—
our beloved ancestors—
could not make it past chapter three
without swiping some pound cake, too.
I love the exchange they have with God
after they eat the forbidden fruit.
It sounds so comically, desperately familiar.
Here’s how the King James Version puts it:
“And they heard the voice of the Lord God
walking in the garden in the cool of the day:
and Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God
amongst the trees of the garden.
And the Lord God called unto Adam,
and said unto him, ‘Adam, where art thou?’
And Adam said, ‘I heard thy voice in the garden,
and I was afraid,
because I was naked;
and I hid myself.’” (Genesis 3:8-10)
The hard truth is that most of us are hiding—
and not just apples or pound cakes.
We are hiding ourselves,
and we often fool ourselves into believing
we’re getting away with it.
And maybe—just maybe—
that is part of why our world feels so fractured.
We live in a time when everyone is hiding something:
Hiding doubts behind dogma.
Hiding fear behind fury.
Hiding wounds behind words.
We build walls,
spin stories,
craft facades—
not just individually but collectively—
because deep down, we suspect
that if we were ever truly seen,
we might not be truly loved.
But here’s the good news—
the truth at the heart of this day:
We are seen.
And we are loved.
Jesus sees right through us . . .
always has
and always will.
Maybe that’s part of why he seems so frustrated today,
going on and on in today’s gospel lesson
about the right way and the wrong way
to give alms, fast, and pray.
It’s not just that he’s annoyed by people
who make a big show of these things—though he is.
It’s that he knows how all that showiness
usually hides something deeper:
Hiding from society,
from themselves,
from God.
We live in a world
where we are supposed to have it all together:
Happy marriages.
Perfect children.
Steady income.
Clean houses.
Healthy diets.
Perfect teeth.
But cut just one thread below the surface,
and you find that despite all our hiding and showing off,
our jobs are hard,
our families are stressed,
our laundry’s piled high,
our teeth are yellow,
and a whole lot of of us are just one or two paychecks away
from total calamity.
We spend so much energy hiding
because we fear that if anyone really saw us—
our doubts, our struggles, our mess—
we might not be worthy of love.
But Jesus is clear:
“Your Father sees in secret.”
God already knows
what you cannot even admit to yourself.
You can run, but you cannot hide.
* * *
That, my friends, is part of what makes this day so special.
Today, we gather to take on this ancient,
biblical ritual of smearing ashes on our heads,
kneeling before God and one another
with our faces unhidden.
All my life, I’ve thought of this day
as wiping ashes onto our faces.
But not too long ago, I realized . . .
Ash Wednesday isn’t about wiping on.
Ash Wednesday is about wiping away.
Today, we wipe away the pretense,
the showiness,
the false beauty . . .
all that glittery garbage
we’ve heaped onto ourselves
to fool ourselves into hiding.
And this is why we do this together . . .
why we gather,
why we kneel side by side,
why we confess our sins as one people.
Because none of us is meant to carry our burdens alone.
Here in this place—in this church—
we practice the courage to be seen as we are
so that, by God’s grace,
we might become who we are called to be.
And after the ashes, we come to the altar,
not to sneak fistfuls of bread or cake,
but to receive the Bread of life with open, honest hands . . .
broken and given for us.
Here, at this table,
we find that we have nothing to hide,
for everything has already been seen,
and everything has already been forgiven.
* * *
So take these forty days seriously.
Plumb the depths of your heart,
take stock of whatever you’ve been hiding,
hold it,
own it,
and then—however you can—
bring it to God with your face unveiled.
And if you are afraid—
if you’ve been brought up to believe
that God only wants happy people,
good people,
perfect people . . .
or if you’re feeling susceptible to the world’s call
for hiding behind dogma
or fury
or words—
then hear this once and for all:
All God wants is you.
The real you.
Dirty,
faulty,
foolish,
frail,
imperfect,
beautiful you.
Though your hands be full of pound cake,
crumbs all down your shirt,
tears flooding into your eyes,
remember that your Father—
who sees in secret—
loves you just the same.
And before you ever even knew it,
he’s been ready to bury you in his chest—
crumbs,
tears,
slobber and all.
Amen.