On Ash Wednesday, we read a gospel about giving and praying in secret to a God who communicates in secret. At the same time, we have very public encounters in our Sunday gospel readings.
A few weeks ago, we read from the Sermon on the Mount that we are the light of the world. And therefore, we shouldn’t hide the light! This Sunday, we will read a story of a Pharisee named Nicodemus who visits Jesus in secret.
These stories complicate our sense of what Jesus is trying to say. And it complicates the common tendency many might have of creating rules for how one might always behave. How one might give and pray and communicate with other people.
This story complicates such rules we discern from scripture, which also includes the ones given by Paul to go to others in secret. To work in private to deal with things that we think shouldn’t be public.
These other readings we’re getting complicate things for us because they question the seeming ubiquitous sense of secrecy, of doing things behind closed doors. As if this is the best policy. They seem to argue the opposite and offer a compelling argument about public witness.
This is not to say we should make everything public but because we hide things in secret, in the darkness.
One of the most common ways we try to manipulate others is by telling someone in secret, “you know, people are saying _____” and usually it is just them. Or there is one person. In reality, “person is saying.”
When we do this, we’re trying to be helpful and instructive. We’re trying to alert someone else that there is something happening, a potential groundswell they may not know about. Sometimes. Often it is passive aggressive and manipulative because they know what they are doing. They want their way and want others to think they have numbers on their side.
Sometimes what we keep secret from others can include our true selves. Our struggles. Struggles that we may not know are common, or experienced by anyone else.
Much of what is kept secret distorts the truth, often to persuade others, or even ourselves. Hiding behind the veil of anonymity, we can be anything. Just not who we really are.