and to dust you shall return.
~God, Genesis 3:19b
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Peace,
Karl
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4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5 when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6 but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— 7 then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
This account from Genesis reminds us that humanity is formed from the inert elements of the ground. Others (some scientists among them) will talk more poetically about us being formed from the stardust. Our bodies are composed of simple elements and compounds combined in intricate and miraculous ways. A little navel gazing (not going into if Adam had a belly button or not today) might serve us well. As we ponder the gift of our body and our elemental existence we might be drawn to remember the one who crafted us. Adam’s name means dirt or earth or dust or some such thing. Adam was a dusty creature. We are no less so.
There is a joke I have been known to trot out in the pulpit now and again, here is one variation of it:
One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this, let's say we have a man making contest." To which the scientist replied, "OK, great!"
But God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"
This version of the joke can be found at: www.getyourowndirt.com. (web pages certainly are becoming legion and pretty darn specific these days)
What I would hope is that we could embrace the claim implicit in the joke. The dirt and dust and earth and other such things belong to God. Adam was a dusty creature and God laid claim to him. We are no less dusty and no less God’s.
We are God’s handiwork and creation from the day of our inception (probably even before) until long after our bodies have become more like the original elements that formed us. We are dust—and God’s. We shall return to dust—and remain God’s. Every dusty, dirty, earthy day in between we are God’s as well.
Perhaps the world teaches us that “We are gods.”—that we can do whatever we will; that we don’ t need any other gods; that God can, in fact, leave us alone as we can take care of things just fine by ourselves.
The reality is that “We are God’s”—God will let us do whatever we will but it can come at great cost; that we do need God; that when we do take care of our own matters we are anything but fine.
Our life and breath are God’s. Our breath is literally on loan to God into our dusty frames. God will not leave us nor forsake us. When we fail into earthy and broken ways, God claims us. When we let our spirits grow dry and dusty, God blows breath into our parched bones and ways. When we try to put an end to God meddling into our lives once and for all with a mallet and spikes and a cross and a dry tomb God says things like “Father, forgive them they don’t know what they are doing” and “I am the living water for your parched existence” and “Peace be with you, I can’t stay dead”.
God, help us remember we are dust. God, help us remember to dust we shall return. God, help us remember whose dust this is. Amen.
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