Sermon Recording

Sermon Text

“Remember that you are dust.”

 

This is a natural beginning for any Ash Wednesday reflection; a declaration filled with meaning and nuance, with plenty to think on as we begin the season of Lent.

 

“Remember.”

 

This day is a day of remembering; of remembering who and whose we are as we consider well the origins of this year’s ashes in the burnt palms from last year—a joyous palm procession that led inexorably to the Passion of our Lord, 

 

We remember as we ponder the cross placed on our forehead at our baptism that marked us as Christ’s own forever, a relationship that is irrevocable. 

 

And we will remember again today, as we are marked by a new cross on our foreheads, that we and those we love will all die. 

 

Oh yes, we remember. 

 

That we are dust. 

 

There are as many images of dust as there are people in this place today. Dust under the bed. Dust from construction—or destruction. Dust blown by the wind, coating our cars, our hair, getting in our eyes. Stardust—the primal material of the Creation loved into being by God. 

 

And what has drawn me this year; the dust from which humanity was created by the God who first breathed life into their nostrils. The dust that coated the feet of Jesus on his earthly walk; the dust that he mingled with his saliva to create healing mud.

 

Humus. In Hebrew, adamah. Dirt. 

 

Dirt, to which our mortal remains return; a fate shared by every living creature regardless of species or status. 

 

We all return to Mother Earth. To the dirt. 

 

Author and pastor Jeff Chu, in his memoir, Good Soil: the Education of an Accidental Farmhand, recounts his formation and education at Princeton Seminary, where he learned theology both in the classroom and at the school’s “Farminary”, a 46-acre plot of what had been barren, exhausted land near the campus. Chu helped raise chickens and goats, flowers and vegetables, getting his hands dirty while wrestling with God, vocation, identity, friendship, love, and loss. And one of the richest literal and metaphorical places for Chu was—the compost pile.

 

Compost. 

 

A verb or a noun, a process or a product. A fertile addition to soil to make it rich and nutritious for growing plants. A product made from scraps and leavings, it begins as a messy, smelly pile of unwanted organic detritus, munched on by microbes and worms and regularly raked and turned to circulate air. With time and care it is transformed into something that belies the messiness and smelliness that came before. It becomes something lifegiving. Chu’s instructor told the class that, while flowers and vegetables were being grown at the Farminary, the main objective on this plot of formerly degraded land would be the development of “good soil.” He said, “Life ultimately gets the last word, but the only way you move along the path to the fertile soil is if you go through the cycle of life and death, life and death.”

 

I wonder if Lent is a kind of composting process, in which God transforms us into Good Soil?

 

Life and death, dust to dust; the Lenten journey can be a messy process as we work through the scraps and leavings and detritus of our lives, confronting those parts of us that are holding us back from a closer relationship with God, with one another, and with Creation. But, as with the compost pile, we must turn, turn, and turn again; turn away from the fear, guilt, resentment, anger, self-loathing, and despair that bury us; turn toward the God who sees our naked, quaking, vulnerable selves and calls us to take root in God and bloom anew. 

 

The call to a holy Lent sends us into our soul’s garden to create Good Soil through self-examination, repentance, prayer, and reading and meditating on God’s word in Scripture; through self-denial and acts of service and generosity. It is a journey that calls us to be faithful, even knowing that there will be times when we stumble; that’s okay. With God’s help we persevere.

 

And it really is vital that we persevere. This isn’t just a self-indulgent inner exercise that we are entering into for its own sake. Our spiritual well-being–the soil, the humus, the adamah of our own garden–is ultimately life-giving compost for the healing and reconciliation of the world. If we aren’t good soil, we are no good for the resurrection work that God calls each and every one of us to do.

 

So even as we do our own soul work—soil work? — this Lent, let us also companion one another in love and support, God working through us as well as beside us on this journey. 

 

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you have been both buried, and planted.