What better word to start off the Lenten season than with the
word, “dust.” Dust is a great biblical word, one that has many connotations in
the ancient world.
We read in the Bible, for example, that dust is a central
element in stories where inordinate grief and angst are expressed (consider
Job). Characters in such metaphorical accounts can, from time-to-time, be seen
as literally wearing “sackcloth and
ashes” (akin to pouring dirt over their heads to signify their mourning and
sense of loss). You can imagine what those times and places must have felt like
- as if the very bottom of their lives had fallen out. Overwhelming feelings.
Where may you have felt similar angst in your own life?
Of course, we also know that there are Bible stories where
dust has more positive connotations. We see throughout Genesis use of the terms
earth and dust. From Scripture’s very start God takes stardust (“a formless
void”) and from it fashions the whole world. And then from this earth come
things of the earth – plants and
creatures of various kinds.
In Genesis 1:26, wherein we are introduced to “Adam” and
“Eve,” whose names in Hebrew mean respectively, “red” and “earth,” we see that
they (and we) are given a vocation of
being co-creators with God – a job that comes with much responsible use of
wisdom. But their good stewardship is not a given, as we soon learn.
Interestingly, Genesis 2 offers us a bit different creation
account. Here we read how God forms humankind from mere dust – a dust that
makes up soil that cries out for a tiller. Do you know any tillers of soil out
there? And so it is that God gives humankind a vocation of tilling soil and
earning our keep by the sweat of our brow.
I could go on about other ways Scripture speaks of dust, of
its healing properties, or about how we are in fact one day going to return to the
very state of dust from which we once came, but what is the sum or point of all this dust in light of Lent?
In Genesis 1:3 God is said to have looked over all that was
made and then declared it to be, “very good.” I think that what God declares
“good” we would be well advised to also consider as sacred. I think we ought
take our divine vocation seriously and consider it soberly.
To what extent are we being -or not being- good stewards of
all resources at our personal disposal – and again, how about as a church? And
let us also ask whether we consider not only our own lives as “sacred” but,
just as importantly, the lives of all others
– family, friends, strangers, and even so-called enemies? Aren’t we to consider their lives as equally sacred?
The Lenten season is one of prayer,
contemplation, repentance, self-denial, and seeking to love the things that God
loves. “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.” I think we must look
with humility to all of the vast dust that is out there, admittedly some dust more like our own
dust than others, and ask, “Lord, what are we that you are mindful of
us?” Amen.
Shared by Michael Boyd
Nicely said.
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