Remember that you are dust

A Sermon preached on Ash Wednesday March 2, 2022 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Joel 2:1 – 2, 12 – 1 7, 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10, Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return” is what I will say in a moment at the imposition of the ashes, that moment when we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross. Some traditions find this ancient wording, which is taken directly from Genesis 3:19 when Adam and Eve are sent out from Eden, too stark, too final, perhaps too depressing and offer “Repent, and believe the gospel” instead. Yes, repentance and turning to the gospel are an important part of the Ash Wednesday liturgy and the sign of the cross is an outward signal that we have understood this. But the traditional admonition is still valuable and it has several layers of meaning that are worth looking at.

The first, and primary significance of the phrase we use when imposing the ashes is to remind us of our mortality, as a so-called Momento Mori. “In the midst of life we are in death” are the words of an ancient Gregorian chant. It is a reminder that we should never wait to do what the Lord requires of us, in the words of the prophet Micah: “To do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) It is not a threat, but a call to make good use of the time that is given us.

But it also contains a warning not to put to too much stock in our worldly achievements – our wealth, goods, and power. We do not want to be like the rich fool in Luke’s parable (Luke 12:16 – 21) whose land produced so abundantly that he decides to pull down his barns and build larger ones, with the words “’Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Secondly, this little phrase is pointing us back to our creation. It comes from Genesis, from the end of the story of Adam and Eve, a story that began when “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.” (Genesis 2:7) The first human was created out of dust and dirt and the name Adam comes from the Hebrew Adamah meaning ground or earth. It’s a call to humility and to remember that all we have comes from God … but also that through God’s act we became more than dirt and dust. We received the breath of life, God’s Spirit within us, and that never leaves us, even when we sin and turn from God as Adam and Eve did.

Finally, and even now at the very beginning of Lent, 6 weeks before Easter, the promise of resurrection, and of new life, already shines through this phrase about our mortality. It makes me think of the beautiful Easter Hymn (#204):

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,

Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;

Love lives again, that with the dead has been:

Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

This hymn takes as its starting points the words of Jesus as recorded in the gospel of John:

“Very truly I tell you unless a grain of wheat falls into the Earth and dies, it remains just a single grain but if it dies it there’s much fruit.” (John 12:23 – 24)

The dust to which we return is the dark earth and the ground of new life. This can be understood both literally, in the sense of the promise of our own resurrection, but also metaphorically. Sometimes we must let things die before new things can grow and arise. In any case it says that the dust to which we return is not the end.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return. Remember that this life is finite, make it a good one. Remember who made you and whose you are, repent and turn to God. Remember God’s unending and unfailing love in this life and in the next.

Amen