God Loves Dust

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Lessons of the Day (RCL, Ash Wednesday): Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 103; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; and, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

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God loves dust! The particles of stars — the tiny fragments of creation borne aloft on the wind of heaven. God has always loved the dust, from the moment God brought the dust into existence, each mote like the note of a song still being written, carried on the light of a thousand suns. 

When the dust finally gathered and settled in our small corner of creation, on this earth, our fragile island home, God, as if wishing on a delicate "summer snowflake," blew upon the dust of the earth and made it dance. And it mixed with every speck of God's own particular hopes and dreams. God animated it with life and love - named it and traced God's own image upon it.

And from the dust, God formed a companion and called it "you" and "me." And still, that same dream-shaping, wish-making breath blown on creation, that same impulse to love what has been made and called good, is what holds us together still. It drives us forward through time and space. It guides our feet across the dusty trails of the earth as we look up at the shimmering, dusty stars, feeling as if they are somehow looking back at us — all of us children of the dust, bearers of the ancient light, long-lost siblings of the same creative source.

God loves dust! God's love does not change or die, even when we do. Today, on this Ash Wednesday, we have come together to examine this created dust and this creative love up close. We have come to reflect on those times we have made a mess of it and to be reminded that God has not given up on loving us.

The passage we heard from the gospel according to Matthew, where Jesus cautions against showy acts of piety, is perhaps a bit awkward for this occasion. We have, after all, come to receive a smudge on our foreheads. We will then go out and wear it for all to see.

It is worth noting that Jesus is not opposed to public expressions of piety. He was a man of profound and earnest prayer, shaped by the spiritual practices of his time and place. He openly embodied his awareness of divine truth. Similarly, the reading from Isaiah, while condemning empty, self-serving piety, still speaks of a public devotion and a communal spirituality grounded in care and justice. The type of spirituality nurtured by the understanding of the sacredness and preciousness of everything and everyone, because it was created by God from the dust.

The reminder, here, is that piety is meaningless, hollow, and empty when we use it to try to prove — to ourselves or to others—that God loves us. And it is dangerous when we use it to try to prove that God loves only us, and not “them.” Piety should not be used to justify such claimes — it cannot be used to justify such claimes because love is already a give for all things. It is freely offered. It is the mandate that underlies creation. It is the very reason for everyone and everything that exists. God’s love is as inevitable and as pervasive as the dust that gathers on still surfaces, clings to our skin, dances on beams of light, and swirls in the wind. It is love always seeking to rest upon us, to be present with us, and to remind us of our true nature — that we are dust and do dust we shall return, and that God loves dust. And so should we. 

So, when Jesus tells us to pray in secret and fast in secret, it is an invitation to quietly rest in that love, understanding that we do not need to prove our worthiness. We do not have to strive to win God's affection as if He were a capricious Valentine waiting to be captivated by our words and grand gestures. We are already and always worthy of love. And so is everyone else.

In a moment, you will receive a mark on your forehead, and you will hear those ancient words — "remember that you are dust." Perhaps, as we often do, you will feel the weight of this reality: the brevity of our existence and the inevitability of being carried away like dust on the wind. And that’s okay. It is human to wonder, to weep, and to carry with us the anticipation of all that comes to an end. But remember this: wherever it goes, the dust that you are, the dust that we all are—no matter how or when it finds its resting place—every particle of it is imbued with the undying love by which it was formed.

The smudge that you will bear is not a mark of shame or lament, it is a promise — a promise that even when we return to the dust, we will not be forgotten nor forsaken, and that one day God will use it to reconstitute a new creation. One in which all of us will finally feel belovedness coursing through every particle of our being. We will see that same belovedness in our neighbors and in the face and shape of everything around us. At long last, there will be nothing left to prove, nothing left to fear. Our piety will simply be the awareness of the stars and the soil, recognizing that they are indeed our siblings, and that the entire cosmos is one beautiful dance of dust, carried on the breath of the Spirit, swirling in eternal light.

When we see this and live this truth, then the wish made when God breathed life into creation will finally come true: to know that you are dust, and to dust all things shall return. And God loves dust.