Sermon -
The Rev. Leah D. Schade
Reformation Lutheran Church, Media, PA
Ash Wednesday, March 1, 2006
“Dirt People” -
Text: Genesis 2:4 - 7; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
Va.yi.tser a.do.nai e.lo.him
et-ha. a.dam a.far
min-ha. a.da.ma va.yi.pakh
be.a.pav nish.mat kha.yim va.ye.hi
ha.a.dam le.ne.fesh kha.ya
Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Genesis 2:7.
Today marks the beginning of our Lenten journey. It is a time to return
to that from which we were made -- earth and the breath of God. It is
time to get back to our center, to return to ourselves, to return to God.
Listen to this verse in Hebrew again and see if you can pick out the words
“adam” and “adamah”:
Va.yi.tser a.do.nai e.lo.him
et-ha. a.dam a.far
min-ha. a.da.ma va.yi.pakh
be.a.pav nish.mat kha.yim va.ye.hi ha.a.dam
le.ne.fesh kha.ya
Did you hear the words “adam” and “adamah”? This is a Hebrew pun.
“Adamah” means, “dust of the ground.” Adam means “human.”
Adam was made from the soil. So we are, literally, “people of the
dirt.” We are “dirt people”.
We don’t like to think of ourselves that way, of course. “What do you
mean, I’m just dirt?” It’s almost as offensive as thinking we may be
evolved from primitive, ape-like animals.
But the bible is very clear, here, about what we are made of. What God
has done is to basically take dirt and water, and mix them together, making a
kind of clay. And then God fashioned this clay into a body.
Essentially, God made a clay doll. And it wasn’t until God breathed life
into the nostrils of this inanimate figure that life entered into it and it
became human.
“Be-a-pav nish-mat” -- literally, God blew the breath of
life. God breathed the breath of life into the mud-man, and the man
became a living soul.
So basically, the equation of life is this:
Dirt + Breath = Life.
And when we die, the reverse is true:
Life - Breath = Dirt.
This is why we repeat these words when you come forward to receive the ash
cross on your forehead. We say, “Remember O Man/Woman that you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.” Our death is as basic as our birth.
Nothing more, nothing less.
It’s a sombering thought, I know. This is a somber service. Ash
Wednesday is not the time to be whimsical and happy-go-lucky. It’s a time
to reflect on the fragility of life, the brevity of our existence. And in
light of that finitude, to take stock of our lives and see if we are making the
most out of these “jars of clay” we inhabit for only a few decades.
If we are, indeed, just mud-people, with the “nishmat”, the breath of life,
flowing through us, how might this have an impact on our Lenten journey this
year? How might we make that return back to the earth and to the breath
of life?
When our Scholar in Residence, Mark Wallace, was here from Swarthmore
University, he reminded us that part of getting back to ourselves is,
literally, returning to the earth. Finding ways to reconnect with the
earth from which you were created is so essential to finding wholeness and
being at rest in God. What might that look like for you?
Perhaps you will decide to garden this year. Maybe you will put your
hands into the earth, feel the rich, loamy dirt in your fingers, gently place
some seeds into it, and watch in amazement as the plant is able to grow in this
soil.
Or maybe you will take daily walks each of these forty days. It’s a
wonderful time of year to do that. Because as we watch winter recede and
spring begin to take hold, it can be a very renewing experience. We
immerse ourselves in the rhythms of the earth, the lifecycle, the
God-cycle. And we feel ourselves being swept up into the ebb and flow of
life. Things die. And their dying allows other things to
live. Things live, and cause other things to die. It’s all
part of the cycle. Our little lives are like a shard of the mirror,
reflecting the larger truths of universe.
But it’s not just the earth that we need to return to. We also need to
return to the “nishmat”, the breath of God. What is this breath of
God? How does it manifest itself in us? Think of the associations
of God’s breath in the bible -- the “ruach” at the beginning of creation moving
over the waters; the breath of God coming down in the form of the Holy Spirit
at Pentecost; Paul describing how the Spirit intercedes for us in our prayers
with “sighs too deep for words.” There it is - prayer! We reconnect with
the breath of God by praying - breathing- to God.
Our Lenten small groups are reading the book, Real Faith for Real Life,
by Mike Foss, and the first chapter is all about prayer.
“Daily Prayer is the first Mark of Discipleship. This is the habit of our
living in relationship with God in Jesus of Nazareth . . . One of the
most incredible truths of Christianity is that God desires a real relationship
with us. This is the desire of God’s heart. . . Daily prayer
affirms the relationship between Creator and humanity, bringing heaven to earth
in the life of the disciple of Jesus.”(Foss, p. 15).
In his book, Foss challenges the reader to a thirty-day experiment. He
says, “Set aside and use this special time of daily prayer for just thirty
days. Take note of what happens within you - your response to stress,
your outlook, your response to others. You may want to make a prayer list
and check it to see what has happened in response to those for whom you have
prayed, for those things you have asked for yourself. Understand that you
will only get a glimpse of what God can do. And ask God to help you see
the working of God’s goodwill. Then be spiritually alert.” (Foss,
p. 21).
I would expand that into a forty-day experiment. Use this season of Lent
to realign yourself with the earth from which you came, and the breath of God
which gave you life. “What matters,” he says, “is time - time for you to
grow in your knowledge and trust in the loving God to touch your life and help
you grow deeper in faith; time to be connected to the eternal will of God.”
(Foss, 37.)
Ah, but there’s the tricky part - finding the time! Where will you find
time for these wonderful walks in nature? Where will you find an extra
fifteen minutes a day to devote to prayer? Your schedule is already so
crammed full. You already have so much to do - how are you going to add
one more thing?
That’s where our gospel lesson comes in. Jesus speaks of fasting in this
6th chapter of Matthew’s gospel. How can fasting be helpful for us in our
quest to return to the earth and prayer?
Well, fasting doesn’t just mean abstaining from food. It can mean
practicing abstinence from any chosen thing or activity as a religious
discipline. That’s where we get the tradition of giving up something for
Lent, like chocolate or red meat.
What if we gave ourselves a fast that allowed us to more easily return to the
earth and the breath of God? What could we abstain from in order to make
room for these spiritual practices?
I’m reading a book right now called, Margin: Restoring Emotional,
Physical, Financial and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives, by Dr. Richard
Swenson. He says, “It is healthy to periodically separate from the things
of the world and do without. In traditional thinking, such fasting
pertains to food.” (Swenson, p. 147) But there are other kinds of fasting
that are more appropriate for our modern world. Try fasting from shopping
for a week or longer. Use that extra time to take a stroll through Ridley
Creek Park instead of bustling through the stores of Granite Run Mall.
Try fasting from television. “For the average adult, this would gain
twenty to thirty hours a week. No single effort will secure as much time
margin as this simple, nearly impossible action. Even Billy Graham, asked
if starting over he’d do anything differently, said, ‘I’d watch less TV.’
“Seminary professor Douglas Groothuis says, ‘I routinely require my students to
engage in some kind of ‘media fast’, in which they abstain from an electronic
medium for at least one week. The results have been nothing less than
profound for the vast majority of the students. Having withdrawn from the
world of TV, radio, computers, and cell phones, they find more silence, time
for reflection and prayer and more opportunities to engage family and friends
thoughtfully.’ (Swenson, p. 123).
This kind of fasting means saying no to what is draining to our lives in order
to say yes to what will renew us, fulfill us, and make us whole.
Your life is so short. Last year’s green, luscious palms quickly dried
and yellowed, and are now nothing more than the black ash that will mark your
skin. What have you done with your life this past year since the palms
faded? Have you become closer to God? Closer to the earth?
“Adam-nishmat” - dirt people filled with God’s breath -- it is time to return.
Amen.
Source:
Foss, Michael W., Real Faith for Real Life, Augsburg Books, Minneapolis,
2004
Swenson, Richard A., M.D., Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical,
Financial and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives; 2004, Richard Swenson,
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