March 1, 2017 (Ash Wednesday) – Genesis 3:1-24
Genesis 3:1-24
Star Dust, Magic Dust
Ash Wednesday – March 1, 2017
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
These are the words that we hear this evening as the ashes or dust are placed on our foreheads.
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
They are what God says to Adam after Adam and Eve leave the garden of Eden.
On the one hand, I wonder how often I really need to be reminded of this,
that I am dust and to dust I shall return.
Sometimes when watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer I feel kind of bad for the vampires who
Buffy sends packing with a stake through their hearts – as they instantly turn to dust.
I feel bad for them, because I think I know what that feels like –
to have your heart turned to dust and ashes.
Sometimes it seems like it doesn’t take much to turn my heart to dust and ashes,
far less than a stake through it.
Certain people and certain situations have the ability to do that to you.
We are vulnerable creatures, and our hearts and our lives are fragile.
And this, surely, is one of the meanings of Ash Wednesday: we are fragile, life is fragile,
and others’ hearts are fragile too: we should treat one another with the utmost care.
Remember that you – and your neighbour – are dust and to dust you shall return.
But then, too, there is some good news tucked away in there to the reminder of our dustiness.
This is an invitation, I think, to live more and to love more fully each and every day.
We won’t be around in this life forever.
Once a week or so I encounter my elderly neighbour Gloria in
the hallway of my apartment building.
Gloria is from Jamaica.
I love Gloria. She always asks me how I’m doing, and how Theo is doing.
She asks me what I’m up to, and I’ll say, “I’m having a cocktail party later.”
Or, “I’m having a friend over.”
Or, “I’m going to Vegas.”
Or whatever.
And then she looks me in the eye and fixes me with her most serious stare and says,
“Have a good time,” in a way that only Jamaicans can.
A couple of days ago she said to me,
“Enjoy yourself. Enjoy each day. We don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow.
Look after Theo. We might not be here. Have a good time.”
In her own way, she was – in her own very serious way – telling me,
“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
Yah: we are dust and we need to remember that.
But what dust!
We also have to remember that!
We truly are fashioned from the dust of stars: we are star dust, we are magic dust.
We are magic dust filled with breath, with the breath of life, with the breath of God.
We have the ability to think and feel.
And we have consciousness – the ability to know that we think and feel.
We have the ability to act and change things and
make a difference in the lives of those around us.
We can sing and dance and create something that did not exist before.
And most miraculous of all: we can love and be loved.
What a miracle this dust is.
Remember that you are dust – but also remember: what dust!
You are star dust, star dust that is beloved.
All this dust is not here by accident: what is it all doing here anyway?
You are dust with a purpose: to participate in God’s mission to love, bless, and heal
this whole world and every person in it.
To be in communion with God and with others and with creation.
This is the closest we can come to communicating just why all this star dust is here.
You are magic dust that can make a difference in other people’s lives.
That is amazing.
Magic dust, indeed.
Truly you only live once. But what for?
To live and laugh and love and care.
We can bring love where there is hate, peace where there is discord,
and healing where there is hurt.
Ash Wednesday is telling us that now is the time, at the beginning of our Lent springtime,
to repair wounded friendships, to rid ourselves of addiction,
to embrace who God made us to be: to have a good time.
Which literally means, of course, to have a “godly” time, a whole time, a full time.
Yes: we are dust: our span of years is brief and our time to love certainly far too short.
But on Ash Wednesday we remember that we are star dust, magic dust, beloved dust.
And that the time to live fully and love extravagantly is now.
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
The first half of that phrase is about the past: remember that you are dust.
The second half of that phrase is about the future: to dust you shall return.
The fullness of life is found in the little comma right in the middle of the sentence.
The comma is the present, and that is where the fullness of life we are to live is found:
right in the present, right in the moment between past and future.
This moment is when we can choose to celebrate and lift up the grace all around us.
This moment is when we can choose to love instead of hate.
This moment is when we can choose to engage rather than ignore.
This moment is when we can make a difference – this is when we can be magic dust.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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