Genesis 2:4b-9, 3:6, 17-19
In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— then 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. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
When the woman [God made as a partner] saw that the tree [of the knowledge of good and evil] was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
And to the man [God] said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
1 Corinthians 15:35-49
But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.
So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, "The first man, Adam, became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.
John 12:20-26
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 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 bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
—-
We buried Diane on a sunny, windy day in late August.
We gathered in the basement of Calmar Lutheran Church, passed hymnals around, and sang “Children of the Heavenly Father.” Diane’s wife, Cynthia, herself a church music director, led the singing, her face showing the hope and resolve of one who believes - really believes - in the hope of the resurrection.
When we finished singing, Pastor Anita and Pastor Zak led the procession out the doors of the church and down the pathway through the church yard into the cemetery. And there, at the edge of the property, looking out over the rolling farmlands stretching toward the horizon, was the place where Diane would be buried.
We walked slowly together, Diane’s family and friends, loved ones from Chicago and loved ones from Calmar, and loved ones from places scattered near and far.
At the graveside, we prayed together. We read words from the book of Ruth that we had read at Diane and Cynthia’s wedding: “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die — there will I be buried. May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!”
And then, as with all committals, a handful of dirt was cast over the casket, and Pastor Zak proclaimed, “In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to almighty God our sister Diane, and we commit her body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
When the committal was finished, the benediction spoken, the gathered ones slowly peeled away, moving back down the path to the church, sharing stories, sharing tissues, crying, laughing, easing their way into the building for lunch, for looking at pictures, for preparing for late-afternoon drives back to Illinois, plotting what stops they might make on their way out of town, namely whether to stop by Toppling Goliath as they passed by on County 9.
But Cynthia lingered, holding my hand. Diane’s children hovered near; Cynthia’s sons also.
The cemetery caretaker stood by, patiently, waiting for us to leave before continuing with the work of lowering the vault into the grave.
Most of the time, this work happens after everyone has left. Unlike the solemnity and quiet of the committal service, the work of lowering a casket into the ground is noisy. It is tedious. It takes longer than you think. It involves cranks and nylon straps and there is nothing picturesque or romantic about it.
But after a few moments of awkward glances, Cynthia said to Pastor Anita, “I’d like to stay until they put her in the ground.”
And so we stayed. We stayed as the cranks were turned to lower the casket into the vault, as the top of the vault was swung into place, as the whole thing was lowered into the ground. We stood, watching, as all of this happened, taking up the fullness of the time it was to take, because six feet is farther down that you realize. We watched as they disassembled the frame that had held the casket suspended above the ground for all of our songs and prayers. We stayed until there was nothing left but a hole in the ground, and Diane’s body, finally and fully at rest upon the clay.
Cynthia wanted to walk with Diane all the way. Not just to the pretty prayers at the edge of the grave, not just to a symbolic casting of earth upon her casket. But all the way. Through the grittiness of burial. Down to the literal earth that would now hold her for the span of this earth’s life.
Is this not what we are here to do this evening? Is this not what “earth to earth, dust to dust” is all about? Walking all the way, coming full circle, looking death straight in the eye?
Not just walking partway toward our mortality, not just keeping death at arm’s length, not just assuming that all those suffering terminal illness are warriors of positivity, not just telling stories of death when they are inspiring or sweet.
Ash Wednesday is when we walk all the way back to the start, returning to the dust from which we were made, not just metaphorically, but physically. Feeling the grit of the ash as it rubs against our heads, falls into our eyelashes, feeling it on our fingers as we haphazardly brush a hair away from our faces and smudge the cross by accident, seeing it stain our fingers and get under our fingernails, reluctant to be washed away.
These ashes are not pretty. They are not tame. They are messy and persistent and they get everywhere, not unlike the way that glitter sticks around long after you think you’ve cleaned it up. I see your ashes. You see mine. I look at your face and see death. You look at my face and see the same. I don’t know that facing death like this is beautiful. But it is real. And it is holy.
In this world, everything we do resists death. We choose our diets so that we can live longer. We do whatever we can to look younger than we are. We sometimes pursue relentless medical treatments in the name of extending the quantity of life, without regard to quality. We get squeamish around dying bodies and dead bodies. We are afraid to get too close to death and dying, as if it were contagious, as if we could choose to forget that we, ourselves, are all mortal.
We don’t like walking all the way to the reality of death, because where there is death there is grief, and sometimes grief is the most unbearable pain that we can and will ever face.
I cannot stand here and tell you that faith will release you from the pains of grief and loss that this life will throw at you - grief of death, grief of broken relationship, grief of addiction or tragedy or losses great and small.
But I can tell you that Christ has walked all the way to death, to the grave, so that we do not have to fear them.
I can tell you that when we walk all the way to the reality of death and the pain of grief, God’s Spirit walks with us.
I can tell you that the dirt which will one day cradle our bodies is the dirt from which God created us in love, the dust from which stars were born, in which trees took their root.
I can tell you what God told Adam: that this life will be dirty and messy, that there will be hard work to do, and good work also, but that we are not destined to toil forever; one day we will find our rest again, nestled into the very earth that we have been working to tame.
I can tell you that these bodies which we will one day sow in the earth will go forth to blossom into a resurrection garden.
I can tell you that love and loss and death and grief and this whole human existence is a messy business, and that Jesus knows what it is to get his hands dirty, and that there is nothing wrong with you when you struggle or when you feel angry or when you feel like a mess or when you can no longer pretend to be okay.
I can tell you that you are, indeed, dust. And that you will, indeed, return to dust. And also that death cannot separate you from the love of God in Christ. And if death cannot separate you from God’s love, neither can anything else.
This is true for you. And for me. And for all of God’s children, formed in God’s image from the soil of this good earth.
This is why we take on spiritual practices in the season of Lent - confession, the mark of ashes, prayer, fasting, acts of service, acts of generosity, worship, devotion - because these are the things that draw us and our world back to this fundamental truth of God’s love and claim on us. Walking all the way through Lent to the grief of the cross and the baffling joy of the empty tomb is rehearsal for us, practice for how we are to walk all the way through this life, held by a love that will never let us go, held by a life that is stronger than death.
As in Adam, all will die. But even so, in Christ, will all be made alive.
This good news is why Cynthia could stand in that church basement and sing; why she could stand by Diane’s graveside to the bitter end.
Because she knew in her heart that only when we are planted in this earth we will be able, then, to rise again with Christ.
Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.
Now we bear the image of the man of dust; then we will bear the image of the man of heaven.
Tonight, my siblings in Christ, we bury ourselves as seeds beneath the earth. We remember that we are dust. We remember that we will return to dust. We face our mortality square in the face. We walk all the way together through the messiness of life, through death, and then, together with Christ and bound together by Christ, we walk all the way to life, blooming forth.
Mary Oliver, in her poem “Sometimes,” says:
Death waits for me, I know it, around
one corner or another.
This doesn’t amuse me.
Neither does it frighten me.
After the rain, I went back into the field of sunflowers.
It was cool, and I was anything but drowsy.
I walked slowly, and listened
to the crazy roots, in the drenched earth, laughing and growing.
May we be so blessed to walk all the way into the field, to see that from the death-drenched earth comes laughter, and growth, and life once again.
Amen.