• Death and Dying,  Dust,  Scholarship

    Dust in the Wind

    August 26, 2019

    The following is another adapted portion of my study on dust in scripture. It’s a little more academic in tone than a lot of my other writing, but I hope you’ll persevere through it!.

    The scattering effects of the fall and Adam and Eve’s exile and return to dust are seen clearly throughout the Old Testament books of prophecy and the psalms. Passages from these portions of scripture can be greatly informative regarding what scripture teaches is the appropriate response to man’s creation from dust, and the resulting relationship with his creator. The image of dust is closely tied to judgement, either the means of judgement or the result, depending on the context. This becomes particularly clear when one observes that the use of “dust” is often paired with the word “chaff” in descriptions of judgement in the Old Testament. 

    Psalm 83 serves as a good example of how chaff relates to the image of dust. The psalmist is crying out to God to bring judgement to evildoers. In the last several stanzas of the psalm he calls for God to “make them like whirling dust, like chaff before the wind. As fire consumes the forest…so may you pursue them with your tempest and terrify them with your hurricane. Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek your name, O LORD. Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever…that they may know that you alone, whose name is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth.”[1]

    The psalmist wants his enemies to be filled with shame and fear, driven like chaff by a wind. What stands out to me is the disparity of power. Chaff and dust are utterly at the whim of the “hurricane.” Man, specifically those who do not seek God’s name, could be like dust, not held together in one being, but driven before the wind. The use of shame here reveals a similarity to the account of the fall, and the association of shame with judgement, exile, and scattering, a hint that the evildoers in this passage were not properly relating to God. The reader’s attention is first drawn back to Genesis 3 from Psalm 83 by mention of shame, which is a reminder of Adam and Eve’s shame after eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve were not just banished, but God “drove out the man” from the garden in exile.[2]Adam and Eve, then, were like dust driven before the wind in judgement for their fall into sin. The pattern of images, connecting the scattering of dust and chaff to shame, like Adam and Eve’s, continues throughout the Old and New Testaments.[3] 

    For Prideful Worship

    We see that the judgement for pride in Isaiah 17:7–14 also connects the fate of dust to that of chaff. Here, judgement is tied to the pride intrinsic in worshipping man-made things instead of God. In this passage, Isaiah is prophesying against Damascus: “In that day,” Isaiah prophesies, “man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the [idols] or the altars of incense.”[4]He continues a few verses later, “The nations will roar like the roaring of many waters, but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away, chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind and whirling dust before the storm.”[5]

    In this passage, scattering and driving away is the consequence for having “forgotten the God of your salvation and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge.”[6]The contrast between God and dust is great, and the power of God inimitable. Dust and chaff are driven easily before the wind, and it does not bode well for those receiving judgement as chaff. But Isaiah includes an important dimension of this contrast that we have not yet discussed. It was God who created the ones who are “like chaff.” And even though he is the one who drives them away in judgement, he is also, as we saw in Genesis, their provider, the God of their salvation, a Rock. We now have two pictures for God, the Wind driving the chaff in judgement, and the Rock.[7]We can also see that when chaff strays from the Rock, it is driven before the wind. This was also evident in the account of the Fall, and is an important framework to keep in mind as we continue: when man strays from his creator through pride, judgement and scattering follows him. 

    Isaiah 17 sets up an apt contrast to the Israelites in the account of the Golden Calf, found in Exodus 32 and Deuteronomy 9. These passages are a good narrative pairing to Isaiah 17 because they tell the story of a people who chose to worship the work of their hands, in contrast to those mentioned in Isaiah 17. The Israelites, recently freed from slavery in Egypt, had turned their back on their rescuer and creator, and instead began worshipping an idol of a golden calf. In their pride, they worshipped “the work of [their] hands,” an idol. Moses returned from his forty days with God on the mountain to find that the people had, like Adam and Eve, rejected their creator and sustainer. God shared his plans to destroy them with Moses.[8]Moses pled with God to spare the people.[9]In this case, God does so, and Moses returns down the mountain. When Moses made his way back to the people, he was angry; fearful of the judgement of Yahweh. His action, however, was a display of the humility the Israelite people lacked. He “lay prostrate before the LORD…for forty days and forty nights.”[10]The author of Deuteronomy tells us that Moses then “took the sinful thing, the calf…, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. And [Moses] threw the dust of it into the brook that ran down from the mountain.”[11]The Exodus account shares that Moses scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.[12]In this event, it is as if God delegated a share of his wrath to Moses to give a reminder of their composition of dust as a statement against their pride. As this dust was incorporated into their bodies, they received a tangible sign that they were made of dust,[13]and were subject to the winds of judgement. 

    Moses’ work reenacted the work of God in Eden in scattering and reminded the people of their origin. God’s judgement came in yet another way, however. He sent the people away from the mountain where they had nearness to God. Here, after the Exodus, the people were already wandering, homeless for the time. After they worshipped the work of their own hands, God commanded them to leave the mountain. God would remain faithful to fulfill his promise and lead them to the Promised Land, but he would no longer be among them. Not only was their relationship fundamentally changed, but they were reminded, painfully, of their humble stature before their God. The consequence for their prideful idolatry, the act of trusting in their own work instead of the work of the true creator, was like that enacted in Eden—a geographic, bodily, and relational return to dust. They were scattered like dust, driven away and humbled, from the mountain where God their Rock had been near them. When their pride caused them to forget that they were but dust, formed and held together by God the Rock, they rediscovered their true nature through the judgement of God.

    [1]Ps 83:13–18

    [2]Gen 3:24

    [3]This isn’t to indicate that the prophets or psalmists were intentionally reminding their readers of the Fall, only that there is a pattern to the way these events are described. 

    [4]Isa 17:8

    [5]Isa 17:13

    [6]Isa 17:10

    [7]It is interesting to consider the Rock as creator of dust. Humans become “a chip off the old block” in a literal sense—made of dust, but bearing the image of our creator.

    [8]Note the similarity to Genesis 18, when God shares his plans to destroy Sodom with Abraham. 

    [9]Augustine says in a sermon on Exodus that his prayer was maternal: “What sure maternal and paternal instincts, how sure his reliance…on the justice and mercy of God!” This interpretation implies similarities to Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel 1, which we will discuss later (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, ed. Joseph T. Lienhard in vol 3 of Ancient Christian Commentary: Old Testament, ed. Thomas C. Oden [Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press], 142).

    [10]Deut 9:18

    [11]Deut 9:21

    [12]Ex 32:20

    [13]One should not miss the similarity of this event to the eucharist here.

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  • Death and Dying,  Dust,  Scholarship,  Scripture

    Creation, Fall, and Dust-made Man: Part 2

    July 8, 2019

    Part of my thesis focused on the creation of man from dust, and the curse that Adam and Eve received when they sinned—the promise that they would return to dust. I’m sharing adapted pieces of that study here with you in a two part series, Part 1 focuses on Creation, and Part 2 on the Fall. I don’t think I’m saying much that’s new here—at least I hope not. Church fathers and modern commentators alike all have similar things to say. But hopefully I can present it in a way that’s new to some of you, as a helpful reminder of our relationship to our Creator.

    St. John Chrysostom stated that living as dust under the care of a Creator God ought to cause a sort of awe and child-like affection for the one who creates and provides care for one so lowly.[1]But almost from the very first, this is not what we see in Adam and Eve. Rather than relating to their Creator in a joyful, awe-filled way, the interaction we see between the first humans and God is marked by shame.

    Shame is a perversion of humility. The difference between humility and shame could be described as fear. Whereas humility could be defined as a measured, even joyful, acceptance of one’s own lowly station, shame is that same acknowledgement laced with a feeling that one’s lowliness is a failure, or a falling short—something that others would point out or recognize as reprehensible or embarrassing. Being ashamed, then, seems to be closely tied to a feeling of fear. Do you see this in the creation account?

    Adam and Eve were “naked and were not ashamed” when they were created.[2] However, when they sinned after the serpent’s deception, they “knew that they were naked” and made clothes of fig leaves.[3] Their reaction, when they heard God in the garden, was not, like we see with children, a fear that cause them to run to the authority figure they trust most. Instead, they became afraid and hid. The pairing here between “naked and not ashamed” and “afraid” hints that they were now ashamed of their nakedness.[4] Many early commentators propose that their sin was pride.[5]

    Perhaps, in becoming puffed up in pride (which is, of course, the opposite of humility), they became ashamed of their body of dust. Since their first action, at least that we’re told about, was to create clothes for themselves, it seems likely that their perception of their body was significantly changed in the Fall. These feelings of fear and shame related to their body seem to indicate that they no longer felt the closeness for which they had been created. If their bodies of dust were to have made them joyfully humble before their creator, their provider, they now became a source of fear and embarrassment before him because they wanted to be like him and were very aware of and dissatisfied with their lowly frame. They did not run to God in their sin but ran away. Shame, then, is a manifestation of a faulty, or at least incomplete understanding of what it means to be made of dust. The result was the loss of intimacy with one’s creator, and exile.

    I think this is interesting for a lot of reasons. One reason it’s interesting personally is because I previously would not have connected body image this directly to what we’re told of Adam and Eve’s fall into sin.

    Secondarily, it’s interesting because it makes so much sense why now, in our western culture, body image is such a struggle for so many of us. We’ve made our bodies of dust an idol, and when they fall short of the godlikeness we’ve assigned to them, it’s a big flashing neon sign in the mirror screaming, “YOU ARE MADE OF DUST!” And, for many of us, we, like Adam and Eve, do not run to God in joyful, childlike humility. Instead, we fashion ourselves modern fig-leave garments with make-up and designer labels and Instagram filters to fool ourselves and those around us. We live in fear that the fig leaves might just slip and reveal our dust-made frames.

    But as we see throughout the rest of Adam and Eve’s stories, and the rest of scripture, it is only through finding refuge in the cleft of Rock that our dust is secured, made fast, and built up into something beautiful. If those of us who are made of dust do not find refuge here in our Creator and Sustainer, we will find, like Adam and Eve, that our Creator God is not just their Creator and Sustainer, but also the Scatterer. 

    There is much more we could say about this. Does this connection between the body and the Fall trigger any more connections for you? I’d love to hear about them!

    This is clearly not the end. God is the Scatterer, but he loves his creation and longs to live with us in harmony—we can clearly see that in his intentions for Adam and Eve. Psalm 103:13–14 is a helpful reminder:

    “As a father shows compassion to his children,
    so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
    For he knows our frame;
    he remembers that we are dust.
    Ps 103:13–14

    [1]Chrysostom, Homily 17 in Homilies on Genesis, 245

    [2]Gen 2:25

    [3]Gen 3:7

    [4]Gen 3:10

    [5]See Chrysostom, Homily 16 in Homilies on Genesis, 214; Augustine, “On Nature and Grace” in Four Anti-Pelagian Writings, trans. John A. Mourant and William J. Collinge in vol 86 of Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Old Testament, ed. Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 2001), 47.

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  • Death and Dying,  Scholarship,  Scripture

    Creation, Fall, and Dust-made Man: Part 1

    July 2, 2019

    Part of my thesis focused on the creation of man from dust, and the curse that Adam and Eve received when they sinned—the promise that they would return to dust. I’m sharing adapted pieces of that study here with you in a two part series, Part 1 focuses on Creation, and Part 2 on the Fall. I don’t think I’m saying much that’s new here—at least I hope not. Church fathers and modern commentators alike all have similar things to say. But hopefully I can present it in a way that’s new to some of you, as a helpful reminder of our relationship to our Creator.

    Most of us who have been raised in church are familiar with God’s role in the beginning of the world as we know it: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”[1] In Genesis 1, the author (commonly thought to be Moses) uses repetitive sentences to tell how the world came to be. The phrase “Let there be…” is repeated on nearly every day of creation, with breaks in the pattern coming only when God is adding a new creation to something already created (i.e. “let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures”).[2]

    The pattern only breaks altogether with the creation of man in Genesis 1:26. Instead of “Let there be,” the author says “Let us make.” In the Genesis 2, more poetic telling, the creation of man is even more distinct from the rest of creation. Here, all that is said about the creation of the heavens and the earth is that “they were created.” But we are told of man that “the LORD God formed the man of dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and [he] became a living creature.”[3] 

    Instead of simply being created with a mere word, God “forms” man. This is remarkably intimate, compared to the rest of the created order. And while his intimacy with God through his formation shows man’s dignity and stature, his origin was of the dust. This seems to be the model for right relation to God. God made a fundamental humility implicit in man’s design, and yet he is imbued with dignity by the care of and nearness to his Creator. This, then, seems to be the balance that man seems to be meant to hold in his regard for his body. The disruption of this balance seems to have occurred at the Fall, which caused a break in the relationship between God and Man. Fittingly, then, Adam and Eve were promised a return to dust: Adam, particularly, because he was formed from it.[4]

    Genesis 2 gives a more detailed explanation of the dust that made Adam a basically humble creature. He was created outside of the garden, in a place that seems to have been barren. The passage states, “when no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up…then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground.”[5]The author of Genesis gives two reasons for the absence of plant growth in this region. First, the ground had not yet been rained on. Second, “there was no man to work the ground.”[6]By this description, the land seems to be lacking both the natural qualities needed to grow plants, and the secondary requirement of someone to tend the land. It was infertile and of no use. The dust that man was formed from, then, was worthless.

    The author of Genesis seems to go out of his way to make sure his audience understood that it is God who was withholding fertility from this land, solidifying the contrast between creation and creator. It was not simply that it had not yet rained, but that God himself “had not caused it to rain on the land.”[7]The second reason given for its infertility was also because of God’s inaction. As the creator, God is the responsible party when it comes to things existing or not existing in every place and time. And here, there was no man to work the ground. Why? Because God has not created one. This is an example of God’s control over life and death—there is no life where God does not act. 

    Additionally, we see in the creation account of Genesis 2 that even when God created man out of barren soil, he did not intend for him to work that ground, but to tend the ground in Eden: “And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.”[8]Yahweh placed man in a garden full of everything he would need, including, eventually, companionship. It was there, in the place that God had provided for Adam and Eve, that he was to tend and keep the land. God’s care for man indicates that even though he was made of dust, he related to God in a uniquely intimate way among the rest of creation. 

    Remarkable, isn’t it? Made of dust, formed in the image of God. What a beautiful tension we hold in our bodies. But it’s easy to see how Adam and Eve fell, isn’t it? It’s not an easy balance to maintain—we either puff ourselves up and inflate our value, or we beat ourselves down and let the “dust” of our nature take precedence without recalling the dignity given to us by our Creator.

    In Part 2 we can talk more about this, and what role I think this tension may have played in the Fall.

    [1]Gen 1:1

    [2]Gen 1:20

    [3]Gen 2:7

    [4]Gen 3:19

    [5]Gen 2:5–7

    [6]Gen 2:5

    [7]Gen 2:5

    [8]Gen 2:8–9a

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  • More Stories,  Scholarship,  Scripture

    Your Redeemer Will Keep You—Part 3

    June 19, 2019

    This post is the third part of a presentation I had the opportunity to give on Ruth 1 at a women’s Bible study at my church. If you’d like to catch up, this link will take you to Part 1. The last post left Naomi destitute, but, despite her best efforts, not alone! After trying to send her daughters-in-law home before her journey back to Bethlehem, Ruth has pledged to remain with her. This post reflects on Ruth’s remarkable decision, and what it means for Naomi, and God’s covenant promises.

    This point of the story gives us is one reason, among many, to be grateful for the word of God. Here, we can see the stories of how God worked in the lives of those who came before us. We have a great cloud of witnesses who each bore the weight of sin and suffering, and yet ran with endurance.[1] Naomi could not see what was happening, as we often cannot.

    But looking back through the lens of scripture and history, we can see that God was at work in Naomi’s story, even when she couldn’t see it. He did not let Naomi go alone. Despite her best efforts to leave Ruth, she stayed by her side, remaining faithful to the covenant she had made with Naomi’s family. I can only imagine that Naomi was not ready for or expecting this from Ruth—after so many losses, the text seems to indicate that she had no expectation to have anything but loss and grief follow her. 

    Do we see what is happening here in verses 16–17? We are beginning to see God filling Naomi’s emptiness. God is bringing Naomi and Ruth out of exile. Naomi may not realize it, but this is a movement of grace in her life. Not only is he bringing Naomi home to a belly-filling harvest, he is deftly bringing about the fulfillment of the promises he gave to Abraham, through Naomi’s exile, suffering, and return. And this seems to be the author’s aim in chapter one—to show his audience that God’s love never fails. His covenant-keeping faithfulness is constant; it is our vision that is faulty. 

    We can see that God is working to fulfill his promises to Abraham for Naomi and even for us without even spoiling the story by telling what comes in the next few chapters—it’s all here in Chapter 1. All we have to do is watch Ruth. 

    The first hint that we should connect this story with God’s promise of a coming, is Ruth’s decision to stay with Naomi.

    There are at least three signals here in these verses:

    1. She is leaving her home.
    2. She is choosing a family—one that she did not have to choose, who could offer her nothing in return.
    3. She is pledging to stay with and love Naomi forever, to death.

    Who else might we know that does this? 

    Ruth’s actions were actions of emptying herself of every hope she could claim by returning to her family. She was foreshadowing for Naomi, and telling us, of a Redeemer whom she had not yet seen—one who would empty himself to make good all the promises of God to Abraham and his descendants. A redeemer who would bring his people from exile, and, as the heir to Abraham, rule for all eternity. 

    But Ruth probably didn’t realize that this is what she was doing. So what was she tryingto do here? What was she actually choosing? Naomi? I doubt it. Naomi had nothing to offer Ruth. Ruth had every reason to expect that it would be better for her to say a tearful goodbye to Naomi and go home. As a Moabite, she had no reason to expect a warm welcome from Naomi’s family and friends in Bethlehem. Moabites were descendants of Abraham’s relative Lot, in fact, they were the descendants of an incestuous encounter between Lot and his daughter-in-law. There was generations-deep bad blood between the Israelites and the Moabites—violence, persecution, idolatry. The law in Deuteronomy prohibited Moabites from worshipping with Israelites. Numbers 25 tells of violent deaths at the hands Moabites (and violent revenge), and plagues on the people in consequence for men marrying or having other sexual relationships with Moabite women. With this context, Ruth certainly could not expect protection, marriage, and children. So what could Ruth have been thinking? What could Ruth possibly gain by staying with Naomi? There was only one gain. YAHWEH. He was her only gain in choosing to remain with Naomi. “Your God will be my God,” she says. What does that say about Him? If, like Ruth, we were given the choice between God along with physical and economic insecurity, or physical safety, provision, and family without him, what would we choose? Oh, that we would have faith like Ruth’s. 

    So Ruth, forsaking everything, followed YAHWEH and remained with Naomi on the long journey back to the land of promise. She did not leave Naomi to suffer alone, but shared the burden of her friend’s suffering. Like the coming Christ, at great personal cost, she cared for her chosen family with tender affection and loyalty.

    Despite this, Naomi continued on in her despair, as if nothing profound or important had just happened. The pair resumed their journey to Bethlehem, the town full of prophetic potential. And when they arrived, in verses 19–22, we see that Naomi is, as I titled the next section, Kept by the Redeemer. 

    Are you getting tired of the despair yet? Me too. So keep reading! I’ll post the next section soon.

    [1]Heb 12:1

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  • Death and Dying,  Scholarship,  Scripture

    Flipping the Script: A Reflection on Hannah’s Song

    April 3, 2019

    One of my favorite parts of my thesis was the section on Hannah. Hannah’s prayer was one of the last places I would have expected to find insight on the use of dust and ashes in scripture, but it turned out that her story held one of the most personally meaningful bits of truth for me.

    Hannah’s story is perhaps one of the most well known among women in the Bible. She is often compared to Mary, and her song in 1 Samuel to Mary’s, the Magnificat. When the author of 1 Samuel introduces us to Hannah, she is the beloved but barren wife second wife, suffering at the hand of her husband’s other wife. She cried to God at the temple, desperate with sorrow and grief and unmet desire, promising to give her son wholly to God if God would just allow her to bear one. Her infertility was a window into the weakness of human bodies. Eventually, God answered her prayer, and she was given conception, and a son full of life and health. And then we see that the suffering was not over—in fact she has signed herself up for a sort of life-long suffering by promising to give her son up as a gift to the God who gives and takes life.

    What is amazing to me about Hannah is not just that she faithfully acted on her promise to God, but that her song after leaving her young son at the temple is a song of praise. Her song is full of images of dust and rocks, which is how I got there, but in it she does not focus on man’s frailty as a detriment, but flips the script. Instead of being sad and intimidated by the frailty of man, she uses human weakness as a launching point to remind her of man’s creation from dust. The result of her meditation on man’s frailty is not further despair, but praise. 

    This praise came in the face of not just leaving her only, much sought-after son, but leaving him in what could have been an unsafe place. The author of 1 Samuel calls Samuel’s new companions, Eli’s sons, “worthless men.” (1 Sam 3:1). It seems likely that Hannah would have known the character of the men she was leaving Samuel with, which makes her prayer striking. She sang a song of praise. This sets her apart—my instinct as a mother would, short of a miracle of faith, notbe praise at that point. But Hannah had faith, and she sang a song of joy. And the reason for her joy, surprisingly, is closely tied to man’s dusty origin.

    “He raises the poor from the dust;” she says, “he lifts the needy from the ash heap.” Her words are reminiscent of both Abraham, who states that he was “but dust and ashes” (Gen 18:27), and Job, who said, by one translation, that he was “comforted in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). Both of these men, in their acknowledgement of their relation to dust, turned to God and were comforted.

    These examples make Hannah’s choices of imagery in her song stand out. She praises God as the one who “raises up the poor from the dust,” and “lifts the needy from the ash heap” (1 Sam 2:8). She knows that she is dust, drawn up and formed by her Creator. And just as she did in her years of infertility, she runs toward God, trusting him to “guard the feet of his faithful ones.” Not only did she trust God to protect her and her son, but because of his history of protecting and raising up the weak, but the same image gave her comfort that the wicked would be powerless over her son. The worthless men who had power over her son are also dust.

    And there is one more reason why she can praise God as she is separated from her precious son. Her God is not like man. He is not dust! He is a Rock. Firm. Unmovable. Infinitely stronger than the wicked men who are made of dust. 

    Not only is he not dust, he is the Creator. Hannah praises God because of his power over the life of his creation: “The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up…” Hannah reminds herself that even though the men with whom she has left her son are not good men, it is not they who are in control. The God who created them is. In the midst of what I can only guess must have been incredible grief at leaving her son behind, she joyfully turns to God—“for the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world.” Her rest is in the fact that the Creator God has power over life and death, that he “will guard the feet of his faithful ones”—including her son. 

    What a good lesson that is for us! Are our hearts and minds bent toward praise when we’re experiencing loss, or being confronted with the frailty of our bodies? Have we trained our minds to look to him with praise when we our bodies, or our loved ones bodies are returned to dust? I’m not, usually. But Hannah sets a good example for us. Maybe we should teach ourselves to sing with her when we are reminded of our own frailty as dust-made and dust-bound creatures. Maybe, like Hannah, we should gladly remember that yes, we are dust, because it reminds us that our God is not. We can praise God that even though we are weak, we are hidden, protected in the cleft of the Rock—the one to whom belong the foundations of the world.

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  • Death and Dying,  Scholarship

    Beginnings

    March 11, 2019

    If you’ve read my About the Blog page, you saw that I wrote my thesis on a topic related to death and dying, particularly as it pertains to the Christian. I started this blog as a way to keep myself motivated to continue studying, so I wanted to tell you a little more about my thesis work and where I’m thinking my research will take me—or us, if you come along with me here on The Unhurried Chase (don’t forget to subscribe!). 

    My thesis title was “I Am But Dust And Ashes”: Pride, Humility, and the Appropriate Response to Man’s Creation.” It was my attempt to understand what being made of dust means for man’s life and relationship with God. At the start of the writing process, I was interested in human decay. At most Christian funerals the primary focus is the resurrection, and the abundant life in heaven. To understate it, this is a good thing. But, why, if God intended our sole focus to be the risen body and the eternity to come, do human bodies decay at all—surely we would miss our loved one just as much if they evaporated into thin air at death. My thesis, I thought, would be a good chance to learn what we might be missing by speeding so quickly past this disconcerting part of human life.

    After some preliminary research, it became clear the root of all of these questions was what scripture has to say about man’s creation from dust. All other questions about funeral practices, and grief, and dismissive sympathy cards are downstream from this question—what can we learn from scripture about man’s creation from dust and its implications for mankind?

    I started, fittingly, with creation. I undertook a close reading of Genesis 1–3, trying to understand what is being communicated to readers regarding Adam’s creation from dust, and subsequent exile and death. Three things came into focus through this reading: first, the dust that man was formed from was lowly, barren, and worthless; secondly, God formed Adam with special intention; third, man’s creation from dust was an integral part of man’s relation to God. If man’s first sin was pride, as a number of church fathers believed, then Adam and Eve’s move to cover their bodies after their fall could be read as a move of shame and embarrassment to hide any hint of their bodies’ lowly origin from one who was so entirely superior to them. If this reading is accurate, Adam and Eve’s exile was closely tied to their perception of their body of dust. Instead of drawing near to God as they realized the humility intrinsic to their physical bodies, they hid, and God sent them out in exile to the dust from which Adam was created.

    Next, I wanted to see if there were other passages in scripture where man was confronted with dust, and how these passages might relate to what I was seeing in Genesis. I soon realized that dust is a very common image in scripture, and that there was a pattern emerging from the text.

    I saw that in general, dust was used as an image in circumstances when men were prideful, either attempting to mimic God’s creation from dust in an idolatrous way (for example Babel, or the story of the Golden Calf), or directly defying God (as in the case of the Pharaoh of the Exodus), or when circumstances when the people of God were suffering or witnessing judgement (as seen in the stories of Abraham, Job, and Hannah). 

    The second pattern was that in each case God drew near—just as he had sought out Adam and Eve in the garden. 

    The prideful and idolatrous seemed to try to distance themselves from God and his offered relationship. As a result, they were met with the scattering hand of judgement, led to exile and destruction—scattered like chaff before the wind.

    However, the righteous found their lowly origin as a reason to turn to God, and were even comforted by it. Job and Abraham both turned to God for relief or comfort using the phrase, “I who am but dust and ashes.” Hannah, leaving her beloved son in the hands of worthless men, praises the God who creates and raises man from the dust and the ash heap. In each case God was near, and comforted them.

    The only adequate reaction to the realization that one is like chaff in the face of a gale, then, is to seek shelter in the Rock, like Abraham, Job, and Hannah. When man relates to his body of dust humbly and turns to God for comfort and shelter against the gale, he is met with care and comfort. He is not scattered like the proud, but is sustained, held together, and kept near.

    This is the work that we see in the incarnated Son of God, who took on a body of dust in order to undo Adam and Eve’s exile, to gather what had been scattered, and to become the cornerstone of a building made not by human hands, for man’s glory, but a temple made by and for the glory of God.

    So that’s it. That’s a summary of my thesis. What do you think? I’m hoping to adapt portions of it into blog posts or articles to post both here and perhaps publish elsewhere. Let me know if there is anything that you think is particularly worth reading about in more detail.

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