Memorial/Bereavement Service - 19th February 2006
There is a phrase that is used at every burial that refers to ‘earth’, ‘dust’ and ‘ashes’. We commit the body or remains of our loved ones to their resting place with the words “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust”. We might also accompany this by the action of scattering some soil into the grave. These words have a raw edge to them but they are also strangely evocative of the essential elements that make us all up. In fact I remember being surprised at my mother’s funeral by just how powerful it felt to sprinkle some soil into a grave with these words.
The words take us to the very first pages of the book of Genesis, to the second creation myth, the one that has God forming human beings out of the dust of the ground. The ancient people who wrote that story had a deep sense that our mortal remains, our bodies have a direct link with the material world in which we exist and from which we depart. There is something elemental about this - we are made of the same stuff as the rest of the world. The words were of course written long before any of the scientific discoveries and understandings that we take for granted, which makes them all the more remarkable.
A few weeks ago I was asked to take an AS Level Science and Public Understanding lesson with the VIth form at Temple Moor. They were looking at different accounts of how we come to be here and for this particular lesson I was asked to talk about how I can hold together theories of evolution and a belief in creation. It is not as difficult as it may sound because creation is the belief that God is the origin of everything and therefore its goal too. As a belief it does not tell us how that happened. Evolution on the other hand doesn’t tell us why there is anything as opposed to nothing, just how it has come to be as it is and therefore it leaves the door open for either a view that everything is random or that there is an eternal purpose behind all that there is.
When we lay our loved ones to rest with the words “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” we are saying that there is something profoundly important about our place in the physical balance of this planet. We are linked at a very deep level and that depth is to do with God. There is a physical link in the way atoms and elements combine and break up in all that is involved in living and dying, in coming to be and in departing. But there is also a deep link in that the one who caused the earth to be is the same who caused our life to come to be. We are made of the same stuff as the rest of the world and therefore share its creator and its redeemer.
I think I become more aware of this when I am being buffeted by nature, out in the countryside communing with the elements and breathing in the air. It seems particularly evocative standing on the seashore and watching the waves crash onto the beach, or standing on the cliff edge being buffeted by the sea wind. It is as if the world is alive with God and we have found a way of making contact with that life. I also become aware of it standing at a grave and speaking those evocative words about earth, ash and dust.
Today we have come here to remember those whom we have known and loved and for whom these words of dust and ashes will have been said. As we said goodbye to them we committed their body with this evocative image that their existence was and is linked to the source of all life. The lives that touched our lives take us to that central question I was asked to wrestle with in the science lab at Temple Moor. Is it all just random or is there an eternal purpose in which we are all held and in which we live, move and have our being?
There may be aspects that seemed random and indiscriminate. There may have been illnesses, sudden tragedies that defy easy statements of purpose. These can shake us to the core. But it is precisely here that this image of dust and ashes may be strangely helpful. We are all linked in the same vulnerability, the same fragile balance that makes the difference between life and no life. There aren’t easy answers to the pain and suffering, just that the answer lies somewhere in that dust and ashes. That which made us; the one who is responsible for us coming into being, for all things coming into being, is also the one who keeps hold of us in death too.
The words about dust and ashes go on to affirm a great hope in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. They take us to Jesus who shared that dust and ashes, who triumphed over it and in that triumph drew us all into the heart of heaven. Being dust and ash is actually pretty special because it is God’s dust and ash and he doesn’t throw anything away.
© Ian Black 2006