The Dust of Adam

Wednesday, March 9, 2011
David Mills

Excerpt:
The rite has, as I said, two movements. The first dramatizes the truth that “in Adam all die.” The words “Remember, O man, that thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return” are a quote from Genesis, which comes at the end of the list in which God tells Adam (“man” in Hebrew) what his disobedience will cost him — which is a description of what our disobedience is costing us. So it begins as a statement of our identity and the consequences of our identity.

“Remember, O man”: Remember, you descendent of Adam; remember, in the phrase from the Narnia Chronicles, O son of Adam, O daughter of Eve; remember, O original sinner, that thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return. Remember, you egotistical, preening, pathetic little fool, just who you really are. Or in the Living Liturgy: “Look, you dirtbag.” (More could be said about the significance of “O man,” given its generic use in Romans 2:1, 2:3, and 9:20.)

It is important to remember that we are not only children of Adam but willing children of Adam. We have provoked most justly God’s wrath and indignation against us, as the old Book of Common Prayer put it. It is not so much that we fell with Adam into sin, as that we jumped into it with our eyes wide open and a cheery wave to the crowd. We have chosen to return to the dust.  image

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