Winnowing

Luke 3:7-18

There’s nothing like getting called a brood of vipers to really get you in the holiday spirit! The lectionary keeps reminding us that yes, the birth of the Christ Child is just around the corner, but there’s more to the preparations than decorating trees and baking treats. John, the miraculous child of two elders of the faith, is here to make sure we don’t get too bogged down in the nostalgia and romance of the season. Jesus is coming, and John has some instructions for how we might make ready our hearts and lives for his arrival.

The funny thing about John’s fiery, insult-laced preaching is that it draws people in rather than driving them away. Crowds come from all over the region to listen to him and to be baptized by him. They ask him questions, they listen to his answers, some of them become his disciples and follow him. Perhaps some of the people who come to see him are simply fascinated by the spectacle, but I think there is something more. You can catch a glimpse of it in their question- “What then should we do?” The crowds are made up of people who perceive that something is missing, something is shifting, and they come seeking guidance. Like so many people pass through the doors of churches, or yoga studios, or resorts or retreat centers, or scroll endlessly through videos and posts from gurus and influencers who all claim to have the one solution to all of life’s problems, the crowds that flock to John are looking for a way to fill the inexplicable emptiness. It is a human instinct to seek wisdom from others. The wisdom provided by John, however, is drastically different from what we might find online or in a self-help book today.

What then should we do? In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”

To the tax collectors he said “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”

To the soldiers he said “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

That’s it? He calls everyone a brood of vipers fleeing the wrath to come, and when they ask for advice, he tells them to share, do their jobs, and be satisfied? He doesn’t tell them to give up everything, as Jesus will to some of his followers. He doesn’t tell them to cast off their clothing and replace it with camel hair, or join him in his diet of wild locusts and honey. He tells them to repent, go home, share what they have, and to not ask for more than they need. It’s deceptively simple, and seemingly too mild to satisfy the winnowing fork and the unquenchable fire.

But can you imagine if everyone actually lived that way? If those with excess shared with those who lacked, if those with authority did not abuse it and those with power did not wield it, if those with more than enough did not extract more from others- the world as we know it would cease to exist. This world that has all the resources needed to support life, and yet those resources are inaccessible to many and stockpiled needlessly by a few. This world that has developed the capacity to build, make, create, and sell more products than any of us could ever possibly use, to the point that perfectly good but unwanted clothing and food and manufactured objects end up buried underground or floating in the ocean or flooding the markets of struggling economies. If everyone in the world heeded the words of John, with the same urgency with which he spoke them, the kingdom of heaven might actually be visible to the naked eye. If we lived like John advised, we might actually recognize Jesus’s kingdom when he comes again.

The incredible thing is, most of us want this. We want to live well, to be content with our blessings, to give help where we can and receive it gladly when it is offered by those with more to give. We desire a world where no one is living without a coat, no one is without food, no one is being threatened or falsely accused or extorted. It is the longing that drove the crowds into the wilderness to find John, and it is the longing that brings many of us through the church doors week after week. We long for a better world, a world we believe is possible even when our cynical protective shells insist otherwise. We long for the good world God made. So what is stopping us from living in it?

This is where the winnowing comes in.

Winnowing is the process of separating a seed from the chaff, the protective outer layer that shielded the seed as it developed. Depending on the type of plant you are winnowing, you might hit it against a hard surface, or separate it with a sieve, or toss it in the air and allow the wind to blow away the lighter chaff while the heavier seed falls back into the sifter. It is not a particularly violent process, although winnowing forks and threshing floors can sound a bit intimidating. Winnowing in agricultural societies has long been a social activity, much like shelling peas, a repetitive task that allows one to alternate between storytelling and companionable silence. At the end, you’re left with the seed or grain that you either process or store, and the dry papery husks and shells that have served their purpose. In John’s day, the chaff had a secondary purpose, another way to give back to the farmers that tended the wheat. Dry and light, it made excellent kindling, good for feeding the fires that would bake the bread and feed the family. The chaff was burned away, leaving behind life-sustaining heat and light.

The chaff of our lives is hard to see while we’re still all wrapped up in it. The protective outer layers that we have developed to insulate ourselves from a world that can be harsh does serve a purpose, but one we will always outgrow. It might be a layer of cynicism that harms our hope, or rugged independence that obscures our real needs, or a scarcity mindset that can look like too many coats in the closet or too many cars in the driveway or money that comes to us at the cost of someone else’s health or well-being. Our chaff might look like a miserly approach to our time, or our energy, or our love. Our chaff might be made up of old grudges and competitiveness and comparisons. Our chaff might be obscuring our vision so much that we can hardly see beyond ourselves. We all have it, so what then should we do?

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

John is not a works-righteousness preacher. He does not tell us that our salvation is dependent on our own actions. He points the way to Jesus, to the righteous and merciful judge of our hearts. Christ’s winnowing fork will free us from what binds us, and the Holy Spirit is the wind that will blow that chaff away. The very child for whom we wait this Advent is the one who will liberate and gather us in.

What then should we do?

Go home and count your coats. Look in your cabinets and find something to share. Take no more than you need and do not wield your power over others, whether they be your children or your employees or the waitress serving you at brunch or the cashier ringing you up a little slowly at the grocery store. If you have enough, be satisfied, and make sure everyone else has enough too. Let the Holy Spirit reveal to you what in your life needs winnowing and then let her burn it all away. In the light of that fire, you’ll see a little clearer.