Blooming and Threshing

"I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."  (Matt 3:11-12)

For my bedtime reading, I am spending the year with Jesus under the guidance of pastoral theologian Eugene Peterson.  It is one of those "simple" devotional books in which the day's devotion can be read in 5 minutes.  The thing with journeying under Eugene Peterson's guidance is that even the simple things are not all that simple.  Both his short reflections and closing prayers can challenge my thinking and make me see things in a passage that have never ocurred to me before.  Often my 5 minute reading ends up leading to 30 - 45 minutes of reflection.  Such was the case with the above passage which I encountered the other night.

The image of threshing and winnowing is an uncomfortable one.  Threshing is the process of loosening the edible part of cereal grain (or other crop) from the scaly, inedible chaff that surrounds it. Threshing may be done by beating the grain using a flail on a threshing floor.  It is the step in grain preparation after harvesting and before winnowing, which separates the  loosened chaff from the grain. Threshing does not remove the bran from the grain. Winnowing is the actual process of separation.

Often we read this passage as a statement of Jesus' judgment and promise to separate the "good" people (like us) from the "bad" people at the end of the ages.  But if we truly understand the idea of threshing and winnowing, it can provide a different perspective for us.  Threshing and winnowing are to grain as pruning is to a tree or shrub.  In winnowing, that which is productive and useful is "pried loose" from that which is unfruitful.  Not the most pleasant prospect when we realize that WE are the grain.  We are the ones who John promises will be threshed and winnowed.  But as Peterson reflects - the results are good.  Who wants to be mixed with chaff - scaly, nasty, 'dead' stuff - forever?

I understand this on an intellectual level and even understand the necessity for it.  What caught me up short was Peterson's closing prayer. 

"I am grateful, God, that you take me with such seriousness and labor over me with such care.  I see myself now thrown into the air by your threshing shovel, sifted and cleansed by the wind of your Spirit, ready for use in your granaries.  Amen."
 

I am struck by the concept that this unpleasant process is one by which God exhibits the seriousness with which we are regarded and so deeply cared for.  We know that Jesus came into our existence so that we might have life and have it abundantly.  But how can one expereince abundant life with all of the dead, scaly stuff that encapsulates our lives, just like the chaff encapsulates the grain?  And so as we grow in our relationship with Jesus, God continues to free us from the confinement of the chaff so that we might more fully burst forth and be fruitful. 

When I was a young child, my brothers and I would occassionally get into trouble and be punished.  My parents would usually dispense punishment with the words that it hurt them as much as it did us.  At the time, we weren't buying it.  As I have grown older and wiser, I not only buy it, I understand it and appreciate it immeasurably.  When we hurt, our parents hurt.  But they loved us and wanted for us to grow into responsible, mature adults so much that they would punish us and endure our pain, their pain, and our momentary anger and resentment in order for us to be all that we could be.

I think of that as I reflect on this passage from Matthew and Peterson's prayer.  A friend often says that God loves us enough to accept us exactly the way we are and loves us SO MUCH that he will not leave us there. What that means is that God loves us SO MUCH that he is willing to thresh and winnow us in order that our lives might burst forth abundantly.  God is willing to suffer through our pain and endure our anger and resentment in order that we might experience abundant life through Jesus. 

But this should come as no new revelation or surprise.  "For God loved the world SO MUCH ..."   This Jesus who will thresh and winnow is the same one who would go to the cross and the grave in order that the world might be reconciled to the Father.  He is the same one who would rise from the grave and conquer death giving us abundant life now and into eternity. 

Oh dearest Lord, the depth and breadth of your love is unimaginable.  I truly AM grateful that your take us so seriously and labor over us with such care.

May you be threshed, winnowed, and burst forth abundantly in God's kingdom!