Worship > Sermon Archive

The Reverend James Derkits
December 9, 2007

Matthew 3:1-12
Romans 15:4-13
Fire and the Holy Spirit

My only personal experience with chaff is from roasting coffee. Coffee trees grow cherries that have a two-sided seed. By the time I get what we call green coffee beans, the cherry is gone and the seed is relatively dried. Then I throw those beans in a roaster. I do this in my shed now, because there's a lot of smoke, and a lot of chaff that would blow all over the place, except that I now catch it in a bucket. To try to understand what John is talking about in our gospel, I went in my back yard, and tried to burn up the chaff, just too see what that would be like. Well, I guess there's a good reason he says an "unquenchable" or "inextinguishable" fire, because I couldn't get the stuff to burn with a match or lighter….

John was out in the wilderness, a modern-day prophet. Obviously a prophet because of what he was eating and wearing…I'm thankful we chose Greek civil vestments instead of the hairy clothing and leather belt of a prophet's wardrobe….

He was out in the wilderness, away from the city, away from the direct authority of the elite religious leaders to help people get ready for something. He calls them out away from the temple, or their homes and offers to dunk them in the water as a sign and symbol of their repentance, an opportunity to be cleansed and be ready for the coming of the Lord. He is a bit more critical of those religious leaders who have come out. "Who warned you to run?" he asks them? Don't assume that just because of who you are that you are perfect in God's eyes! Let's see what perfection looks like! Are you sorry for the wrongs you have done? Have you repented; does your life bear the fruit of that repentance? The troubling thing about what John is saying to those Pharisees, is that he could be saying it also to us: Do we consider ourselves finished products, complete, perfected, and children of God? And the answer I would be tempted to give is, "yes."

"Then, let's see what that looks like!" He would demand.

I might be invited in to be baptized, dunked too, to show that fruit of my repentance there and then. To be washed clean of my own wrongdoings, which is an admission that I do have done things wrong, or that I have left undone those things, which I ought to have done. He tells the crowds that he baptizes with water, but that one more powerful is coming who will baptize, or dunk them into the Holy Spirit, and into Fire. Fire?

Fire pulls up all sorts of images: of destruction, of warmth, of fuel, of consumption. Fire is used throughout scripture in just as wide a range of ways: executing judgment, consuming evil, destruction. But just like water, it has is often used to show God's presence: as in the smoking firepot when God makes a covenant with Abraham, the fire used to make sacrifices to God, the fire of the Burning Bush, from which God speaks to Moses, the Pillar of Fire that leads the people of God through the wilderness in to freedom, the chariot of fire that carries Elijah into heaven, and perhaps the most revealing, the time in Acts when the tongues of fire danced on the heads of the Apostles at Pentecost.

So what is John telling them here? Jesus brings the Holy Spirit and Fire to dunk them into. He is able, not only to do a symbolic dunking with water, a way for them to show our repentance, but he is able to immerse us in God. He will plunge them with the Holy Spirit so that their entire lives are consumed by that burning Holy Spirit. And with that does come the edge of judgment, the consumption of evil, but also the guidance through the wilderness to freedom, the voice of God speaking to us, and even being carried to God's presence.

This one who is coming is bringing us God. So, get ready! Prepare ye. Prepare.

The one who is coming is ready with his winnowing fork. He will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. And here we are back to the chaff. That fire that Jesus brings to us is an unquenchable, on going fire. The chaff, remember is not a separate stalk, something altogether different, it is a part of that coffee bean, or that wheat, or rice. It is a layer that must be taken off to reveal the goodness of the grain, which is something good and delicious.

It is the same wheat, but it has been threshed, and the bad parts are cast away and burned up.

We are preparing for Jesus coming during Advent. John the Baptist is here to prepare us for that, if we can ever be fully prepared. The unquenchable fire of the Holy Spirit that John warned the crowds about is also coming to us. We are called in the season of Advent to consider what is chaff in our own lives. This year, and again next year, and the following year! The fire is unquenchable, and once we begin our journey with Jesus, probably with our own symbol of repentance and being in dunked, or sprinkled with water, the Holy Spirit will be working on us for the rest of our lives, in an unquenchable-sort-of-way.

The spiritual life we have in God is ongoing. It is offering our whole selves to God, to be threshed, and to let God burn up that chaff. One great gift of Advent is remembering that we are in an unfinished state. We are not complete, even though we already have that good grain of God at our core…God is not done with us. And God will not give up on us, but will continue to burn in our lives, to urge us on to continually transform us into the creatures we were created to be.

I did more research for this sermon than trying to burn that chaff. I also wanted to see what threshing, and separating chaff from wheat looked like, I wanted to see if I could understand the process. So I searched the web and found a few videos. I watched a steam engine thresher demonstration. I watched a community in the Himalayas pile up wheat and guide cattle around and around threshing the wheat, to separate the chaff from the grain. And just as I though I was beginning to understand that this whole thing is a process, I realized I was caught in the teaching of our Gospel. It's not as easy as a click. Even in trying to understand this concept, I slipped right into the temptation of a quick answer, an easy understanding. That is how we operate, but we need to remind one another that this is a journey for us all, all of us who are still bearing our chaff. The threshing is not a one-time video, or a single conversion experience, or even one conversation with God…as important as each of those are….and we all know that our baptismal transformation isn't complete after we are sprinkled with water at the event of our baptism, otherwise we wouldn't have to renew our baptismal covenant.

No, it is an ongoing process. God is in this for the long haul with us. Why else would the fire need to be unquenchable? But of course we are not in this alone. We are not immersed in Fire and the Holy Spirit all by ourselves, but as a community, just as at Pentecost those Apostles were together around the table when the tongues of fire danced on their heads. St Paul in our Roman's reading encourages us to live a community that reflects Christ's nature, welcoming one another as Christ welcomed us…even when we are in this unfinished state.

We have one another to come together and live in harmony. So that we may with one voice glorify God. We have scripture to guide us, and to help us understand what it may be in our lives that is chaff and needs to be burned up.

One of the greatest gifts this Advent may be giving us is the opportunity to own up to our unfinished state, and that those around us are also unfinished, but our neighbor and we carry that kernel of good wheat, just like the wheat that makes this bread we break. There is still chaff surrounding it, we still have threshing to experience. And there will be times when we feel the heat of the Fire of the Holy Spirit, and thanks be to God for that. We will all see layers of ourselves being ground, threshed away, as under the feet of cattle, and then those layers may be carried away by the wind, or burned up by the fire of the spirit. And we, as a community will continue to prepare, and be prepared by the Spirit for the coming of Christ. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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