Sermons

“Winnowing the Good News”

Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – December 13, 2015

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that we might recognize and share the true joy of life in Christ. We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

So were you ready for a break? To be honest, even though the paraments and vestments and candles have been purple, our Advent so far hasn’t been all that penitential. We hung the greens the first week, and it was pretty much what I would call festive. Last week was a bit more Advent-ish, when we seriously considered the state of the world and how far we are from God’s vision of shalom. But do we really need a break after really only one Sunday of somber contemplation? This third Sunday of Advent – sometimes called Gaudete Sunday – is supposed to offer us a little respite from our Advent penitence – a pink candle instead of a purple one and the theme of Joy. That Latin word “Gaudete” is where our word “gaudy” comes from; apparently pink is way flashier than purple. But before we get too excited about getting excited, we might want to take a closer look at the sort of break we’re being offered. I mean, did you hear that reading from Luke?

This John the Baptist guy is not exactly full of seasonal cheer. The passage we just heard has three distinct parts. First, there is John the Baptist dressing down the crowds that have come out to hear him preaching in the wilderness and possibly get baptized by him, calling them a “brood of vipers” and informing them they’d better not be taking anything for granted. Then, there’s the part where they’re asking him to help them apply his teachings to their particular situations. Then there’s the section where he’s telling them about how Jesus is coming to baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and to winnow the harvest with his threshing fork and throw the chaff into the fire. At least two of the three are full of distressing imagery and ominous threats. What is interesting, though, is the concluding verse: “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” Who knew that was what was going on there? I’d hate to hear this guy deliver bad news!

It seems that if we’re going to get the full, intended relief of this “Gaudy Sunday”, we may need to re-calibrate our understanding of what Joy is. We are surrounded, this time of year, with a lot of what we might call “cheer”. There are lots of shiny and sparkly things and an increased amount of sugar, generally. Extra efforts are put into making things pretty. That right there is probably a hint that all this decorative stuff isn’t what John the Baptist is getting at. He’s not really into pretty. If we want to know why what John was shouting about was good news, we’re going to have to do a little winnowing, to borrow his metaphor. So let us get out the winnowing forks of our minds and see if we can separate the wheat from the chaff. Perhaps we would do well to make sure we all understand what winnowing is. It’s something you do when you’re harvesting wheat. The goal is to separate the grain of wheat, which is pretty heavy, from the husk and stems that encase it. As the wheat has dried out, those un-useful parts, called the chaff, have come loose and they are very lightweight. When you are winnowing, you’re using a giant pitchfork to throw it all up in the air, where the wind catches the lightweight husks and such and carries them off, leaving only the grains of wheat to fall back to the ground. To be honest, I don’t understand how John thinks Jesus is going collect the chaff from wherever it blew and throw it into the fire, but I’m sure he has his ways. I think he might be mixing metaphors here, because there are other ways of winnowing, not involving forks, that would result in the chaff being more easily collected. But there’s no need to get technical about it when the whole thing is a metaphor anyway. The point is that winnowing is about separating the good from the bad.

So if we’re looking to winnow out the good news in this story, I think we would do well to start with that middle section. At this point the crowd has heard John’s call to repentance, and they are beginning to respond. “What then should we do?” they ask. And the answer given to everyone is simple and stark: Whatever you have more than enough of, you should share with those who don’t have any. The examples given are coats and food, but there is no reason to think John is implying this rule only applies to those two things. He goes on to give instructions to people in particular circumstances. The tax collectors asked that same question: “What then should we do?” And this is a big deal, because nobody liked the tax collectors because they took everyone’s money, not just the taxes but as much more as they could because that was how they achieved their comfortable lifestyle. And what did John say? “Only take the tax money.” No more holiday bonuses, no more deposits into the vacation home fund. Same with the soldiers, who were also known for extorting money, simply because they could. “No more squeezing money out of people. Be satisfied with your wages.” Apparently, the good news is “Don’t be greedy.” If that is the case, then perhaps we will begin to clue into the fact that the joy we are celebrating here isn’t an individual joy; rather, the joy we are singing about and lighting a candle for today is a collective joy. It is the joy of everyone having enough to eat and clothes to keep them warm and enough resources to live on. It is the Joy of not having anyone within the community who has a lot more than everyone else because they’ve taken things away from others. The Joy of Christmas, John is telling us, is sharing.

But I think it’s even deeper than that. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” Paul writes to the Philippians. His point being that we can always find joy, whether we’re the one with lots of food or the one with none. The joy we are seeking is an internal joy, not one that comes from being surrounded by sparkly, happy decorations. It is the joy that comes from having gotten our hearts right. Or to put it in more biblical terms, it is the joy of righteous living. It is an internal glow, not something that shines on us from the outside. And it’s not really a seasonal thing either. The joy of righteous living is one that takes lifetimes to achieve and maintain. It’s the accumulation of making the right decisions, of choosing to be generous instead of hoarding things for ourselves just in case, of choosing to advocate for equality instead of sitting in self-satisfied silence while others are hurting. The joy of righteous living doesn’t require cheerful surroundings. It’s what happens when we do the right thing even when it seems like it won’t make a difference. It’s what happens when we shape our hearts with the discipline of thanksgiving, as Paul recommends.

If we’re winnowing here, perhaps it makes sense to mention how delicate the balance is here. Because we are humans, the line between righteous and self-righteous is very thin and sometimes easy to miss. It is easy to hear John’s “good news” as a list of “don’ts”. There was a woman at my last church who used to explain that she loved the Disciples because, in contrast to so many churches where they spend a lot of time telling you what not to do, we try to focus on what to do. Love. Share. Empathize. Listen. Advocate. Celebrate. But it’s a fine line between don’t and do. When we fall into defining our faith by what it isn’t, we veer toward self-righteous and the prayer of that mis-guided Pharisee… “I thank thee, God, that I am not like other men…” If we can keep our eyes on the prize and focus on cultivating the true joy of Christmas, as defined by John and manifested by the birth of Jesus, we will discover that we are set free from the list of Don’ts. As we cultivate hearts that “rejoice always”, we will discover that generosity comes more naturally, that looking out for one another becomes second nature. When we realize that the joy of Christmas is a collective joy, we will not be satisfied with our feasts, if we know there are those who could have been around our tables who were left uninvited.

As we winnow out the good news from John’s exhortations, it seems to be growing even as we read the words over again. To tell the tax-collector there at the riverside to stop demanding extra payments was not just offering that person a new way of living. It was also building a community of accountability, for everyone around heard those words too. Now we all know that in order for the tax-collector to find salvation, the extortion must stop. The joy is shared. I’m guessing no one there had ever rejoiced before, upon seeing the tax collector approaching. But imagine what it looks like the next time: “Hello, Brother Elimalech, how’s the collecting going today?” “I’ve never seen so many smiles and so many people crying in relief!” “I suppose you’ll still be needing the extra portion from me though?” “Nope! Honestly, I don’t miss them! The joy of bringing relief to so many people has made it easy to let go of all that other stuff I thought I needed.”

There is good news in this call to a new way of living. There is good news in the idea that we truly can prepare our hearts to receive Christ, again and again. There is joy to be found in the exhortations of a wilderness prophet. There is joy to be found in all the ways, big and small, that we are invited to share of God’s abundance in this holy season. May we all find our way to those places of joy and share them with one another! Alleluia and Amen!