That Blessed Unquenchable Fire: a sermon
A sermon by Andrew Colman from the Second Sunday in Advent
Come Holy Spirit. Come like a Fire and Burn. Come like the Wind and Cleanse. Convict, convert, and consecrate our heart, for our Great Good and thy Great Glory. Amen
I wish I could see the great book of sermons that starts with something like, "Well, the lectionary today leaves out this little section and we need to talk about it…"
The compilers of the lectionary often skip over some of the tougher, more judgmental, less palatable parts of scripture. Well, tonight is not one of those nights. The closing line of our Gospel reading is,
"His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
To which we all, or at least most of us, responded with "Thanks be to God."
Thank you John the Baptist for these lovely words, and thank you Jamie for asking me to preach on them! It is good to be here!
John the Baptist, this evening, has for us some very strong words, words that convict.
The people "were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins." and when the Pharisees and Sadducees showed up he shouted "Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance."
In just a few sentences we hear about confessing of sins, for some, a condemnation for even showing up to do that, and then a qualifier by which their repentance can be shown. This is some rough stuff!
And he doesn't stop there. He adds, that trees that bear no fruit will be burned up along side the chaff of wheat in an unquenchable fire. Judgement, if we've ever heard it!
Now, all of this can feel a bit distasteful to us because to be judgmental of another in this world is a cardinal sin, and fair enough, it’s scriptural, “Judge not lest you be judged.” So mind your own business John! “Don’t judge me!”
Except, maybe John is not proclaiming the same judgement that we’re used to; one of condemnation, of fire and brimstone.
Maybe the judgement he is proclaiming is a little different...
But before we get there we need to start where John starts. John preaches about a baptism with water, a baptism of repentance. He called people to him in the Jordan river to confess their sins, to rid themselves of the things they had done that would have been better left undone.
John called them rid themselves of the things in their life that they do not need. The things that are extra, the things that keep them from being able to life a whole and true life. The stuff with no nutrients, the stuff that dilutes the integrity of the grain.
John is calling them to get rid of the chaff of their life. To cut down the tree in their life that bears no fruit but only takes the energy and resources that ought to be going to the fruit bearing trees.
John's call to repentance is not one of condemnation, but one of compassion. He is saying to those coming for baptism, you know where areas of your lives are that are wasting your energy... turn away from them, get rid of them, your life and the life of those around you will be all the better for it.
He is inviting people into a baptism of honesty and truth, of pulling the curtain back and letting the light in.
The thing is, don't know if you have the same experience as I do, but this is much easier said than done! And that’s precisely the reason we have a time of confession and absolution every Sunday.
Now, this is the season of Advent, it is the time in the church calendar where we kind of hit the breaks… slow down… and reflect on our lives, find the places that are born of out of fear and to turn from them. To repent.
And that can be really hard to do when we are moving at the quickened pace of our lives. Especially leading up to Christmas and the end of the calendar year. Deadlines loom so we put in a few extra hours to make sure that everything is done before our few days off at the end of the month. A tree needs to be put up, presents to be found, cards to be written and mailed, dinner to be planned and and and…
And it’s not like all of that is not going to happen, but at least, here, in the quiet of a Sunday evening we are offered space to slow down and reflect.
Which, may or may not be good news depending on how you hear tonight’s words from John! You Might be thinking “Great I get to slow down and reflect on things in my life which need sorting out! That’s just what needed…”
While that is true. It’s only part of the story.
Advent is also a time when we wait the culmination of time, wait for the time when the kingdom of God will fully and finally reign, wait for the time when the lion and the lamb will feast together at the same table.
Which, as strange as it sounds, means we’re also waiting is the time of judgement to which John alludes when he speaks of winnowing forks and an unquenchable fire.
Now we need to be careful about how we think about judgement... in Jesus judgement is a separation of goodness and righteousness from evil and death. Where goodness and goodness and righteousness are lifted up and evil and death are condemned.
You see, even as John is calling us to repent from the broken parts of our lives he knows that it will be an on going task, day in and day out there will be something to repent for.
John knows that, and so does Jesus.
If it were up to us to thresh out all our own chaff and chop down every one of our trees that does not beat fruit, so that we might be worthy to be gathered into Christ’s granary… well, not so I’d be included… we can’t do it all on our own, we just can’t. Thankfully that’s not what’s going on here.
The time for which we wait is the time when Jesus will separate our chaff for us, a time when all of that chaff is gathered up and tossed in to the unquenchable fire…
You see, that unquenchable fire is the fire of the Holy Spirit that burns up the chaff of our lives, and it burns right now. It burns at any and every moment. There is never a time when the fire that burns away sin and despair is not raging waiting for us to throw in our burdens.
And that it is an unquenchable fire means that no matter how much we throw,
it in can never be smothered,
it can never be overwhelmed,
it can never be put out
lest we want to offload even more of the pieces of our lives that keep us from true freedom.
That heaviest thing that we carry, the thing that weighs us down during the day and keeps us up at night. We can throw it in to that fire and it will burn away just like the chaff from a wheat sheaf. And the Wind that is the Holy Spirit will blow it all away .
So, standing on this side of the fully realized kingdom, waiting, where all of this is so much easier said than done. We are, indeed, called to repent, to continue to name our chaff and ask the Holy Spirit for the power to remove it and throw it into that fire.
And when the waiting comes to to an end, at the culmination of time, and there is inevitably some chaff left. It will be Jesus cleaning off the rest, gathering us up into to his granary and throwing the rest of our chaff into that blessed unquenchable fire.
I end with the same prayer with which I began, which comes from the author and preacher Fleming Rutledge.
Come Holy Spirit. Come like a Fire and Burn. Come like the Wind and Cleanse. Convict, convert, and consecrate our heart, for our Great Good and thy Great Glory. Amen