What Should We Do?

Sifting and Sustenance: Judgement and Joy

Photo by Wesual Click on Unsplash

What should we do? Let suffering be sifting and community be communion.

Reflection

How does a passage (Luke, below) begin withYou brood of vipers!, go on to suggest thrashing and burning as inevitable, yet finish with: So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people? How does this happen?

This week we are back to that wild and woolly man in the wilderness, doing what prophets do best: challenging and bringing hope. Though the hope is not sugar-coated, it is there, and the people gathered that day seem to sense it despite the fierceness of the message.

The older I get, the more I understand how deeply linked judgement and joy are! Without sifting the chaff, we never get to the nourishing wheat. So much of what needs to burn away is stuff that chokes the life out of us – personally, socially and ecologically. We shrink from being judged, but we need severe discernment to restore us to our true identity and belonging, both to God and to one another.

Perhaps now more than ever, we need to submit to that judgement: not that it shame us but that it may set us free. We need to consent to the unsettling process, allowing it to sift us - personally and collectively. The husk contains no nutrition. The greed, the apathy, the anxiety, the self-centredness - these must be separated from the wheat within us so that it may become our bread and nourishment.

What if we were to see that the truly upsetting and unsettling world events might, if we let them, be a vigorous sifting of so much chaff to find beneath it all that we most need for a truly good Life.

The people ask, What should we do? The answer is deceptively simple - share with one another, coats and food and all. Don’t be greedy, don’t take more than your share, and share generously!

What should we do? He might have said: Let your suffering be sifting and make bread together. Be wholesome companions, nourishing neighbours, a sacrament of God’s presence in the world

At Christmas, we celebrate the coming of One who shared our vulnerability, our hunger and our longing. We look to one who gave generously of his heart to all he met and who would eventually step into the fiercest fire himself to bake eternal bread: his very life - broken, blessed and shared. People are hungry for that bread. I’m hungry for it.

Let me say it once more. Whenever we allow the sifting of our lives to be blessed, we find the grains of true nourishment. Whenever we practice silence or engage in any contemplative practice that simplifies a moment or an hour, we might imagine the chaff being sifted and purged – leaving only the light of that fire and the sustenance of bread.

O come, O come, great thresher of our grain.
We’re needy, anxious, hungry and in pain.
Let judgement sift and chaff blow away
Make us your bread of life today.

A LITURGY OF PRAYER

Opening Prayer

Close your eyes if that feels okay. Imagine your life is both wheat and chaff. As you breathe in, name what feels most substantial and nourishing in your life right now, giving thanks for grains of life. Breathing out, name the things you know are husk and imagine that in all that unsettles you now, that husk is being sifted out and blown away…

1st Reading

Luke 3.7-18

John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

And the crowds asked him, “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.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. 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.”

So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people.

A Time of Silence

Suggestion: 20 mins. But take even a few minutes if you can!

Silence is not always easy. The mind is hard to quiet. If you don’t yet have a way, you might find a single prayer word or phrase - and return to it each time you find your mind wandering. Your mind certainly will wander. Don’t worry. Just gently return, repeating the prayer word. Maranatha!

Widening the Circle

Take a moment to give thanks for the grace of silence, and extend that grace to all those people and places on your heart and mind right now. Pray for courage to let yourself be sifted and grace that all our sifting might bring about wheat and bread, nourishment and community.

The Lord’s Prayer

There’s a nice version below.

Second Readings

This is not
the age of information.

This is not
the age of information.

Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.

This is the time of loaves
and fishes.

People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.

David Whyte

from The House of Belonging

For the Thousandth Time, I Want to Know

Even if an empty box
is torn apart, the air
inside joins the rest

And even if an empty heart
shatters, the love inside
coats the stars

And when a dove is born
its shell is done

How much fear we know
depends on whether we live
as something torn apart
or as the air released.

How much pain turns to suffering
depends on whether we live
as something shattered
or as the love about to join.

We can live as a shell
waiting to crack
or as a dove waking to its song

Mark Nepo

Blessing

May we be wholesome companions, nourishing neighbours, a sacrament of God’s presence in the world. May we let suffering be sifting and community be communion. And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us now and always. Amen.

Music:

Question for the Week: for Journal or Comment

I wonder what might need sifting from your life to find the golden grain of life?

How might you say yes to the judgement that brings joy?

The New Zealand Anglican Lord's Prayer

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever.
Amen.

Jim Cotter