The First Song of Isaiah
Surely, it is God who saves me; *
Surely, it is God who saves me; *
I will trust in him and not be
afraid.
For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, *
and he will be my Savior.
Therefore you shall draw water with rejoicing *
from the springs of salvation.
And on that day you shall say, *
Give thanks to the Lord and call upon
his Name;
Make his deeds known among the peoples; *
see that they remember that his Name is
exalted.
Sing the praises of the Lord, for he has done great things, *
and this is known in all the world.
Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy, *
for the great one in the midst of you
is the Holy One of Israel.
I’ve been singing this morning’s canticle, The First Song
of Isaiah, since my undergraduate days.
I first sang it at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Winona, Minnesota back
in 1982 or 83. We sang it often. If I remember correctly, it was used as a
part of our liturgy throughout a liturgical season. I like it because the music provides a
celebratory backdrop to a hopeful, joyful piece of scripture.
It’s one of those pieces that I know
by heart. It makes me smile when, from my
office I hear the choir begin to rehearse it, encouraging me to jump to my feet
and skip to the choir room to join in the singing.
How can it not? The breadth and depth of our faith in God is
embodied in these words. Surely it IS
God who saves me. I WILL trust in God
and not be afraid. The Lord IS my
stronghold and my sure defense, and he WILL be my SAVIOR!
In the mundane, daily tasks, represented
by drawing water, we can find thankfulness.
In telling others about who God is to
us, in learning who God is to them, we can celebrate our faith with praise.
In shouting our joy to the world, we can
acknowledge Emmanuel—that God is with us.
Confidence, hope, joy, thanksgiving in
everyday life. Can you hear those things
in this anthem of praise?
This is the third Sunday of
Advent. In this season of preparation,
of anticipation, of patience, of awakening, of watching the transition of darkness
to light, today is all about JOY.
Really, it is. Even if the Gospel from Luke doesn’t feel
very joyful.
John the Baptist is all about redemption. All about turning our sinful lives around. About
cleaning up our act. He appears a bit gruff and might be a little scary,
especially when he calls the people around him a “brood of vipers,” and when he
talks about both the water and fire of baptism.
He sure seems to be saying that some of us are good enough and others
are not when he talks about burning the chaff.
I’m no farmer, and I’ve never paid
much attention to how wheat is cleaned and processed, so I hadn’t considered
this burning of the chaff as something good or hopeful. But I have learned that it is both.
There was a class at Yale in 2017
called “Ecology and Russian Culture,” where students read Tolstoy and other Russian
authors and then did some hands-on learning to better grasp what the authors
were describing in their books and stories.
One of the field trips took the students to a farm where they learned
about threshing and winnowing wheat.
Students took bunches of wheat and
were instructed to “thwack” them against the sides of metal washtubs to knock
loose the wheat berries and chaff. The
work is hard and produces little fruit. But
what eventually comes from that fruit is life-giving!
After breaking loose the wheat from the
stalks, the students learned about winnowing, or separating the berries from
the coating on the berries, what is known as chaff. They put them in a wicker basket and tossed
and stirred them in front of a blowing fan, which, as the berries bumped against
one another, blew the chaff from the berries.[1] Imagine how difficult this task was and the
mess that made!
Back when the sickle was the main tool
for harvesting wheat, the process was really messy and took a long time. Folks would not only harvest the berries, if
the variety of wheat was just right, (and there are over 30,000 varieties of
wheat grown in the world) and if they had let it perfectly dry, they would use
the stalks as thatch for their roofs or to create baskets or other useful items.
Nowadays, most farmers in developed countries use a combine,
which cut the head of the plant and shakes the wheat berries out of the heads
and blows the unnecessary plant material, including the chaff, back onto the
field and into the soil, providing nutrients for the next crop.[2]
Either way you winnow, by hand or machine, the goal of the
work is to separate the good berries, the wheat, from the chaff—that now useless
skin that covers the fruit, a covering, that if left on the berry, would
prevent it from being transformed into flour.
Basically, winnowing wheat is
separating the valuable berry from the worthless chaff.
So, when John the Baptist talks about
winnowing and clearing the threshing floor and burning the chaff as he does in
today’s Gospel, he is teaching us to get rid of those worthless parts of us
that hold us back from being fully God’s, so we can, instead, focus on what it
is that strengthens our relationship with God.
For some, John says, that might mean to
give away a coat, for others, to take only what is fair and be satisfied with
what they have, and for some, to be nicer, kinder, and friendlier to others. In short: share, be fair and don’t bully.[3]
Advent is a good time to think about
these things. Even in the busy-ness of
getting ready, of preparing, the weeks of Advent are set apart so that we can stop
and look within ourselves, taking inventory, if you will, so we can work on
separating that chaff which weighs us down, separating it from the beloved berry
so that we can be transformed.
The First Song of Isaiah is a gift that
helps transform me because it helps me refocus my head and heart and mind to be
thankful, to be expectant, to be joyful.
The words remind me that I can trust God in everything, even when I want
to cling to the chaff of worry and control and fear and perfectionism.
So again, I say: surely it is God who
saves me, who saves you. I will trust in
God and will try so hard to not be afraid.
For the Lord is my stronghold, to whom I will cling in times of strength
and in times of weakness. The Lord is my
sure defense, protecting me, protecting you, from harm. And Jesus is my Savior.
There is strength and purpose in those
lines. There is faith and confidence,
peace and hope, love and joy in them, too.
I pray you find joy this week. I hope that you will find a moment or two to find
solace and peace within yourself, letting go of what burdens you so that you
will become more and more aware of who it is you are called to be in your
particular places, with your particular gifts, in this world. Use those gifts to make God’s deeds known
among the people. Show the world how to
praise God. Take note of all that God
has done for you and for this world.
For the great One is in the midst of you,
in the midst of us. And we will rejoice! Amen.