Gather

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. - Matthew 3:12

Clearing the threshing floor and burning the chaff isn't quite the image we associate with Advent or Christmas, now is it? No one wants to think of judgement and repentance during such a merry time of year. 

Earlier in this text, the rogue John the Baptist appears from the wearing camel's hair and eating locusts and wild honey, proclaiming, "repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near" and "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

What kind of preaching in the wilderness do you think needs to be heard?

As you think about the message that needs to be shared, we leave you with the lyrics to the song, Gather us In, found in "The Faith We Sing": 

Not in the dark of buildings confining, not in some heaven, light years away

Here in this place the new light is shining,now is the kingdom, and now is the day.

Gather us in and hold us forever, gather us in and make us your own;

Gather us in, all peoples together, fire of love in our flesh and our bone.

"Gather us in all people..."  Well, that's what I've been doing this weekend.  Last night one of the pipes from the upstairs unit broke and sent water cascading through my ceiling (late fall early winter I reminded the owner that he needed to have heat even if no one was living there because he would be responsible if pipes froze.... well, no heat = frozen pipes).  I turned off the water and invited the plumber in.  Since I didn't have water, I drove to Walgreens to purchase bottled water for the evening.  On the way home, my car's behavior was strange leading me to think the weird noise my car had been making the last couple of days wasn't the muffler as I had originally thought but perhaps the alternator, so called AAA this morning.  He towed my car to a place of repair and agreed that it was probably the alternator.  Next, I will need to gather someone in to fix the ceiling, wall, and soffit. As you can see, I've been gathering people in.  Oh, that wasn't the message...