Walking In Peace

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Towards the end of our Gospel for today we hear about a  winnowing fan which is a tool to help separate grain from chaff and other debris.

We also hear about the threshing floor. It is a mostly flat, hard surface where farmers separate grain from husks and other debris.

Modern threshers do this functions today but in Jesus’ time, they used forced air or the wind to assist in this activity. Shaking the grain in the winnowing fan and the air separated the lighter debris from the heavier seed. 

The chaff itself is dry, scale-like material of the plants where fire is used to dispose of it.

This metaphor is used to, again, show that the good will be separated from the evil at the final judgement but John the Baptist, our main protagonist today, preached the good news to the people leaving us on a positive note that Jesus would baptize with Spirit and fire an illusion back to the fate of the chaff.