The Winnowing Fork in His Hand

I know I am a week behind in the lectionary process, but I am preparing to preach on the baptism of Jesus this Sunday rather than last Sunday as the Revised Common Lectionary would recommend. There are several really good reasons for that, one being my church celebrated Epiphany last Sunday, but also we have a baptism scheduled for this Sunday, so it all works out great. I was doing the reading from Luke and was struck by several things, one how brief the lectionary selection from Luke is, but secondly, how prominant the image of the winnowing fork is in this passage. I was at first very disturb about it. The baptism of a child seemed a very awkward time to talk about the unquenchable flames of Hell. I understand that for some it would seem most appropriate, but I prefer that people baptize out of love and not out of fear. As I thought about this more I came to something of a realization. I had assumed that the separation that the winnowing fork was doing on the wheat was breaking apart the sinners from the saints. If you were a good person you were the kernels that feel to the ground and were kept, if your were bad you were the stalk that blew away in the wind. I had a new, at least for me, insight into this whole analogy. Rather than seeing it as a sorting of individuals, it would seem better to see it as a sorting of our lives. Baptism is about separating what is good in us from what is bad, the bad is washed away by the water, blown away by the wind, and the good is left to be used for God's work. I really prefer this as a more personal reflection on what salvation is about, it is not about sorting out people as a whole, but instead sorting out the good in us from the bad in us, so that we can be in a position to enjoy our relationship with God. I do not know how this holds up over all, but it seemed an interesting thought I wanted to share. I was also intrigued by the idea that my natural assumption was that it was about some people going one way and others another. Is this simply a product of teachings, or is there also some part of my nature, of human nature that wants even salvation to be a competition, where there are winners and losers?