chaff & riffraff

Riffraff: "sweepings, refuse, things of small value" (mid-14c.), from Old French rif et raf, from rifler "to spoil, strip" (see rifle (v.)). Second element from raffler "carry off," related to rafle "plundering," or from raffer "to snatch, to sweep together" (from etymonline) 

Why do you weigh out silver for what is not bread, and your labour for what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to Me, and eat what is good, and let your being delight itself in fatness. Isaiah 55:2

Growing up religious, we seemed to try to do everything "against the grain". I remember a science curriculum (Christian) that came with a CD of mediocre music, and one of the songs went like this: "If everybody does it, we don't. If everybody has it, we won't. If everybody's going, we'll go the other way. If everybody does it, we don't." (Ironically, "against the grain" is literally what everyone does now.)

Kind of silly, but hey--it stuck around in my head this long! :D What is it to be set-apart? Is it just being different, as our group taught us, or is it to be exclusively about His business and opinion, because we are His belonging?

I had no better reason to do what I was doing, than that our religion had taught it. I sure didn't have a faith which informed these distinctions for me, it was the leadership.

As I have walked under the yoke with Messiah, learning His ways, I find myself more and more peculiar to the world. I'm not standing out according to dress, but more like this:

“The reign of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until all was leavened.” Matthew 13:33

Leaven just looks like regular flour and water...but what it does changes things.

Many are saying, “Who would show us good?” יהוה, lift up the light of Your face upon us. You have put more gladness in my heart, Than in the season that their grain and wine increased. Psalm 4:6

Unless you live under a rock, somewhere along the line you've heard the opinion that in order to respect your God-given health, you better cut out grains. Now, I'm going to take this slow and easy. I've been ruminating this word for the past week, and wrote (then deleted) a post once already. Why? Because I love you. I love the passion I see for learning the ancient ways. I see many just now learning to make bread at all, for the very first time!

This is wheat.

But there's more. The reason I must write, is also because I love you. I have been there. I have been the one stuck in patterns of processed food, but then trusting in those who declared grains "the problem". Now that I am coming to understand (though I have been milling for the last 10 years) what an incredibly healing Good Thing grains really are, I suddenly see why Satan is hell bent on damaging its reputation through deceit--giving us mere glue in place of sustenance, and when that starts giving disease (what's incomplete can't offer life and fullness), the entire food group is maligned.

Our problem: Discernment.

"My people have perished for lack of knowledge."Hosea 4:6

This is not.

I have ruminated the story of bread over and over in the last four years. The Word recently showed me that the Hebrew word "bar" (bet resh) is both a seed (of grain) and son. This brought to mind the discipline of YHWH to Adam and Eve, and both of them were going to have trouble with the same thing. Adam, with cultivating/working food out of soil, and Eve, bearing fruit of the womb--also of soil and toil.

This tells me grain is a parallel, a parable. From the get-go, Satan has deceived using food. 

The Hebrew word for bread (lechem) explains why it has been called "the staff of life". The three letters which make up the word (לחם) are pictographs meaning "staff, life, water". Did you know that flour itself has no gluten? Gluten (strength and tenacity) is formed when water enters the flour. 

How about that baptism, teaching us the Bread of Life makes us One? Wow! (and no wonder "gluten" is the bad guy, huh?) The problem is often the same with Christianity: it is "white bread". All the tastiness of a show and the glue that sticks us together, but nothing to flush the gunk out, depleted of the minerals & vitamins (Truth) and protective, regenerating Vitamin E of His anointing.  (John 12:24 , John 6:33-35 , John 4:10 & 7:38)

...the older women likewise are to be set-apart in behaviour, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of what is good...Titus 2:3

Now, I do not presume yet to be "older", but I have been listening to an older woman, and let me tell you, she's been teaching what is good. Substantially so. But if, one day, I am meant to teach what is good, then I cannot now lie about something that can make a difference in living fully, or dying painfully. 

You, then, beloved ones, being forewarned, watch, lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the delusion of the lawless...2 Peter 3:17

If a substance they call "bread" is lying about my Messiah (who is the GOOD Teacher), then I want to set the record straight, and encourage my sisters in Messiah not to participate in the robbery of the enemy!

‘Do not steal. (YHWH to His Set Apart People)Exodus 20:15/Deuteronomy 5:17

I have come to the conclusion that these brands selling us depleted matter are stealing. Stealing life. Integrity allows fullness, fullness gives life.

With all this in mind, I've just been to our neighborhood Food Lion with my 6 year old. It struck me just how much "riffraff" there is on the shelves! Now, we can't expect a big food corporation to care an iota about our life, but we do have a Father who does. We would not expect that they will tell us the truth about what's good and worthy of our money, but He is The Truth. 

It is amazing to me, that industrialized "food" (matter) is able to sell us nothing for a very high price!

Does the Father do that? If we participate in that, are we stealing from our neighbors? I know many are just now learning the amazing word that is authentic leaven, and the joy of baking at home. We have become an entrepreneurial society, looking for ways to provide for our families in a crazy expensive world. But have we joined forces with the wrong side? If something is robbing us (or our neighbor) of health, it is not a Good Thing. Good Things give, not take. Also, lets not suffer, then pray for healing while rejecting what HE created for our health and healing.

Just today I saw on a "sourdough" group, someone's beautiful, holey (but very pale) English muffin! (They were understandably excited; we aren't very far removed from a generation who was boggled at the very idea that you can actually make food at home!) I'm pretty turned off by the pale stuff, so I just scrolled by. I'm also part of some fresh milling groups, and someone just afterward asked "does anyone know of influencers who use fresh milled flour? I love following bakers but I just don't want to see that gluey white stuff." Ok, so I'm not the only one! 

 However, it's not just preference anymore. As I have listened to lovely lady Sue Becker teach the science behind why white flour (even organic, unbleached) is toxic to the body, I don't think it is right to be silent. We've got to stop greenwashing homemade stuffs that still carry no value into the body (temple) of the eater. Are we participating in stealing life?

Once upon a time, sifted flour was the food of "rulers":

When you sit down to eat with a ruler, Look well* what is before you;
And put a knife to your throat If you are a man given to appetite.
Do not desire his delicacies, For that bread is deceptive. Proverbs 23:1-3

*here the Hebrew word for DISCERN is repeated twice. In Hebrew, to say a word twice in a row is meant to multiply emphasis! It says "bin, tavin", which is to say discern, DISCERN!

His Set Apart people are responsible both for discerning and choosing what He declared good (grains included), but also to discern whether we have received and passed along chaff. Don't unknowingly participate in the theft of the world against your neighbor.

A false scale is an abomination to יהוה, But a perfect weight is His delight. Proverbs 11:1

to buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell the chaff of the wheat?” Amos 8:6