Homily 30 — Hebrews 12, verses 11 to 13

“No discipline seems for the present to be joyful, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it. So lift up the hands that hang down, and the weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be turned out of the way, but rather be healed.” [a]

Those who drink bitter medicines first put up with something unpleasant, and afterward feel the benefit. That is how virtue is, and how vice is. In vice the pleasure comes first, and then the dejection; in virtue, first the dejection, and then the pleasure. But the two are not equal. It is not the same thing to be grieved first and pleased afterward as to be pleased first and grieved afterward. Why so? Because in the second case the expectation of the dejection to come makes the present pleasure smaller; but in the first, the expectation of the pleasure to come cuts away the force of the present dejection. The result is that in the one case we never have pleasure, and in the other we never have grief. And the difference does not lie in this alone, but in other ways too. How? The length of time is not equal; the one is far greater and more ample. And here too the difference is still greater in spiritual things.

From this, then, Paul sets out to comfort them. Once again he takes up the common judgment of people, which no one can stand against; no one can fight the common verdict when a speaker says what everyone admits.

You are suffering, he says. Well, that is what discipline is like; that is how it begins. For “no discipline for the present seems to be joyful, but painful.” He put it well: “does not seem.” He means that discipline is not painful, but only “seems” so. “All discipline”: not this kind or that, but “all,” both human and spiritual. Do you see that he argues from what everyone thinks?

“Seems,” he says, “to be painful,” so it is not really so. For what kind of grief gives birth to joy? In the same way, neither does pleasure give birth to dejection.

“Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceful fruits of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Not “fruit,” but “fruits”: a great abundance.

“To those,” he says, “who have been trained by it.” What does “to those who have been trained by it” mean? To those who have endured for a long while and been patient. And he uses a word of good omen. So discipline is training: it makes the athlete strong, unbeatable in contests, irresistible in war.

If, then, “all discipline” is like this, this discipline will be like it too, so that we ought to look for good things, and for a sweet and peaceful end. And do not be surprised if something hard in itself bears sweet fruit. In trees, too, the bark is rough and almost tasteless, but the fruit is sweet. But he took it from what everyone thinks.

If, then, we ought to look for such things, why are you troubling yourselves? After you have endured the painful part, why do you lose heart about the good? The hard things you had to endure, you have endured; so do not lose heart about the reward. He speaks as though to runners, boxers, and soldiers. Do you see how he arms them, how he encourages them?

“Walk straight,” he says. Here he is speaking of their thoughts — that is, without doubting. For if the discipline comes from love, if it begins in loving care, if it ends in a good result (and he proves this by facts and by words and by every consideration), why are you discouraged? That is what people are like who despair, who are not strengthened by the hope of what is to come. “Walk straight,” he says, so that your lameness may not get worse, but be brought back to its former condition. For a man who runs when he is lame rubs the sore place raw. Do you see that it is in our power to be fully healed?

Verse 14: “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.” What he said above as well — “not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together” (Hebrews 10, verse 25) — he hints at here too. For nothing makes people so easily beaten and overpowered in trials as being isolated. Tell me: break up a phalanx in battle, and the enemy will need no effort. He will take them prisoner, coming at them one by one, and so all the more helpless. [c]

“Pursue peace with all people, and holiness,” he says. With wrongdoers too, then? “If it is possible,” he says, “as far as it depends on you, live at peace with all people” (Romans 12, verse 18). As far as you are concerned, he means, “live at peace,” so long as no harm is done to religion; and whatever wrong is done to you, bear it nobly. For bearing evil patiently is a great weapon in trials.

This is how Christ too made his disciples strong, by saying, “Look, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10, verse 16). What are you saying? Are we “among wolves,” and you tell us to be “as sheep” and “as doves”? Yes, he says. For nothing so shames the one who is doing us harm as bearing nobly what is brought on us, and not avenging ourselves either by word or by deed. This makes us more philosophical ourselves, wins us a greater reward, and benefits them as well.

Has someone insulted you? Bless him. See how much you will gain by this: you have put out the evil, you have won yourself a reward, you have made him ashamed, and you have suffered nothing serious.

“Pursue peace with all people, and holiness.” What does he mean by “holiness”? Chastity, and an orderly life in marriage. If anyone is unmarried, he says, let him remain pure, or let him marry; or if he is married, let him not commit sexual immorality, but live with his own wife. For this too is “holiness.” How so? Marriage is not “holiness,” but marriage protects the holiness that comes from the faith, by not allowing union with a prostitute. For “marriage is honorable” (Hebrews 13, verse 4) — not holy. Marriage is pure; yet it does not also give holiness, except by forbidding the defilement of the holiness that has been given by our faith. [d]

“Without which,” he says, “no one will see the Lord.” He says this in the letter to the Corinthians as well: “Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor adulterers, nor idolaters, nor effeminate men, nor men who lie with men, nor the greedy, nor thieves, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God” (First Corinthians 6, verses 9 and 10). For how can someone who has become the body of a prostitute — how can he be the body of Christ?

Verse 15: “Watching carefully that no one falls short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and many are defiled by it; that there is no sexually immoral or unholy person.” Do you see how everywhere he puts the salvation of all into the hands of each one? “Encourage one another daily,” he says, “while it is called Today” (Hebrews 3, verse 13). So do not throw the whole burden on your teachers; do not throw it all on those who lead you. You too, he means, are able to build one another up. He said this as well when writing to the Thessalonians: “Build one another up, just as you are doing” (First Thessalonians 5, verse 11). And again, “Comfort one another with these words” (First Thessalonians 4, verse 18). This is what we urge on you now as well. [e]

If you are willing, you will accomplish more with one another than we can. You are with one another for a longer time; you know more of each other’s affairs than we do; you are not unaware of each other’s failings; and you have more freedom of speech, more love, and more closeness. These are no small advantages for teaching, but great and timely openings for it. You will be better able than we are both to correct and to encourage. And not only that: I am only one, while you are many, and however many you are, you will all be able to be teachers. So I beg you, do not “neglect this gift” (First Timothy 4, verse 14). Each one of you has a wife, has a friend, has a servant, has a neighbor. Let him correct him; let him encourage him. [f]

Is it not absurd? When it comes to the body’s food, people form associations for eating together and drinking together, and fix a day for pooling together, as the saying goes, and by the association make up for what each one falls short of on his own — if, for instance, someone has to go to a funeral, or to a dinner, or to help a neighbor in some matter. Yet they do not do this for instruction in virtue. Yes, I beg you, let no one neglect it. For great is the reward he receives from God.

So that you may understand: the one entrusted with the five talents is the teacher, and the one with the one talent is the learner. Suppose the learner says, “I am a learner; I run no risk,” and hides the reason he received from God — that common and simple reason — and gives no advice, does not speak plainly, does not rebuke, does not warn, if he is able, but buries it in the ground (for truly that heart is earth and ashes which hides the gift of God). If, then, he hides it out of laziness or out of wickedness, it will be no defense for him to say, “I had only one talent.”

You had one talent. Then you should have brought one more besides and doubled the talent. If you had brought one more, you would not have been blamed. For he did not say to the one who brought the two, “Why have you not brought five?” He counted him worth as much as the one who brought the five. Why? Because he gained as much as he had. And because he had received fewer than the one entrusted with the five, he did not grow careless on that account, nor did he use the smallness of his trust as an excuse for idleness. You should not have looked to the one who had two — or rather, you should have looked to him: just as he, having two, imitated the one who had five, so you should have imitated the one who had two.

For if there is punishment for the one who has means and does not give, how will there not be the greatest punishment for the one who is able to encourage in any way and does not do it? In the first case the body is fed; in the second, the soul. There you prevent death in this life; here, eternal death.

But you say: “I have no skill in speaking.” There is no need of skill in speaking, or of eloquence. If you see a friend going off to sexual immorality, say to him, “You are going after something evil. Are you not ashamed? Do you not blush? This is wrong.” “Why, doesn’t he know that it is wrong?” Yes, but he is dragged along by lust. Sick people too know that it is bad to drink cold water, yet they need people to stop them. For a man who is suffering will not easily be able to help himself in his sickness. So you who are healthy are needed for his cure. And if he is not persuaded by your words, watch for him as he goes off, and hold him fast; perhaps he will be ashamed. “And what good is it, if he does this for my sake, because I held him back?” Do not be too exact in your calculations. For the time being, by whatever means, pull him away from his evil practice. Let him get used to not going off to that pit, whether because of you or for any reason at all. Once you have got him used to not going, then, taking him after he has caught his breath a little, you will be able to teach him that he ought to do this for God’s sake and not for man’s. Do not try to set everything right at once, since you cannot; do it gently and little by little. [h]

If you see him going off to drinking, or to parties where there is nothing but drunkenness, do the same there too. And on the other side, ask him, if he notices that you have any failing, to help you and set you right. In this way he will even bear correction of his own accord, when he sees both that you need correction as well, and that you are helping him not as one who has done everything right, nor as a teacher, but as a friend and a brother. Say to him, “I have done you a service by reminding you of what is good for you. You too, whatever failing you see in me, hold me back, set me right. If you see me quick-tempered, if you see me greedy, restrain me; bind me with your urging.”

This is friendship. This is how “a brother helped by a brother becomes a fortified city” (Proverbs 18, verse 19). It is not eating and drinking that makes friendship; even robbers and murderers have that kind of friendship. But if we are friends, if we truly care for one another, let us help one another in these things. This leads us to a friendship that profits us. Let us hold one another back from the things that lead away to hell.

So let the one who is corrected not be indignant, for we are human and have failings. And let the one who corrects not do it as though gloating over him and making a show, but privately, with gentleness. The one who corrects needs all the more gentleness, so that in this way he may persuade them to bear the cutting. Do you not see surgeons, when they burn and when they cut, how gently they apply their treatment? Those who correct others ought to act this way much more. For correction is sharper even than fire and the knife, and it makes people flinch. That is why surgeons take great pains to get patients to bear the cutting quietly. They apply it as tenderly as they can, even easing off a little, and then giving them time to catch their breath.

That is how we too ought to give correction, so that the one corrected may not pull away. Even if, then, we must be insulted, and even struck, let us not refuse it. For those who are being cut by surgeons also cry out against them countless times; yet the surgeons pay no attention to any of this, but only to their patients’ health. So in this case too we ought to do everything to make our correction effective, and to bear everything, looking to the reward that is stored up for us.

“Bear one another’s burdens,” he says, “and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6, verse 2). So by both correcting and bearing with one another we will be able to complete the work of building up. And in this way you will make the labor light for us, taking part with us in everything, lending a hand, and becoming sharers and partners both in one another’s salvation and each in his own. So let us be patient, both bearing “one another’s burdens” and correcting, so that we may attain the good things promised in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom be glory, might, and honor to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.