Peace, holiness, grace and the things we abandon them for

 This week's Bible study is on Hebrews 12:14-17:

Pursue peace with all people, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that there be no sexually immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.

 I was reflecting recently on various friends over the years who had fallen away from their faith or left the church. Some had gotten tied up with the things of this world and got pulled away, while others had pushed the church away by setting themselves above it. In a way, they had all either not taken holiness seriously enough, or had taken it too seriously. They had become gods unto themselves.

In these verses, Paul is talking about people like my friends, like us, who are enticed into either becoming too serious or not serious enough about their religion, and who are ultimately pulled away.

The first danger Paul warns against is the danger of putting grace and humility aside in the quest for holiness. In writing to the Hebrews, he was undoubtedly addressing a bunch of Pharisees like his former self. He breaks the warning into two digestible halves:

1. Pursue peace with all people.

2. See to it that nobody falls sort of the grace of God.

When we pursue holiness, we become sensitive. We set ourselves apart from things which are not right. But at the same time, we're called to be ambassadors of God's kingdom, and to love one another. If we only pursue holiness, without taking on any of God's compassion and selflessness, we become like Satan, an accuser who never rests until he has destroyed everything that falls short of perfection.

Paul describes this behavior as a bitter root. The Old Testament refers to pagan religions as a bitter root, so it is a kind of unholiness disguised as holiness. When a bitter root springs up in the body of Christ, it stands in opposition to what God is doing. It is a tireless accuser whose goal is to exalt itself above those imperfect people it condemns.

The person who follows this path is not interested in helping others with their sin the way Christ gives himself up to help us. What possesses them is not the desire to invite people to a higher level of holiness but to condemn them for not attaining it.

These are people who drift from church to church searching for a community that embodies their self-imposed ideal of perfection, a temple suitable for the divine manifestation they imagine themselves to be. And all along the way they defile people and turn them into bad copies of themselves. They attain a sort of holiness, but they lose their goodness.

The second danger Paul warns us against is the danger of putting holiness aside in the quest for the things the world offers. This was also something that was relevant then as now, because there were serious career and family penalties for becoming a Christian in those days. Public events and business dealings often involved pagan ceremonies, so if you became a Christian you might need to become something of an outcast. And if your family was not Christian, chances are they would kick you out and 'cancel' you. And that's not even getting into the timeless lures of the flesh.

Paul specifically mentions two things here as well:

1. Sexual immorality.

2. Esau's "godlessness." 

When we are sexually immoral, we ignore the structure God has designed us to live in, and choose our own shortcut instead that lets us have the parts we want (sex) without the parts we don't (commitment and the responsibility of children.) That part is more or less clear.

But the more interesting part is the portrayal of Esau's selling of his birthright as "godlessness." Esau basically rejected the promise God had given him so that he could get what he wanted and provide for his material needs on his own terms. He did not behave as though he had a God other than himself.

Both the sexual immorality and the godless impulsiveness of Esau are a disregard of holiness in order to pursue our own desires. We see it now when people want to follow the world's standards for relationships: dating people of other faiths, living together, having extramarital sex, and so on. The pot of lentils they want right now this minute causes them to turn their back on the promise of the future. Every campus ministry sees this scenario play out repeatedly, but I have even known retirees and married couples to fall into it. The heart wants what it wants.

We also see it when people get wrapped up in the moral fashions of the modern age, getting pulled into politics and social media, chasing career aspirations, and so on. They spend less and less time among Christians and more and more in godless pursuits until they get so busy that they forget why they went to church in the first place. 

They want to be someone great, and important, and someone the world admires and respects. They may become "good" but they lose their holiness. And if they don't remember that first love of the church, they end up like Esau on the final day of judgment, unable to go back to what they had in Jesus.

So where do we find ourselves? Are we safe in the fertile valley between "good without holiness" and "holy without goodness?" Or are we at one of the extremes Paul warns us about? Don't just guess based on how you feel. Remember, those extremes are tempting and deceptive. If they weren't, nobody would fall into them, right?

At the extremes are where we try to become gods. On the one side, we sit in judgment over the whole universe, sovereign in a way that never has to make peace with an opposing party. And on the other side, the whole world belongs to us, even the other people in it, and we exercise the full extent of our power without accountability. But there already is a God, and we will never be him.

Paul's words give us the right path:

Pursue peace with all people, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Someone who makes peace is someone who is not at war. Holiness is not destroying everything that is not you, but everything in you that doesn't align with God's values. If we pursue the kind of holiness God asks of us, people will see his kingdom demonstrated.

See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; Part of making peace is forgiving past wrongs, and giving people space to get their house in order. 

Maybe that sermon where the pastor said something you didn't like can be put to rest. Maybe your fellow church people will disappoint you from time to time. Maybe you yourself can make some colossal mistakes and not feel the need to run away and hide. The moment where you decide someone cannot be forgiven, or given some slack, or that they are below you, is where you begin to do the devil's work and pollute people with the sickness he brings.

Let there be no sexually immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. Sometimes we want what we want, and what we want is often portrayed as a need or even as our god-given right. But those wants and "needs" can pull us away from God's path, sometimes both quickly and catastrophically. We have to keep hold of the same holiness that allows people to see God's kingdom, and not let go of it to reach our worldly aspirations.

As Paul says, when this life is over, we could be like Esau, distraught at not being able to return to the good thing we had, the thing that was promised to us, that we only had to not reject it to keep it. We are not gods. That path is a false path. We should make peace, and be happy with what we have, and focus on building a future with the God who has given us an inheritance with him.