“Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets.” Neil Gaiman

“But a man named Ananias—his wife, Sapphira, conniving in this with him—sold a piece of land, secretly kept part of the price for himself, and then brought the rest to the apostles and made an offering of it. Peter said, “Ananias, how did Satan get you to lie to the Holy Spirit and secretly keep back part of the price of the field? Before you sold it, it was all yours, and after you sold it, the money was yours to do with as you wished. So what got into you to pull a trick like this? You didn’t lie to men but to God.” Ananias, when he heard those words, fell down dead. That put the fear of God into everyone who heard of it. Not more than three hours later, his wife, knowing nothing of what had happened, came in. Peter said, “Tell me, were you given this price for your field?” “Yes,” she said, “that price.” Peter responded, “What’s going on here that you connived to conspire against the Spirit of the Master? The men who buried your husband are at the door, and you’re next.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than she also fell down, dead. When the young men returned they found her body. They carried her out and buried her beside her husband. By this time the whole church and, in fact, everyone who heard of these things had a healthy respect for God. They knew God was not to be trifled with.” Acts 5:1-11

The eighth commandment given to us by G-d is thus: You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

In his Small Catechism, Martin Luther asks a question for each commandment: What does this mean? He then goes on to give an explanation: We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.

One of the running jokes about our cats is that they never tell the truth when it comes to eating. If I am up early and feed the cats, they will do their best to try to convince my wife that I did not feed them. They will complain with their usual vocalizations – they will give that forlorn look as if they are wasting away. If we always believed our cats when it comes to being fed, they would all be 10 pounds over weight. Bearing false witness against your neighbor is serious business, according to G-d, and Martin Luther. As is always the case, Martin thought that all aspects of our lives, whether it is loving our neighbor, or working hard not to covet what we do not have, all aspects of our lives should begin from the stance where we “fear and love G-d”. That may sound like a paradox – how can we do both at the same time? Well, by fear I believe Martin is talking about having such respect for G-d that we hold G-d in great awe and respect. The theologian Rob Bell tells it like this: “…it is like sitting on a surfboard just offshore and finding a huge whale surfacing beneath you. The immensity of the event causes awe and respect and, yes, a certain fear as you are lifted. Whales are gentle but still wild, and in the vastness of the sea, encountering such a giant can’t but leave you breathless. And you love it.” That’s fearing and loving God. But that is just the first part. The second part is doing our best to always lift up our neighbor, neither slandering them nor hurting their reputation – but speaking well of them and doing all we can to make their lives better. Now it might seem easier to convince my cats that they do not need more food – but G-d never said keeping the commandments would be easy.

Pastor Dave