“Never try to outstubborn a cat.”  Robert A Heinlein

“Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God?  Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath…” Romans 2:3-5

“But by your hard and impenitent heart….” Here the word “hard” or “hardness of heart” is used to define the insensibility of the mind. It literally means a mind that has turned to stone – a mind which is insensible to any impression – like a stone. It is a state of mind where nothing can make an impression toward change – the one who has a “hardness of heart” is completely insensible to any appeal. And this is not just an insensitivity to people, or things – it is especially true as to G-d’s effect on the person. As such, a heart and a mind that hare completely hard to any impression to G-d, therefore, has a tendency to treasure wrath instead of good. It speaks to a heart that is not affected by grief, by sinfulness, or by emotion.

Paul’s message to the people in Rome in this part of the text is to point out the hypocrisy of those who judge others while doing the very things which they are judging. To think that they will avoid the watchful eyes of G-d is the height of “hard-headedness”. But as people, we do tend to be a bit stubborn, and hard headed. That is why we need repentance and forgiveness – often – in fact, every day. Every time we repent and turn to G-d, we are forgiven. It should be a daily practice – so that we do not become hard-headed toward our relationship with our neighbors – and in our relationship with G-d.

Pastor Dave

“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.” Ernest Hemingway

 Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). ⁶ On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient.^[b]7 These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life.^[c] 8 But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive^[d] language from your mouth. ⁹ Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. ¹¹ In that renewal^[e] there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!” Colossians 3:5-11

“Do not lie to one another…”  We are not to lie to one another, to deceive each other – instead we are to speak the truth in all our dealings. In other words we are not to say, “My goods are so and so,” when we know them to be otherwise. Or we are not to undervalue the goods or the gifts of our neighbors. We are not to speak lies when our conscience tells us that we are not speaking the truth. If we remember Martin Luther’s explanation of the 8^th commandment, “Thou shall not bear false witness against our neighbor”, he writes: “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.”

There might be good models of true honesty, but there is none like the cat. My cats let me know, every day, where I stand – there is no deceit in them. Let us look to the cats in our lives to see what it means to be honest in all things. They are equal in their love, and in their disapproval. But in all things, they are honest.

Pastor Dave