Roosting Chickens

 A saying often heard around this neck of the woods is, "Your chickens come home to roost."  It is another way of saying that folks usually get what they deserve, or perhaps, it is a rendering of the other phrase about reaping what you sow.  Regardless of how the words are regarded, it is a theme that the Apostle Paul often sounded in his letter to the Romans.  Of course, he did not say anything about chickens coming home to roost, but when we read what he wrote, we see the message.    

Over in verse 3 of the 2nd chapter, he asks the first of several questions to the Jewish members of the church, "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."  Paul knew the Jewish people well enough to know that they would be quick to point a judgmental finger at the sins of those labeled heathens and never get around to seeing the same sins in their own heart.  Of course, this is not a Jewish thing, but a human thing.    

The reason it is a human thing is that when we commit some act which we know as sin, we also believe that we are the exception to the rule.  It is easy to see how the Jews who saw themselves as God's chosen might come to this conclusion, but it was no more true for them than it is for anyone else, including each one of us.  All of us are special in the eyes of God, but none of us live as exceptions to the rule.