Shade Tree Wisdom 9/3/11

          People used to sort of joke about it whenever someone got lost when they had been invited to a summer cottage and took several hours to get there. Mostly because he was just too stubborn to listen when his wife suggested this was their turn.

          I thought of the couple who did this and reached that place where they weren’t talking much. So in their driving they passed a pasture where several mules were grazing and he asked, “Relatives of yours?” She replied, “Just by marriage”.

          What we are talking about here is pride. When St.Paul is writing in his letter to Ephesus he marvels that the power of the Gospel has broken down “the middle wall of division between them”. The power of the Gospel has united them in the Church. The ancient world was divided into Jew and Gentile, and that wall is broken down by the power of the Gospel.

          They were looking at circumcision, but Paul wants them to see the real truth. It is only the Power of the gospel that had united them.

          Pride. Look at the Church today, or look at the world, it is just filled with pride which leads to prejudice, and a blindness to see any other viewpoint. Prejudice is one of the greatest curses in life and it is generally grounded in pride. It is an absolutely blinding force.

          How does it work? It prevents us from seeing that there really usually are two sides to every issue, and it demeans any opponent, so will not really try to find a solution.

          The only solution is for men to see his own sinfulness and his own need before God, and recognize that the Only power that forms the Church is the power of the gospel, nothing else.

          And that is what we must remember when pride raises its head, that what we have is all a gift from a gracious God.

GPD 9/3/11