The Divided Hedge

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, August 18th, 2024:
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

---

Proverbs
9.1-6

​Wisdom has built her house,
she has hewn her seven pillars.
She has slaughtered her animals,
she has mixed her wine,
she has also set her table.
She has sent out her servant girls,
she calls from the highest places in the town,
“You that are simple, turn in here!”

To those without sense she says,
“Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.
Lay aside immaturity, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

There’s a hedge dividing my yard from my neighbour’s, and every summer I find myself annoyed at its asymmetrical growth. One end is much taller than the other, and it’s a beast to trim at the more rapidly growing end. You see, at the shallow end of my hedge, in the corner of our lot, grows a beautiful maple, and her branches stretch along the hedge about half its length. Under the shade of the maple tree, the hedge grows slowly. At the end where the sun’s rays access it freely, the hedge grows two or three times the pace of the shaded end. It stands to reason that the hedge simply does not grow of its own volition—it requires the sun for maturation and flourishing.

What do I require for maturation and flourishing? 

In the First Reading for this coming Sunday, the writer of Proverbs invites us: “Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” In these summer months of Ordinary Time, it would be wise of me to heed these words. Outside the structure of my more Christ-centred routine, I have been moving through some trying times by my own volition. I organize my day and fumble through various relational squabbles clumsily, without giving thought to God’s wisdom. It has been immature of me to believe I have it all figured out, that my capacity and sheer will can plough through the obstacles before me. I have been believing in my own intellect and ability rather than God’s insight and strength, and my ability has failed me. Wisdom is cultivated through maturation in faith. Maturation in faith cannot be achieved if I am isolated in the shadows—I need a direct path to the Son. 

Proverbs provides me with the path God has designed to nurture my maturation. In scripture seven is the number of perfection or completion. Knowing this, the writer reminds me that our Church, built on the seven pillars of Wisdom, is complete. Within her is everything we need. She contains the table spread with God’s bountiful harvest, His sacrificial offering of Word made flesh. Wisdom invites us to eat the Bread and drink the Wine, and be complete. Wisdom wants us to feed on her very self.

Just as the fast-growing part of the hedge is far more difficult to cut back, so do I become impenetrable to the lie of solitude when I am soaked in the warmth and nourishment of God’s wisdom. I can grow in understanding when I am drenched in Him. I can stretch up tall, bending nimbly to the Spirit and while remaining resistant to the destroyer when I consume Him each day. Humility will thrust its roots deep within my soul as I bask in the light of His truth.

As Saint Augustine says, “To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of eternal things; to knowledge, the rational knowledge of temporal things.”

​

Lori MacDonald

---