Us and not Them

Any group naturally forms a sense of identity. We all do it. Especially in our churches. Of course the way we do it is right, and the way of others not so right. After all, there are good reasons why we have our church and they have theirs...

Funnily enough this 'us and not them' attitude was even around in Jesus' day, before any churches had actually started, or a single basis of faith had been presented for signature!

Look at Mark 9:38 with the telling words 'he was not one of us'. Not a member of our group, so cannot possibly be following right teaching, believing the right things, entering by the narrow gate ... or is that 'our' narrow gate?

Jesus demonstrates a more generous approach. Of course not everyone who calls him 'Lord' will enter (see Matthew 7), as graphically illustrated in Acts 19, so a considered generous approach seems to be necessary. Yet with our tendency to build hard boundaries we would do well to remind ourselves of this episode in Mark from time to time.