One theologian has spoken of election as the sum of the gospel, the good news of divine grace that, despite our sinfulness, we are chosen and loved by God. But the awareness of being God’s elect has often bred a form of elitism, a sense of self-importance that subtly builds barriers between groups and persons rather than bridges. For whatever reasons, the experience of being loved can lead to an unhealthy feeling of specialness, which questions others (as if God’s love were somehow limited to a few) and at the same time fails to be self critical. The problem is apparently not peculiar to the modern church, since the Gospel lesson designated for this Sunday is aimed at such a sense of self-importance among the original disciples.

The need to belong is implanted deep within the human psyche and is all important to our identity. It begins at birth when we are born into a specific family in a particular community. While receiving our education at the local neighbourhood school our recreational skills are developed and friendships forged as get involved in clubs, societies, organisations and associations. Joining a particular group gives us a feeling of security and helps us to move within a safe network of relationships. Our picture of the world is enlarged as we come in contact with people who display warmth of friendship and have the same interests as ourselves. Membership is a sign that we are socially acceptable and part of the group.

Since few of us choose to go through life as loners or as people on the margins, it is right that we should take pride in the community organisations to which we belong and that we should find security in such groupings. However, unfortunately, such settings often provide fertile ground for jealousy, rivalry, cliques and petty-minded bigotry to flourish. This happens when members of a group tend to emphasise being exclusive to the detriment of being inclusive.

Even Moses had to contend with this problem as we read in Numbers 11:26

“Two men remained in the camp, one named Edad and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them; they were among those registered but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran an told Moses, ‘Edad and Medad are prophesying in the camp’. And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, Said, ‘My Lord Moses, stop them’.

Joshua was upset with the two outsiders. They were moving in on his territory and he was jealous and saw their intrusion as a threat to his own exclusive authority.

Moses dismisses Joshua’s complaint expressing the wish that God might give his spirit to all the people.

A similar incident is recalled in the gospel when John encounters a total stranger casting out demons in the name of Jesus. The man did not belong to the core group of apostles and in all probability had never met Jesus. Being aware of his successes left the disciples feeling threatened. The reaction of John, who revelled at being a member of Christ’s inner circle, was to take offence and to demand that he should be stopped immediately. John felt that only those handpicked and trained by Jesus should be working miracles. Jesus had no time for exclusiveness and turned down John’s complaint with the reply, ‘You must not stop him: no one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us’. With this remark he invites the company to dwell on a larger vision of God’s goodness. It is a lesson in tolerance to be embraced and passed on to future generations of Christians. The gospel is telling us that the Church hasn’t got a monopoly on goodness and invites us to recognise it in less obvious places and in the charitable actions of people of goodwill who may not share our beliefs or way of life.

Those who claim that good can only happen within the boundaries of the church do not help the cause of Christianity as we all share, we all belong and we are all sent out to partake in the saving work of our Lord.

At the heart of a lot of our prejudice is a reluctance to admit that actions can be good and Godlike without being Christian. Jesus was not threatened by goodness outside his own chosen circle and neither should we.

Jesus refuses to separate people into ‘them’ and ‘us’. Again and again he suggests ways of turning ‘them’ into ‘us’ through the medium of love. ‘Love your neighbours, he says, ‘love your enemies’. Because if we really love people in a way that Jesus loves them, they become not outsiders to be hated and feared but part of our in-crowd.

But because it is difficult to do that, Jesus suggests radical surgery. He says that we should excise those parts of our ego which prevent us from loving others. Just as he tells the comic story of the man trying to remove a speck from his friend’s eye when he has a plank in his own eye, so here he tells his friends to look to themselves, not to judge other people. When we look today at the judgmental attitude of some parts of the Anglican Communion over the sexuality debate, a debate that is schism rendering, where is Jesus’ command to love thy neighbour. Being judgmental is probably one of the greatest sins of the church. Throughout the centuries the Church has been devilled by judgmental attitudes from its earliest days. Since the days of the first Councils the church has been fragmented, by dogmatism, by East - West schism in 1054, by European Reformations in the 15^th and 16 centuries and still it goes on. Jesus said, his disciples should be like salt, flavouring the whole population and helping to preserve people, but he says, salt only works while it is fresh. If it loses its essential saltiness, it is useless. One way of remaining salty is to recognise when we put stumbling blocks in the way of others reaching God.

It has to be acknowledged that even churches have rules and regulations which might keep people away from Jesus, but some rules are necessary to keep good order. A church with a free for all attitude might run the risk of degenerating into ‘anything goes’ which would soon sully the name of Jesus. Perhaps the answer is always to keep love at the top of the value list and look to our own faults rather than judging others. Let us never become like a sort of Christian Taliban, demanding dire punishments for those who do not follow our ways. Remember Jesus welcomed everyone, no matter who or what they were. And he taught his disciples to do the same.