The writer of the children’s story about the Ugly Duckling was a shrewd observer of human behaviour. What he describes in this story is constantly taking place among people as they relate (or don’t relate) to each other. It also happens among church people, just as it happened with Jesus’ disciples when they treated a fellow believer with suspicion because they felt he wasn’t ‘one of them’.
Jesus’ words to the disciples on that occasion help us think through our attitude to fellow believers in our own congregation, as well as to other Christians. They help us understand a little more about what it means to be part of the family of God.
Our diverse church scene today is vastly different from what it was at the time of the apostles, and we can lose sight of the fact that the kingdom of God (the holy Christian church … the ‘communion of saints’ that we confess in the Creed) extends across church denominations. It includes every true believer in Jesus Christ.
Wherever Christ is preached, there you find believing Christians, because God’s promised that his word’s never proclaimed in vain.
