‘We are all special,’ one of the children in Nursery said to me this morning. In Nursery the child got it without me needing to explain – we are all special. It is not conceited to say ‘I am special’ and it is certainly right for me to recognise that you are special; we are all special, and I am in no way more special than you are. None of us are. Being special has no hierarchy.
In this coming Sunday’s Gospel reading Jesus’ friends asked Jesus whether they should stop a man from doing God’s work because the man in question was not part of their intimate group. Did the man have authority to do God’s work? This was their question. He wasn’t an apostle. Shouldn’t the work of God be restricted to a select few?
Jesus’ answer was clear: “You must not stop him … anyone who is not against us is for us.”
God calls different people in different ways and calls us to do different things. Not one of us is excluded from that call.
If only some people were called to serve God, to do God’s work on earth, that would be to mark some people out as more special than others. This is not God’s way. We are all loved by God, no one person more than another; we are all called by God.
We are all special to God. We are all special.
