I HEARD fragments of Prime Minister’s questions on the news the other day.

It seems that every news bulletin recently has been dominated by the debate around the injustices done to the ‘Windrush Generation’.

“You came up with the 'hostile environment' idea!"

"No actually it was you!"

Questions and answers full of labelling words like ‘immigrant’, ‘citizen’ and ‘Windrush’ seemed to fill the air.

Have you noticed how strong the instinct to label and mark as different is in all of us? Whether it is social class, age, work-status, race, sex or football team; even choice of phone or length of beard!

The need to belong is deep-seated and necessary for us to thrive. However, when this ‘belonging’ excludes others we create the breeding ground for the sorts of bureaucratic indifference that we have seen so recently debated in our parliament.

Jesus lived in a society that had very strongly reinforced religious and social boundaries. Despite this he always seemed to be able see beyond the label focusing in every case upon the person and their need. This was so marked that the influential would comment, often negatively, on his associations with the ‘other’.

Problems like racism, the unjust treatment of the ‘Windrush generation’ and many of the other scandals that mark our corporate life stem from this instinct to ‘group, label and forget’.

The way out of this is to follow Jesus' example and look past the labels to the people behind them.

Why don't we all give it a go and see what happens?

Colin Parker of the Pastrow Benefice