One of the things we sometimes lack as followers of Christ is a sense of proportion.  We can get so convinced of the truth  of what we read in the Gospels about Jesus, and of what the Church teaches, that our response to those who don't share our beliefs can be destructively out-of-proportion.
           I will never forget the experience I had in seventh grade when my mother and I went up to our local Catholic school to tell the nun, who gave private piano lessons, that I was no longer going to take lessons from her.  I was going to try a teacher in Hopkins who used more popular music in his lessons, and who was getting rave reviews from the other moms.
         The nun/music teacher took in the news, and then looked at me and said: "He's going to hell."  Apparently in her view learning popular music was a ticket to hell, no quesitons asked.  And, looking back at it, I suppose the fact that she was losing a source of extra income (and I suspect I wasn't the only one changing piano teachers at the time) might have played into her thinking as well.
          To say that my mom "rebuked" the nun would be to put it too mildly. The nun's response was completely disproportionate to the situation, and my mom let her know that.
            Jesus does the same thing in today's Gospel (Lk 9: 51-58) when John and James ask Jesus if they should call down "fire from heaven" on the Samaritan village which has not welcomed them.  Ok, maybe the Samaritans weren't being models of politeness, but the history of conflict between Samaritans and Jews went way back.  They could hardly be expected to welcome a wandering Jewish teacher.
          Moreover, destroying the village, and everyone in it, because they weren't welcoming is hardly a proportionate response.  A demonstration of displeasure-- shaking the town's dust off their feet, for example-- would certainly have sufficed.
           So Jesus does to James and John what my mom did-- He rebukes them.  "Save the fire and brimstone for a time when it is really appropriate," one can imagine Jesus saying, "they don't deserve death."
           We might keep this incident in mind when we're tempted to react harshly to those in the Church, and in society more generally, who frustrate our plans or disagree with us.  Jesus teaches patience and gentleness, not dropping criticism on someone like a ton of bricks.
           Save the nasty tweet, or the snide remark, or the verbal stab in the back for another time (which hopefully will be never) after you've had a chance to think about what you're doing. While those techniques feel good at the moment, they won't really work (do you think destroying the Samaritan village would have endeared Jesus to the Samaritans?) as well as patience, gentleness and a polite conversation.  
           As is always the case, following the example of Christ isn't just the right thing to do, the holy thing to do-- it is also the approach that will work best.