Weekly Reflection 3rd March 2024

The Jury: Murder Trial

How much can we trust our justice system? In this landmark experiment, a real-life murder trial is restaged in front of two juries of ordinary people. Will they both reach the same verdict?

 THE JURY: MURDER TRIAL

Watch The Jury: Murder Trial | Stream free on Channel 4

 

Jane and I sat and ‘binged watched’ our way through the whole series of ‘The Jury: Murder Trial, as we found it so compelling. If you have not watched it, I cannot recommend it highly enough.  The two juries where unaware of each other and we got to see for the first time, a jury processing and deliberating the case before them.  If you have not seen it, I will not give anything away.

All I will say on this is that I am thankful that it is God who will eventually bring his full judgment and justice to the world. 

Partly that is because we are who we are, we have a ‘back story.’  During the series we got to hear the back story on some of those on the jury.  What was hard for them was to push all that down and try and act on the facts and the legality of the case. Their decision was whether the accused was guilty of murder or manslaughter.

Our ‘formation’ begins at conception and will continue until we die. Initially our formation is the responsibility of others until we reach an age where we can begin to make choices about what we are going to engage with. However, we are all being formed and changed by the things around us, by what we eat, where we live, our family and fiends and a whole huge raft of things. Some of those influences we have no control over, but others we do, and to some degree how we chose to engage with those influences remains in our gift. (But at the extreme edge that may lead to our death as we have seen recently with Alexei Navalny.)

St Oswald’s Lent Book is ‘Practicing the Way’ – John Mark Comer and picks up the idea of our formation which is summarised by St Paul in Roman’s 12.2 ‘Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.’

Comer brings together in a very readable way, ancient wisdom from people like Benedict as well as an understanding and explanation of the way of ‘disciples’ and their rabbi at the time of Jesus. Comer encourages us to become ‘apprentices’ of Jesus, a term he prefers over the word disciple. The goal is to become all that we are meant to be infused by the life-giving Spirit of Jesus. This follows a threefold pattern; be like Jesus, become like him, and do as he did.

Each and every moment of each and every day we are being formed, shaped, and moulded by a huge array of influences. (Interesting that today being an ‘influencer’ is considered by some as a career choice)

The question for us all to consider and to ask ourselves and others we have conversations with, is what are we being influenced by and what choices are we making in what influences us?

The next and deeper question, again asking ourselves and those we engage with, is how those influences are shaping and moulding us? Into what type of people are we becoming? Are we becoming kinder, more loving, more at peace – perhaps we might want to say, showing more of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. (Galatians 5.22-23.)

Ask yourself this question what type of 80-year-old would you like to be? Older people tend to fall into broadly two categories. (Medical issues aside).  They will be at peace, content, interesting and engaging and with time to listen. Or sadly, they can be cranky and bitter and full of resentment and short-tempered.

If by God’s gift and grace I make it to being eighty, then I know for certain what side of that bell-curve I want to be. And that will mean letting God re-mould my mind from within by taking care of what I engage with on the outside and what I am letting in and allowing to influence me.