trust

 There are many possibilities. Thinking from our early days through to old age, do we trust toy manufacturers, teachers, police, supermarkets, employers, lawyers, government advisers, car salesmen, vicars, husbands, wives, partners. We trust all of them—but with reservations that lead us to avoid trusting them completely.

 Over the past 25 years or more, governments around the world (and the EU) have been drawn increasingly into a regulatory role for a multitude of different areas of life. Here in Jersey, to name a few, we have moved from regulating buses to nursing homes, banks to hotel kitchens, lawyers to car insurers, health and safety to any collusion of competitors selling goods or services. All because trust is unwise.

Senator Hilary Clinton seems unable to achieve the Democratic Presidential Nomination in the forthcoming election for U S President. At the root of it all, according to The Times over recent weeks, is the fact that, on any objective test, Senator Clinton could not be trusted.

 Let’s press the question then: who do Jersey folk totally trust?  Police? Ministers? Politicians? Press? Yes, that question narrows down the answers a great deal.......

 Look again at the quotation above from a biography of Jesus Christ (AD 0—33) written by John, one of Jesus’ key followers, around 90 AD.

 He records Jesus as saying that there was one very interesting reason why all people (note the “all” - all kinds of people) would be drawn to him, would trust him: the fact that he would be “lifted up” in death (a phrase describing the Roman method of execution of criminals common then—AD 33—and until the Fourth Century AD).

His death as a criminal by being lifted up on a Roman stake would cause people to put their trust in him......... Can that be right?

 What do you think? If one (or more) of Jersey’s residents was prepared to allow himself to be falsely accused, wrongly convicted and to die a criminal’s death for the good of Jersey people, as a whole and individually, do you think that man or woman could be trusted?

 That’s a bit extreme. No leader would allow himself to sink so low in public esteem. ... More to the point, he wouldn’t be around in Jersey to reap the benefits of leadership. Quite. He wouldn’t go through that because he would have nothing to gain for himself. No Jersey putative leader would be so foolish as to die like that if Jersey is his realm because death would close that realm to him.

 So this very desire to lead—this desire that we see in others—leads us to make reservations about placing our trust in them.

 Jesus was quite right when he said that “all people” would be drawn to him because of what he would go through for others and because of the way in which he would do that (totally selflessly) for others—including leaving this realm completely.

The followers of Jesus Christ (he taught) would also need to “deny self” and “take up a cross”. Maybe, when they do, Jersey folk will trust them too.