The
eighth and final series of Spiral has recently aired in the UK, and we
are working our way through the back catalogue of this French (original,
French, title Engrenages) police and legal procedural drama on BBC
iplayer. It is described as ‘disturbing,’ on account of the behaviour of the
police and lawyers often being indistinguishable from that of the criminals—all
interlocked in a ‘spiral of violence’—but this is the very thing that makes it
so interesting. Justice is not black and white, but includes many shades of
grey.
It
might surprise you to hear a vicar make such a claim, but it should not. Any
honest reading of the Bible must recognise that even the most fundamental of
laws require interpretation. Take, for example, the command not to bear false
witness against your neighbour. To uphold this command, there are times when
one is surely compelled to lie, to perjure oneself, to subvert the course of
in/justice in order to protect another’s life.
In
the centuries between the history recounted by the Hebrew Bible/Christian Old
Testament and the New Testament, the Jewish community developed a complex legal
system built on the Law given through Moses, including different and at times
competing schools of interpretation. Christians are often quick to dismiss all
this out of hand as legalism, but such a response verges on and may trespass
into anti-Semitism. It is foolish, because English law (among others) is to a
significant extent built on biblical law. It is foolish, also, because every
community involves different schools of interpretation. Jesus himself does not
dismiss the Law of Moses, or even the Oral Tradition per se, but stands
in a long line of prophetic voices that call out those who confuse legal
application with legal principle; those who overly worry about legal procedure;
and those who hide behind the law to exploit others. And the apostle Paul does
not so much concern himself with opposing Jewish self-understandings of the
law, as addressing tensions between members of the Christian sect of Jewish and
of Gentile background, as to the grounds on which Gentiles are included. Law,
including moral law, is not static but dynamic.
To
return to Spiral/Engrenages: if actions do not distinguish those
operating ‘on the side of the law’ from those operating ‘outside the law,’ what
does? In part, motive, and conscience, however murky; and in part the key theme
of (the possibility of) being redeemed, of being freed from compulsive or
addictive behaviour, to step into a freer life. The characters on the side of
the law are painfully aware of their weakness, but—even if they cannot bear to
admit to their (ironically, clearly visible) vulnerability before others—long
for redemption, for themselves…and for the redemption of those who struggle
alongside them, often wrestling, in a spiral not so much of violence as of
hope. Even as character after character pre-emptively presses the self-destruct
button, hope nonetheless endures, defiant.
At
the end of the day, redemption cannot be found in ‘righteousness according to
the law’ (nor in any other honour code) but is found in acceptance—acceptance
within an adoptive family of others, and acceptance of ourselves. Redemption is
the bloodied labour of self-sacrificial love.
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