Jury Duty

A few weeks ago, Michelle received a summons for jury duty. Because she cares for two small children, she was able to opt out of her responsibility in this.

But when we received the summons in the mail, both of us had the same thought: why do people hate jury duty so much? Michelle said that if not for caring for the kids, she would have happily carried out her commitment. Yet I hardly ever hear anyone say anything positive about it. In fact, when I googled "jury duty", the first hit was an article on how to get out of jury duty!

The way I see it, jury duty is a gift of God's common grace. To sit on a jury is to do something God-like, in the sense that we image forth God's justice and righteousness by our pursuit of justice and peace in the court. God has appointed judges, juries and other governing authorities to be ambassadors of His perfect justice in the world.

Yes, because of sin, the system is flawed and frustrating many times. But this does not negate the privilege we have to be a part of the judicial process.

So why do we hate it so?