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Last week I binged watched the six part TV series `Noughts + Crosses' a Â鶹Éç adaptation of Malorie Blackman's novels.

Childhood friends Sephy and Callum live in a contemporary dystopian society divided by colour with strict race laws. Sephy, a `Cross', is a member of the black ruling class and the daughter of a prominent politician, whereas Callum is a `Nought', a white member of the underclass.

At the centre of this tale is a Romeo and Juliet-style romance with Callum and Sephy attempting to build a relationship based on love and trust against a backdrop of fear and prejudice.

It is set in an alternative version of 21st Century Britain and is consistently jolting and uneasy carrying within its layers a potent message about representation and power.

‘Noughts + Crosses’ feels apt at a time when racist discourse is heard in debates about refugees, and even the coronavirus. It raises questions about how societies choose who is in and who is out. And it asks its audience an important question; what if it was you on the receiving end of the treatment meted out to the noughts?

French historian Michel Foucault said ‘Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society’.

Society needs its structures and governments their strategies, but the proper use of Power is only effective when there is genuine buy in. When its reasons and function are clear. Otherwise people are vulnerable to being exploited by those who misappropriate it.

Something Jesus knew well and so he subverts the structures. He turns them on their head. He says those who had been the most abused and neglected of society on Earth will be the first in His government. Those who ruled on the Earth in this life, will be the least in the kingdom of God. in that kingdom the poor and powerless are exalted. Not because they are better than everyone else but because they are equal to them.

There are no spoilers here – but I can tell you that the Noughts and Crosses story features ongoing power struggles based on resentments and revenge. And two star struck teens use the power of love to overcome this

In the midst of power struggles, for Jesus, it always comes down on the side of love, justice and trust. He reminds his disciples that in God’s economy the last will be first and the first will be last.

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