According to Samuel Butler, a lawyer's dream of heaven is where each person tries to reclaim their own property at the resurrection, and each tries to claim it from all their ancestors.
Another of the insults that you lawyers have to bear is mainly about money. But you are not the only ones to suffer: the clergy have been described as "the bland leading the bland'; and it was one of our own, who on seeing a geriatric clerical procession going into a cathedral, intoned the words from Revelation; "and the sea shall give up its dead'.
What sort of men and women do we want as lawyers, and, for that matter, in the ministry?
I have a very significant stake in the whole business of selecting, training and resourcing the very best people I can find to serve in the Christian ministry. This is almost a definition of my job. We have a saying, "Everything under God depends on the quality of the persons ordained.' We want the best preachers, the best pastors, the best prayers. Basically, we are jealous to obtain the best people.
I wonder if we are jealous for your profession? Do we want the best people, and what makes the best?
"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.'
In these profound words, God addresses us all, individually, about the good.
It comes in the midst of a passage where he lays a charge against his ancient people, as a nation. He assumes the role of a plaintiff; he calls upon the very mountains themselves to bear witness; he speaks with the fiery passion of one deeply offended; he calls upon the defendant to answer the charges; he accuses them of breaking his law, of fraud, of false witness, of faithlessness, of frightfulness; he reminds them that he is personally responsible for the very creation and constitution of their nation: "I brought you up out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery' (v 4).
His indictment is against the whole nation. But the reaction from within the nation is rightly personal, individual. What is my contribution to this mess?
Missing is the strenuous counter-offensive of the defendant, the self-justification of those wishing to avoid condemnation and punishment, on the grounds of their innocence. The person who now speaks, accepts that the charges are true and moves to the question of what can I do?
The initial answer reminds us of the modern corporation which pollutes and knows it; or one that causes ill-health amongst its employees, and accepts the fact. The question now is, how can we negotiate a settlement? We admit liability, what must we do to settle the matter and, to use the modern cant phrase, "move on.'
What is the appropriate negotiating strategy when the plaintiff is God himself? It must be tricky to deal with a complainant who knows everything, is completely upright. Indeed he is no ordinary plaintiff; he speaks more from the heart, like someone from a broken marriage, in which there has been faithlessness. There is an alienation here, a hurt love which gives the whole situation an special, personal edge. What offer can we make which would be remotely acceptable to such an adversary?
The negotiating offer is often very revealing. It can be done in a way which expresses disdain or even contempt. It can be done in a way which makes clear that there is no sorrow, no regret, no repentance over the wrongs that have been done. It is simply a mechanism used to enable us all "to move on', as they say.
Those who advise and counsel victims of sexual abuse often make astute observations about this. Victims may or may not want money and they may have various reasons for wanting such compensation as money will bring. But what victims want, need, and are entitled to, is repentance and the genuine expression of sorrow. In the end, only that will liberate them to begin the task of being able to forgive and so let go of some of the burden which afflicts their souls.
The individual in this passage has admitted liability. Now comes the negotiation. "With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God?' It is typical of human beings in religious matters to think that we can achieve a negotiated settlement with God, if only we sacrifice sufficiently. Let's give him everything except our hearts.
This individual thinks through the negotiation in stages: first, quality, the burnt offerings of choice calves; then, excess " thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil; finally, that which is most precious of all " the first-born child, "Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?' " a suggestion which shows the utter coarseness of his morality and religion.
Coarse, but not perhaps uncommon. We often dream that good manners is sufficient to establish a nodding acquaintance with God; that good morals will win him to our side; that through an active religion we have made assurance sure, and become a member of the same Club as he belongs to. The blood sacrifices mentioned here are not our way of doing it. They simply represent an exquisitely calibrated form of the religious spirit which inhabits many a church-person. It is the spirit which drives them to an excess of unwanted devotion. It is the spirit which drives away others who want to come before the Lord, were the cost not so outrageous and unattractive.
Well, then, what is it that God himself regards as good? The individual has asked the question, "With what shall I come before the Lord" ?' Now the Lord's reply is addressed to the individual and indeed to every individual, to us all: "He has showed you O man what is good" ' if you desire to come before me; if you desire to repair this breach between us; if you desire peace and not alienation and enmity, listen to what I have told you is good. Here is the essence of the life which I require.
There was a time when the Law and the Church competed more vigorously for the same people. The nineteenth century wit, the Reverend Sydney Smith, was, we are told, "perfectly sincere in his religious faith, but one is not surprised to find that as a young man, his ambition was to read for the Bar and that it was only lack of money which compelled him to take Holy Orders.' At least at the level of intellectual brilliance, our gain was your loss: he once suggested that every public person, and especially every cabinet minister, should be provided with a "foolometer', defined as "the acquaintance of three or four regular British fools as a test of public opinion.'
The great serving professions, the law, the ministry, medicine, engineering and the rest deliver their benefits to society in a number of ways. They have standards and practices " ethics if you like " intended to preserve their integrity and protect the public. But, as the case of Sydney Smith reminds us in the end, everything depends on the quality of the persons who enter the profession.
When I receive criticism from the laity about the standard of the clergy, I have found that it is useful to apologise, but also to point out that our problem is that we only have the laity to choose from. The same, applies, of course to the Law. Every lawyer was first a layperson; the quality of our whole legal system depends in the final analysis on the quality of the men and women who serve the public in and through it. The health of any profession depends on the quality " technical, but moral and spiritual as well " of those who enter it. To this, the Higher School Certificate is not an infallible guide.
"I have shown you, O man what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.'
These words are not directed to the legal profession as such, or to the Christian ministry. They are aimed at all of as human beings; but it is of course from the ranks of human beings that come our solicitors and barristers and judges. The best legal system will arise in a community marked by moral and spiritual good health.
I think that in all my dealings with the law and in my expectations of its practitioners, I would hope to see men and women who are expert; who are knowledgeable; who are committed to such things as professional development. I hope to see people from a variety of backgrounds. But, if I follow this biblical word, above all I hope to see those who "act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with their God'.
In the biblical world, to act justly was first and foremost to keep the Law of the Lord, which is just. But it goes further than the letter of the law; it involves acting fairly, giving due reward, paying one's moral and actual debts. But it is even more than that, for justice in the biblical world is a restorative idea as well. The just person restores relationships, delivers those in need and punishes the oppressor. The just person is a person of integrity who takes the initiative to sets things to rights.
Justice is integral to all healthy relationships, at home in business, in the courts. In this passage it is an action; we are to act justly; but we cannot act justly unless we love mercy. The person of mercy is the person of grace, the person who saves those who have no claim on him or her. If I were a failure, and - God knows, I am a failure, morally and spiritually and in my relationships " I would acknowledge the rightness of justice, but my hopes would depend on meeting a person who loved mercy; a person who loved mercy, and was prepared to walk with me even through the messy situations which were my own fault.
In fact, this plaintiff-God is like that " just and merciful, right, but gracious. I am not sure that I can meet those standards, but I know that he does. And he invites us to make this the bedrock of our lives: not grandiose religious gestures or moral posturing; not an approach to him reminiscent of a commercial firm in full defensive negotiating mode, but a humble walk with him, accepting his mercy and his direction.
It is a recognition, admittedly hard for us to make, that we are not ourselves gods; that we are not the final arbiter of right and wrong; that we are not the centre of the universe; that we actually depend on him for that thing called wisdom. I don't know whether these are Australian values, but the biblical word is that they are human values.
I guess if we care at all about our community, we have the same interest in the nature of our citizens, the citizens from which will come our ministers, our politicians, our judges, our engineers, our business people, our carpenters and clerks. How are we doing?
Like you, I hope to God that our society will never be put to the test, undergo the stresses and strains suffered by German society in the 1930s. Who knows how we would respond?
I have just been reading Richard Grunberger's A Social History of the Third Reich. He has chapters on all elements of the culture, including Law and Religion. It makes grim reading. Nazism corrupted the administration of justice and launched an unrelenting assault of Christianity, both through seduction and through persecution. Grunberger tells us that "It became the standard practice for judges and public prosecutors to confer together in advance of each trial, with a view to pre-determining its outcome.' In both Law and Religion there were outstanding individuals who refused to conform. There were, of course, all sorts of reasons and all sorts of people who behaved thus.
Nonetheless, I guess we could ask, what would foster such a spirit? How can we best prepare our citizens to be such citizens? How can we ensure that our clergy and our lawyers stand for righteousness when the moment comes? How can I be that sort of person? The biblical word is both and answer and a challenge: "He has showed you O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.'
