Image: Moses’s father-in-law Jethro, as portrayed in the film THE PRINCE OF EGYPT.
“And I’ll take it to the Supreme Court if I have to!” shouts Maury Stokis, pointing his cane in the face of Perry White.
Maury and his wife win a free trip to South America from the newspaper THE DAILY PLANET, but the trip is a bust and they return to the newspaper office threatening to sue. Mr. Stokis is wearing a cervical collar and walking with a cane, and his wife has her arm in a cast. They look miserable, but comical. They are clown figures, a bit of comic relief in SUPERMAN III (1983).
Everyone always threatens to take lawsuits to the Supreme Court. It’s a television trope and an American cliché. People like Mr. Stokis start swinging the name of the Supreme Court like a club before even speaking to an attorney, much less filing an actual lawsuit.
The truth is, Mr. Stokis will probably never make it to the Supreme Court. It is so difficult to receive a hearing from the nation’s highest court that it may as well be impossible. First, you must demonstrate your client suffered harm caused by an error that can be appealed—and many errors cannot be appealed. In addition, the issues must be ripe, the parties must have standing—it is just so much. And if everything about your case is perfect, if you can check all the boxes, the court still must extend its scepter toward you, like the king extending his welcome toward Queen Esther. One does not simply show up at the Supreme Court. You must be invited, so to speak.
Further, the Court hears a limited number of cases. Of each year’s nearly 7,000 petitions requesting review, the Court chooses 70 to 80 cases. In the 2023 – 2024 term, the Court accepted only 62 cases for oral argument.
There are two reasons for this. First, these cases represent a full-time workload for nine justices and their staff. Second, the court does not play the role most people imagine. The court is not there to effect justice in these cases, some kind of last resort for a suffering American. The role of the Supreme Court is to tidy up the law.
As I simplify the point for my students, “the Supreme Court does not care if you were wrongfully convicted. The justices do not care[1] and they are not sympathetic. They only care about the law and making U.S. state and federal law work in a more predictable and just way.”
Following the exodus from Egypt, Moses found himself in the role of judge. He alone served as trial court, appellate court, and supreme court—with a jurisdiction of some two to three million people. He heard and decided every case, using each dispute as an opportunity to teach the Hebrew people God’s laws and God’s ways.
“Moses sat to judge the people and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening. And when Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he did, he said, ‘What is this thing that thou doest? Why sittest thou thyself alone?’ …
‘Because the people come unto me to inquire of God. When they have a matter, they come to me, and I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the statutes of God and His laws.’
And Moses’ father-in-law said unto him, ‘The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both you and this people that is with thee. For this thing is too heavy for thee. Thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. Hearken now unto my voice. I will give you counsel, and God shall be with thee …
[Continue to] teach the people ordinances and laws, and show them the way wherein they must walk …
Moreover, choose out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, and rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens, and let them judge the people at all seasons. And it shall be that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge. So shall it be easier for thyself and they shall bear the burden with thee. If though shall do this thing … then thou shalt be able to endure …’ So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father-in-law” Exodus 18:13-24.
Houston sits in Harris County, Texas, a county with a population of 5 million people, or about double the number who left Egypt during the Exodus. Yet Harris County has about 70 trial courts. This number, which does not include city courts or JP courts, is more than thirty times the number of judges serving the migrating nation of Hebrews. Moses’s father-in-law was right: Moses needed help!
“And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And they judged the people at all seasons. The hard cases they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves” Exodus 18:25-26.
This is a great lesson in governance. The Bible is practical, filled with so much practical wisdom and on such a staggering wealth of topics. There is simply no book like it.
But the real lesson here is the humility of Moses.
Moses is a man of 80 years, educated inside the Pharaoh’s palace, a diplomat of the highest order, God’s prophet and the deliverer of God’s people, a man through whom God has worked miracle after miracle, the administrator and leader of an entire nation—and yet he listens to the advice of his father-in-law. What experience did Jethro have compared to that of Moses? What was he, a sheep farmer from nowhere? He may have been “the priest of Midian,” but what is that compared to Moses? Yet, Moses took Jethro’s advice and it changed everything. God rewarded Moses for his humility.
“Moses was a very humble man” Numbers 12:3.
“Those who humble themselves will be exalted” Matthew 23:12.
“With humility comes wisdom” Proverbs 11:2.
“Humility comes before honor” Proverbs 15:33.
“He crowns the humble with victory” Psalm 149:4.
“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think so as to have sound judgment” Romans 12:3.
Dear God, bless us with the gift of humility. Help us to see ourselves as we ought—to see ourselves as You see us. May we demonstrate humility in all our dealings. Make us sensitive to pride and help us to fear the Lord and turn away from evil. ‘Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Thy Name give glory, because of Thy lovingkindness and because of Thy truth’ Psalm 115:1.
AΩ.
[1] Of course, the Supreme Court justices are human, and more than that, they are humans who value justice enough to have pursued careers in the field. On a personal level, they care about their fellow man and the justice of his case. But their professional duty is to choose cases that will allow them to tidy up questions of law. This role is designed to promote abstract justice in future cases. Should they be able to deliver a just conclusion to the case before them, so much the better. But that is not the goal. As a famous example, the court that legalized abortion via Roe v. Wade did so when the baby at the center of the controversy was already two-and-a-half years old. Although the case has now been overturned, it demonstrates the way the Court concerns itself not so much with the parties before the court but with the structure of American law going forward.
Household Words: 