September 4, 2016 – “Fearless Faith – Can’t Do It All” from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

Fearless Faith: Can’t Do It All

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on September 4, 2016.
The fourth in a sermon series on Facing our Fears through a Life of Faith.

Exodus 18:13-24
and Mark 2:1-12

In 1992, that great American legal comedy My Cousin Vinny was released.

You might remember it:
It starred Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei
and Ralph Macchio from those Karate Kid movies.

The tagline of the movie was great:
“There have been many courtroom dramas that have glorified
 the Great American Legal System”
it declared
“This is not one of them.”

It was a silly movie,
Ralph and his friend were from New York,
and they were driving through backwater Alabama
where they stop at a convenience store
and accidently forget to pay for a can of tuna.

They’re arrested a short time later,
where they confess to the crime and attempt to make amends
only to find out that, after they left
the storekeep had been murdered
and their car was Identified by eyewitnesses
and their confession was misconstrued as
admitting to the shooting, not the tuna.

And, well, they’re in hot water.
So they call their cousin Vinny, or Vincent LaGuardia Gambini, played by Joe Pesci,
a personal injury lawyer, newly admitted to the NY bar
on his sixth attempt, and with no trial experience
to come bail him out.

The movie pits New York and New Jersey stereotypes
against Alabama stereotypes
and succeeds at leading the viewer through enough twists and turns
to have you cheering at the end.

It was surprisingly better than one might have expected.

Tomei, who played Vinny’s girlfriend, Mona Lisa
won an academy award for best supporting actress.

Lawyers have praised the film for its realistic depiction of courtroom procedure,
and many law schools and pre-law programs have used it in their curriculum.
What has stuck with me throughout the whole process
is how confident the prosecution is that they have the right culprits
and how they’re mistaken.

Part of that confidence, it turns out
rests on two key bits of evidence that turn up at the trial:
the famous picture of the tire-marks from the getaway vehicle
that match up to the same tires that the accused were driving,
and eyewitness testimony that put the boys at the scene of the crime.

Only…turns out that the tires that matched were widely available,
and the car the boys were driving couldn’t have made the particular tracks
(something about the independent rear suspension
that Marisa Tomei can describe, even if I can’t)
and that eye witness…well, she was wrong.

She saw the whole thing, sure
from the window of her house.
But she didn’t have her glasses on
and what she said was clear, wasn’t
as Vincent LaGuardia Gambini was able to demonstrate in court.

///
And voila, the two boys are freed.
They catch the real bad guys sometime thereafter and everyone is happy.

But some of those scenes stuck with me as I went off to college
and started working through coursework
thinking about how we know what we know,
what we base our understanding on.

I’ll believe it when I see it.
You might have heard someone say that before. [Read more…]