The Lace and The Shoe

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others." Matthew 23:23

       Jesus did not always speak sweet words. Sometimes His words had a sting in them. Seven times in one chapter in the Gospels He said “Woe to you,” and He was speaking to the leaders of the church.
       Let us think of one of these “woes” of Jesus, He was speaking to the priests and scribes and Pharisees and He told them they were not a bit religious because they were putting little trifles in the place of important things. They were required by their law to give God a tenth of all they owned, and they were careful to do so. They not only gave God a tenth of all their cattle, property, and grain, but they gave Him also a tenth of their “mint, dill, and cummin.” You know what mint is. Sometimes we call it “spearmint,” and sometimes “peppermint,” and sometimes just “mint.” Well, mint and dill and cummin are little herbs, used for flavoring vegetables or chewing gum and for medicine and these people were so anxious about these three tiny things and were forgetful of the three big things called “judgment, mercy and faith.” They were willing to give God a tenth of everything but were unwilling to be true, to be kind, and to be gentle and loving to others. They were interested in little things. They forgot about the big things.
       The other day I took my rod and reel and went off to hunt for some speckled trout away up in the hills of Pennsylvania. Were you ever there? It is a wonderful place. The great hills rise almost to the sky, and the little streams rush down the valleys in the springtime and there the most beautiful fish in the world play hide and seek with each other and with fishermen like myself. My brother and I had gone up to Kities to fish in Parker’s Run. We walked away up the valley about three miles, and there took off our shoes, and hid them under a log, and put on high rubber boots and then waded farther up the stream, perhaps three miles more.
       When we came back with the trout we were very tired and sat down on the log to change our big rubber boots for our more comfortable shoes. When we looked under the log there were only three shoes. One of mine was gone. It was a very lonely place, and there were no burglars or bandits around. We looked for the missing shoe and found it some distance away. Some little animal, perhaps a porcupine, or groundhog or beaver, had found it and was carrying it off. It had scratched it a little and chewed the edges of the leather. The shoe was all right, but the interesting thing was that the lace was gone— gone completely. Either with its sharp toes, or with its sharper teeth, the sly little thief had unloosed the lace, hole by hole, and no trace of it was left. I have often wondered what it wanted with the lace. Perhaps it wanted to make a swing, or hammock out of it, or to use it to hang one of the other little animals that stole things from its nest in the ground. Anyway it took the lace and left the shoe. That’s what these cold-hearted dry-as-dust priests were doing, too. They took the little thing and left the important thing and that is just like taking the lace and leaving the shoe. We often do the same thing.
       When we go to church, and listen to the word of God and the music, and the sermon and come away and talk about the soprano’s hat or the minister’s hands or the color of the pipes of the organ, we are taking the lace and leaving the shoe. One Sunday a little lad said to me, “Father, that was a good sermon.” I said, “Did you like it?” “Yes,” he said, “but did you ever count the number of pipes in the organ?” He had got hold of the lace that time for sure, but then he was only a little fellow, and what can very little boys do in church when the sermon is long and prosy but count the pipes in the organ or the buttons on the cushion in the pew?
       When we read the Bible and instead of finding Jesus in it with His message of salvation and God’s wondrous love we are interested in what is the longest chapter and the shortest verse, and the numbers in the Book of Revelation or the wheels of Ezekiel, we are getting hold of the lace and missing the shoe. Do you understand?
       When at home we are loved by our parents and everything is done for us, and we act mean and peevish, what are we doing but leaving the great fine things and running off with some selfish trifle. Jesus blamed the people to whom He said, “Woe,” for their neglect of the big things and not so much for their interest in little things. The best way is to take hold of both the little things and the big things. My little porcupine friend should have been off with both lace and shoe and made his nest for the winter out of them. Kerr

“These (little things) things ye should have done,” said Jesus, “and not have left the (big things) other undone.”