We have mint in our garden. Chocolate mint. We tear the leaves and put them in the basket when we make coffee sometimes. I put it with a tea bag and some sugar in a mug other times.

I love the aroma, love the flavor.

It grows wild, spreading everywhere. We have to pull it sometimes just to contain it.

For all that enjoyment, all that spreading, there is one place I have never taken mint.

The offering plate.

I’ve thrown it away, I’ve put it in the freezer. I even took a plant to church once, but it was to give to a friend. I’ve never put a leaf in the offering. Never sorted through the seeds from the dill plant and put 1 in 10 in a little baggie and dropped them in the plate as the usher went by.

I haven’t tithed them, but the Pharisees did.

Jesus says that they put a tenth of the herbs in the offering, which was more than the law required. They were making a point of doing more than the minimum that the law required.

However, when it came to justice, faithfulness, and mercy, they were giving nothing. Neglecting is how Jesus describes it.

Neglect is what you do to a garden. It’s a lack of attention suitable for small things. When something as massive as justice is neglected, treated as more trivial than a mint leaf, something is wrong.

The Pharisee spent their energy on the tiny, unrequired details, the gnats. They ignored the massive lumpy camels, the unmanageable, uncontrollable dynamics of relationships with God and each other.

We do the same, I think. Because it is easy to worry about external details, about colors and patterns and textures, we do so. And miss the people.

Jesus’ answer? Care about both.