Allow Differences

Many years ago in Germany, so the story goes, there lived a shoemaker who had a habit of speaking harshly of all his neighbors who didn’t think quite as he did about religion. The pastor of the parish in which he lived heard of this and felt he must give him a lesson. So he went to the shoemaker one morning and said, “Will you please take my measurements for a pair of boots?” “With pleasure, sir,” answered the shoemaker. “Please take off your boot.” The clergyman did so, and the shoemaker measured his foot from toe to heel and over the instep, and wrote it all down in his notebook. As he was writing up his measurements, the pastor said, “My son also needs a pair of boots.” “I’ll be glad to make them, too. When can I take his measurements?” “Oh, that’s not necessary,” said the pastor. “The lad is only twelve, but you can make my boots and his from the same last.” The shoemaker looked at him with a puzzled smile and said, “That would never do. They would never fit such a young boy.” “I tell you,” insisted the pastor, “to make my son’s on the same last.” “No, sir, I can’t do it,” protested the shoemaker. He began to wonder if the pastor was losing his wits. “Well, then, shoemaker,” said the clergyman, “you accept the fact that every pair of boots must be made on their own last, if they are to fit. Yet you think that God wants to form all Christians exactly according to your own last, of the same measure and growth in spiritual matters as yourself. That won’t do either, you know.” The shoemaker got the point and said, “Thank you for your sermon. I’ll try to remember it and judge my neighbors less harshly in the future.”