Some compromises are wise. Others quietly hollow out everything that matters. Jesus warned that "no one can serve two masters" (Matthew 6:24), and the letter to Laodicea condemns a church that was "neither cold nor hot" (Revelation 3:15 to 16).
These two stories about compromise, retold in our own words, look at the issue from both ends. One is a true story about a four-year-old who would not settle for a toy when he wanted the real thing. The other is a well-known legend about soldiers who wanted to be baptised, but not all the way. Each ends with a takeaway for sermons or reflection.
Stories in this post:
- "Nothing Less Than the Real Thing": Yehudi Menuhin's Toy Violin
- Unbaptised Arms: The Legend of the Soldiers' Swords
"Nothing Less Than the Real Thing": Yehudi Menuhin's Toy Violin
Yehudi Menuhin became one of the most celebrated violinists of the twentieth century, a virtuoso and later a conductor who held audiences spellbound around the world. Like many great musicians, his gift showed up early. He gave his first public performance in San Francisco when he was seven, and as a boy of eleven he played at Carnegie Hall in New York, a concert that made him famous.
In his memoir, Unfinished Journey, Menuhin describes how his love affair with the violin began. From the time he was about three, his parents took him with them to concerts by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Its concertmaster was the violinist Louis Persinger. Whenever Persinger played a solo passage, the little boy sitting up in the gallery was spellbound.
So young Yehudi asked his parents for two things for his fourth birthday: a violin, and Louis Persinger to teach him to play it.
A family friend did give him a violin. But it was a toy, made of metal with metal strings.
The four-year-old could not possibly have handled a full-sized instrument. His arms and fingers were far too small. Yet he was furious. He burst into tears, threw the toy violin on the floor and refused to have anything more to do with it.
Looking back as an adult, Menuhin explained that tantrum. He wanted nothing less than the real thing, he said, because even as a small child he knew instinctively that, for him, to play was to be.
He did get a real violin before long, and within a few years Louis Persinger himself had become his teacher.
Takeaway: Many of us accept a toy version of faith: a tin violin that looks the part but cannot make real music. The little Menuhin refused to compromise because playing was bound up with who he was. Jesus offers "life to the full" (John 10:10), not a safe imitation of it. What part of your faith have you settled into a toy version of?
Source: Yehudi Menuhin, Unfinished Journey, as quoted in Os Guinness, The Call.
Unbaptised Arms: The Legend of the Soldiers' Swords
This is a legend. The historical Ivan III of Russia married the Byzantine princess Sophia Palaiologina in 1472, and there is no record of a mass baptism like the one described. The story is retold here as a parable.
The story is told about Ivan the Great, the ruler of Russia in the fifteenth century. He was a brilliant military commander who united much of Russia and drove back the Tartars. But he had been so absorbed in his campaigns that he had never married and had no heir.
His advisers grew worried and, with his permission, began searching for a suitable bride. After much searching they settled on a Greek princess. Her father was delighted at the match, but he set one condition: Ivan must join the Greek Orthodox Church.
Ivan agreed. A priest was sent to Moscow to teach him the faith, and when the instruction was complete, Ivan set off for Greece with his personal guard, five hundred of his finest soldiers.
When they arrived, the soldiers, fiercely loyal to their leader, asked whether they might be baptised too. After a hurried course in Orthodox teaching, they were declared ready. It was arranged as a great public event. Ivan and his guard would be baptised together, and crowds came from all around to watch. Baptism would be by full immersion in the sea. Picture it: five hundred soldiers in full battle gear and five hundred priests in black robes and tall hats, wading together into the water.
But then a difficulty arose. According to the story, the church did not allow professional soldiers to become members. If these men were baptised, they would have to give up soldiering. For Ivan and his men, that was unthinkable.
So a compromise was struck. As each priest took hold of a soldier to lower him under the water, the soldier drew his sword and held it high above his head. The whole man went under the water except for his fighting arm and his sword. Five hundred arms came up dry, still wielding their weapons, unbaptised.
Takeaway: It is a funny picture, and an uncomfortably familiar one. Many of us give most of our lives to God but keep one arm above the water: our money, our ambition, our temper, our relationships, our time. Paul urges us to offer our whole selves "as a living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1). Which arm are you still holding out of the water?
Source: Traditional story, reported by Dr Wayne Dehoney, Walnut Street Baptist Church, in The Pulpit.
Final thoughts
A four-year-old who would not settle for a toy, and soldiers who settled for a partial baptism. These stories about compromise set the hunger for the real thing against the habit of holding something back. Faith rarely collapses in one dramatic moment. It is usually traded away a little at a time, one dry arm at a time.
Where is God inviting you to stop compromising and go all the way under?
More stories you may like:
- Stories About Discipleship and Evangelism
- Stories About Vocation, Calling and Integrity
- Stories About Sin and Temptation
These stories are retold in our own words for teaching and reflection. Sources are credited under each story.