Self-diminishing compromises are the result of giving in to attractive options that threaten our spiritual health. Tom Delay is in the news again this week. He is the former powerful leader in government who has been brought up on ethics charges again and again. He also spends a lot of time at Christian conferences so I have watched the news about him with special interest. Now, it appears certain that he will go to jail through a self diminishing compromise.
One of the affairs he may be charged with is a golf trip to Scotland. Instead of using his own money, he accepted it as a gift from
a lobbyist. It is hard for me to tell the exact amount of the trip since they hid the golf part, 
but it seems safe to say that the trip cost around $100,000 for about 5 people. Tax free.
The one number that jumped out at me was the $6,800 per ticket for the airplane. Now a lot of us do some traveling. When did you last pay $6,800 for a trip? So the story for me has two tragedies. The first is that he got this incredible vacation without paying taxes. That seems criminal for a man who actually tells the rest of us to pay taxes.
But the larger story is a man destroyed by self diminishing compromises. He feels free to pay any price for his comfort – just because he can. That attitude is destroying this government and scarring the spirit of this nation. And self diminishing compromises can damage your own life and happiness too.
A few years ago, Chicago attorney Michael Silbert called attention to one of the most unusual cases in his career. Having agreed to do some estate planning for a new client, he went to her condominium to inventory her belongings upon learning of her death.
When he got there, he could barely get in the one-bedroom apartment. It was packed 4-feet deep with bags and boxes of purchases the woman had made. Some had sat, unopened, for more than two decades. “There were 200 sets of sheets still in the packages, 50 to 60 sets of pots and pans still in the boxes, 200 pairs of shoes, mostly not worn and all high-end.” The bathtub was filled with packages, and the bed was mostly covered, except for a corner someone could squeeze onto. It took six weeks of cleaning just to find the silver in the bedroom.
Did you know that, according to a study conducted by professors from Illinois and Minnesota, about 3 percent of the population suffers from an unreasonable need to buy things? In other words, Elton John is not alone. Elton recently broke with his business manager over the financial chaos caused by his compulsion to spend nearly a half million dollars on flowers.
And would you believe that compulsive shopping tendencies are not unique to this generation? More than a hundred years ago, the widow of our sixteenth president was committed to an insane asylum in Chicago for treatment of a “shopping disorder.” In an attempt to deal with the pain of burying three sons and a husband, Mary Todd Lincoln went wild in the new-fangled department stores. On one occasion, she bought 300 pairs of gloves and two dozen shawls.
In our quest to be more than survivors, I want to focus this morning on the joy of simplicity. This is not an easy lesson and I cannot claim to teach by example. But I know enough heroes of simplicity to assure you that it is a key to living a successful, happy, and Christian life.
We will look at a man who resisted high temptation. He was offered first class and he insisted on economy. And God blessed him richly. Let us axe the excess in our own lives
King Nebuchadnezzar was so cruel that he made sure the last sight King Zedekiah of Judah would ever remember was the killing of his sons. Immediately after witnessing their executions, Zedekiah’s eyes were gouged out. This was the evil environment in which Daniel and his friends were led into captivity. It was dangerous to oppose the ideas or the generosity of the king.
Daniel and his three Hebrew friends are among the first to be exiled from their home in Judah to Babylon. Having ransacked the Jerusalem temple and returned to Babylon with his booty, King Nebuchadnezzar issues an edict. He wants to deport Judah’s finest young men from their homeland in order to enroll them in an education program of his own making. He sends his chief of staff, a guy with a rather unusual name—Ashpenaz—to go conduct the talent search.
There was nothing essentially wrong with the food. It was no doubt good, rich Middle Eastern fare. But a portion of it had been ceremonially offered to a pagan deity. It was also far richer food than a normal refugee would receive. It was an obvious and public sign to other Jews that he and his friends were no longer of their world.
So many Christians who gain some kind of power do not gain the self discipline to prevent their destruction. Bill Bennett, the former Secretary of Education, wrote the ‘Book of Virtues.’ It was more recently discovered that he is a high stakes gambler, losing as much as 8 million dollars. Asked to comment, Bennett replied, “I adhere to the law. I don't play the 'milk money.' I don't put my family at risk, and I don't owe anyone anything."
These are unusual stories of excess where everyone around Delay and Bennett can see what they are missing. They wrecked their lives with self diminishing compromises.
Because Daniel and the three others ate their vegetables and drank water and juice instead of steak and wine, they became stronger than the others who ate Babylonian fare. Self-diminished? Not them. Self-actualized is more like it. And all because a warning buzzer went off in Daniel at the very beginning.
There are commonly three ways we need to guard against excess in our culture – material possessions, food, and entertainment.
Material possessions. What is the limit when you have to set your own limit? A lot of Christians cant answer that question. Of course, if you are struggling to pay the rent, then you are not in danger of excess in possessions. It is when you are able to decorate your house and you decide to make everything match. And then you realize that the thread count in the sheets could be higher and you need a separate set of dishes for weekend dining, and Bloomingdales doesn’t really sell the exclusive labels. If you have a computer and internet access, the treasures of Arabia, the gold of India, the silks of China, the diamonds of Africa – everything is waiting for you to choose.
I’ll share a struggle. I want to buy some dishes and I have an unfortunate good eye for quality. At Bed Bath and Beyond, I saw a nice pattern and decided to get it. But one place setting is $150. So I went home to get it cheaper on the internet. It turns out that this company Villeroy and Boch makes the china for the pope. I was ready to use self discipline until I realized I could eat off the same dish that the pope uses. Can you see the temptation for a pastor?
Giving is such a good cure to excess possessions. It is so hard to just stop spending because we should. But I have a much easier time to stop spending when I can give it to something I want to support. One of the reasons that the church keeps offering ways to give is that it is the best way we can fight our self diminishing compromises.
Food – It’s a sensitive topic. I wish we had a weight support group in our own church. But we live in a time where we also need to have the self discipline to store sensible food. There are many ways our economy can be disrupted – bird flu, hurricane, war. The truth is that most of us think a lot about what kind of ice cream we will have tonight, but nothing at all about making our own practical plan to take care of ourselves so that we can minister to others in a time of need. We should each have the self discipline to have in our homes at least two weeks of basic food. The Mormons tell their members to store a year of food. That is more cheerios and tuna fish than I am ready for. But as we get ready to prepare our church to a place that helps in a disaster, we also need to have our own plans and not expect tomorrow to take care of itself. Self diminishing compromises.
And lastly entertainment. Use of our time. We surely need times of play. But we are also in one of the entertainment capitals of the world with television and internet too. Are you in balance?
“The Christian journey improves when we lighten our load. To use the backpacker’s analogy, the simpler lifestyle enables us to dump the unnecessary stuff that weighs us down. Tom Sine offers this challenge: “First century Christians understood that following Jesus was a whole-life commitment. They committed everything to Christ. Today we’re taught we can have everything we want, including lavish homes and expensive cards, as long as we have the right attitude, as long as we aren’t materialistic. . . . But God has entrusted us with only a certain amount of money, time and education. The more of those resources I spend on my own life and local church, the less is available to advance God’s kingdom.”
—Paul Borthwick, 101 Ways to Simplify Your Life
Im trying to stay alert. Im still using paper plates but I keep watching ebay for Villeroy and Boch. So its always a struggle and balance.
Those who are more than survivors stay alert to self-diminishing compromises. This week, identify which of these three altars—stuff, entertainment, or food needs to be axed. Then, axe the excess. For the rest of the week, try axing the excess in one of the categories, if it represents an area in which you are tempted to give in to self-diminishing compromises.
