Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Don’t Forget the Fine Print"

Text: Isaiah 43:16-21

of being selected or chosen for something really interesting,

something you really wanted to do,

only to find that once you got into it,

it was a lot of hard work,

and it wasn’t always interesting, much less fun,

and sometimes you wish you hadn’t been chosen at all … ?!

Right after I graduated from seminary,

when it became apparent that I was going to be back home in San Antonio

for at least several months,

I decided that I wanted to sing with the Mastersingers,

the symphony chorus.

This was not like the symphony chorus we had in San Angelo,

where as long as you were breathing and could pay for your own music,

you were a member!

No, to be a Mastersinger,

you had to audition,

and be selected.

So I went,

and I sang the "Mermaid’s Song" by Haydn –

one of those things you never get to do for church, you know? –

and I sight-read the music that was set in front of me,

and tried to hide how nervous I was.

And sure enough,

in about a week the coveted letter arrived,

"Congratulations! You have been chosen …" etc., etc.

And I was on cloud nine.

But not for long.

I soon discovered that this "select" status

entitled me to three-hour rehearsals every Tuesday night,

that were mostly enjoyable, but absolutely exhausting.

It meant three major performances in the fall,

and three more in the spring,

and the week of each performance

we had rehearsals every night.

It means obeying rules about attendance,

and about what we could and couldn’t wear onstage.

Even beyond that,

it meant arranging my Tuesday schedule

to bring my dog Ellie to work with me …

yes, if you can imagine,

there was a point in time when I had only one dog …

so that I could have dinner with my folks

and Mom and I could carpool to rehearsal

while Ellie stayed with her grandpa.

In my enthusiasm over being among the "chosen,"

I had temporarily forgotten about the fine print.

Being a Mastersinger was not only a privilege …

it was a responsibility.

Surely something like that has happened to you …

You made the basketball team!

and discovered that that meant practicing till you were ready to drop

every day of the week,

and boring things like practicing dozens of free throws at a time.

You got the new job you really wanted!

but the work is harder, and the hours longer,

that you had ever expected.

You’ve retired … with or without the stereotypical gold watch …

and discover that there are some friends you really miss,

and not only that, but your spouse or partner

has very different ideas from you

about how you should be spending all this new leisure time!

Sooner or later,

the fine print reaches out and slaps you in the face.

Sometimes, our relationship with God

can be kind of like that.

The Bible – especially the Old Testament –

is filled with stories of people chosen by God

who keep forgetting the fine print.

People who want the privilege of being favored by God,

but have forgotten the responsibility that accompanies it.

In the Isaiah passage that we heard this morning,

the prophet is quoting God, if you will,

describing how God set things up

for the Hebrew people, the chosen:

The Lord "made a way in the sea,

a path through the waters…"

God is about to "make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert."

And yet, if you were to read ahead just a few more verses,

we find God describing how the chosen ones responded:

"Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob …

you have been weary of me, O Israel!"

And later,

"You have burdened me with your sins;

you have wearied me with your iniquities."

In other words,

"You have either forgotten or decided to ignore

your end of our covenant agreement."

The books of the different prophets

are full of this kind of message.

"You want God to be faithful to you," they argue,

"but you don’t want to be faithful to God."

"You want God to help you conquer your enemies,

and to protect you from famine, or floods …

But you also want to worship other gods,

and to make a profit by cheating your neighbors.

Well, you can’t have it both ways.

Either you start acting like God’s people,

or God is going to quit acting like your God."

Ou relationship with God – our covenant –

is not a one-sided promise

that God is going to look after us

and give us all the goodies we want.

It’s a reciprocal agreement –

it requires of us a response, a respons-ibility,

perhaps at times, even – beware, there’s a scary word coming – sacrifice.

That’s a little deceptive, though …

because what seems to happen is that

as we start to get our relationship with God figured out,

and/or straightened out,

things that looked like a sacrifice before

don’t really seem like one any longer.

They start to seem like the obvious thing to do,

the natural thing to do.

They may startle some people around us, to be sure …

but we won’t find them strange, or unusual, or particularly painful.

Look, for example,

at our gospel story of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet.

She is unselfconscious about it;

it simply seems to her the right thing to do, at the right time.

Judas is indignant.

But Jesus isn’t surprised by it, or bothered by it.

Incidentally, the cheat note in my Bible

says that three hundred denarii

was almost a year’s wages for a common laborer.

So, even if we figure someone working at barely minimum wage,

let’s say, six dollars an hour times eight hours a day,

times five days a week,

times fifty weeks in a year (we’ll give at least a little vacation) …

is twelve thousand dollars.

Extraordinary generosity on Mary’s part.

We might even call it extravagance.

We might even call it impractical.

We might secretly agree with Judas that,

if she’s going to drop a whole year’s salary anyway,

she’d be better off giving the money

to One Great Hour or Sharing,

or to the Caring Fund at the Village,

or buying a truckload of food for the AIDS food pantry,

or something useful like that.

But Mary is not concerned about Judas’s opinion.

And neither is her Lord.

In this moment,

Mary ministers to Christ

because he has ministered to her.

She has remembered the fine print.

It is perhaps more difficult for us today, in some ways.

Christ is not physically present for us

in the same way that he was present to Mary.

But he is still present,

and our covenant relationship with God still stands,

even the fine print.

A few years ago now,

I recall being part of a friendly disagreement among a group of pastors

about whether or not Christians are persecuted in the U.S.

Of course, if you’re talking about

being thrown into prison for your faith,

or harassed and endangered,

then the answer of course is no, we are not persecuted.

But some of the group wanted us to think about

the ways in which Christians are portrayed, in the media especially,

as being just a little bit soft-headed …

or putting on a good show for the world,

but lying and cheating just like everyone else behind the scenes

when no one is looking!

And let’s face it,

sometimes people of religious faith bring it on ourselves.

If, for example, you are going to claim in a national forum

that God told you in a moment of prayer

who was going to be elected in the next presidential election …

well, you deserve every laugh at your expense.

But as that side of the argument was being made,

something occurred to me that I hadn’t thought about before.

The media don’t make fun of all religious people.

I never heard anyone poke fun at Mother Teresa …

there were those who disagreed with her about certain things,

but they always took her seriously.

I have never heard a joke about South African bishop Desmond Tutu …

despite a name that might be tempting to some …

Truthfully, even though we may sometimes worry about someone like Mary,

if they spend huge sums of money in generosity

while perhaps putting themselves at financial risk…

we don’t find that amusing, or make jokes at their expense.

It seems that, even if we disagree with particular points of view or courses of action,

we respect the courage of people who

live their faith in very real and risky ways.

People who put their lives on the line,

put themselves in harm’s way,

for the sake of their Lord and Savior.

People who have read the fine print,

and are out there living it.

And, speaking of our Lord and Savior …

No one in history has ever been more chosen of God

that Jesus Christ …

but look where it got him.

An agonizing death on a cross,

which he agreed to only because he loves us.

So, all you chosen people there in the pews …

what’s in the fine print,

that you haven’t yet seen, or haven’t wanted to see?

Do you need to worship more often?

Do you need to pray more often?

- I need that one …

Do you need to be more generous?

Do you need to witness to others?

Do you need to take more risks for God’s sake?

Where do you need to grow,

in order to show that you belong to God?

Check out your fine print.

If you can’t find it, check with God;

God will know what’s there.

Find out what you need to do.

And go for it!

It’s all the excitement, and the blessing, you will ever need.

Amen.

© 2004 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)