[AI translation] The Mission Committee of our congregation has prayerfully received this Word, which is now being read, as the guiding principle for our congregation's mission program for 1965. It is in the light of this divine guidance that we would like to shape the entire mission program of our congregation this year. Accordingly, the main aim towards which we are striving is threefold, namely: to live out the inner spiritual unity of the congregation; to make our congregation aware of its unity with the whole Hungarian Reformed Church; and to increase the spiritual unity of our congregation with the universal Church of Christ. I would like to talk about this in more detail now, on New Year's morning.1) Let me read again how the Apostle Paul sees the church of Christ. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with him; whether one member be justified, all the members rejoice with him. And ye are the body of Christ, and members in part." (1 Cor 12:25-27) This passage seems to present the church from the inside, as if to give us a glimpse into the intimate life of the church. Seeing the church in this way, we must say that it is a true miracle! A miracle of the deepest community of love. There is no other human community on earth like it!
Of course, there are other communities among people. For example, common interest can also bind people together, and so a community of interests is formed. Or any other goal, idea or ideal can be a link between different people. Even a common hatred can be a force for community. Herod and Pilate, these two opposing authorities, found each other and became friends in their opposition to Jesus. But the church community is different from any other human formation. It is not only a common interest, a common ideal, a common goal that binds people together, but a Someone, a living person: Jesus! A common faith in the same Jesus! That is why in the Church all kinds of partitions that divide people are broken down. The differences of races and peoples, the differences of rank and position, the differences of wealth and culture which are the cause of so much trouble and warfare, are no longer obstacles to people understanding, loving and helping each other in the Church! The Church is the greatest miracle in this world! Whites and browns, blacks and yellows: they are all brothers and sisters! At the same communion table, the university professor and perhaps his chauffeur share the same hospitality! They all draw from the same source, they all hope for the same grace, they all hope for the same inheritance, they are members of the same body - brothers and sisters in the flesh in the strictest sense of the word, through the broken body and shed blood of Christ: brothers and sisters in the flesh. There can be no deeper, no closer, no purer union between human beings! This is the essence of the Church - from within! There is no more mystical and yet more real communion.
If this is so, nothing is more natural than this great warning of the Word: "Let there be no likeness in the flesh" (1 Cor 12:25a). And one of the most common of the internal dangers is the one which the Word warns against: obscurantism. That is, the internal rifts, divisions, discord, disunity that arise between members of the church, or between the different parts of Christ's church. The enemy of the church is not the one who considers it superfluous, but rather the one who disrupts its spiritual unity! He who, being a member of a congregation with the other members of the congregation, being a Reformed man with the whole Hungarian Reformed Church, being a Christian man, does not assume and work for spiritual communion with the universality of Christianity. Of course, the Church is not a community of angels, but a community of people, and a community of very, very poor people. And if someone has an objection to a bishop or a biblical community, for example, that should not be a reason for denying him spiritual fellowship in Christ! The Church is a community of love in which one must dare to speak openly and be able to accept criticism - if that criticism is truly born of brotherly love. Just "no likeness in the flesh!"
But this is only a negative. The same is said in positive terms: let each one do his best to work for the inner spiritual unity of the Church of Christ! Above all, here in the church, let us always try to look around us, when we are together, as if we were one big family! A believer in Christ is never lonely or alone, but is born into a new family community, the family of God, the church, precisely because of his faith in Christ. "(1 Cor 12:27) There is no other way to belong to the Head, to Christ, than to become a living member of His Body, that is, a community of other believers. Separated from this body, from the church, the Christian believer is as helpless as a lonely candle burning in a storm: he falls into temptation. No one can live a life of faith outside the blood-circulation of the body of Christ, in isolated solitude, separated from the community, from worship, from communion, from one another's faith and prayer, separated from the mutual intercourse and strengthening of the brethren. So let us try to get to know each other as much as possible, as we often sit so indifferently on Sundays, to rejoice in each other, to relate to each other not as strangers but as brothers and sisters, to contribute to making this congregation a true community of love.
But let us be careful: community of love does not mean that I benefit from it, but that the other benefits from me. Do not expect me to be here to love you, but to be here to love you! First of all, the concept of community of love does not refer to what I can receive from the brethren, but to what I can give. Love always wants to give! It does not live by income, but by expenditure. Not by what it receives, but by what it gives. And whoever complains that there is no love among the faithful in the church, should first examine himself: how much love has he contributed to make it so?! Whoever does not bring to the congregation his own prayer, his own love, his own service, his own heart, will never truly experience the blessing of the community of the congregation. For it is always in working for others that you yourself are strengthened, in comforting others that your heart is enlightened, in helping others to Christ that you yourself draw near to Him. (1 Cor 12:26)
2) But we need to deepen the spiritual unity of our congregation not only with the members of our own congregation, but also with the whole Hungarian Reformed Church. Our congregation is not a grouping for its own sake, but a part of the universal Hungarian Reformed Church, one of its members. We must participate in the life and work of the universal Church with a heightened sense of responsibility. During the past two decades, our universal church has come to many new insights into the place and ministry of the church through much real prayer and Bible study. These teachings have now become the convictions of a wide section of the church. In spiritual communion with our universal Church, we too see the gracious God's work of history in the new situation of our people, and we accept it with gratitude from His hand. Not as a historical episode, but as a historical necessity. We understand more and more that the Church of Christ has a place and a mission in the life of what we consider to be our sweet homeland! We are understanding more and more that the Church is not for itself, but precisely as the body of Christ: representing the invisible Christ, projecting him into the world through his life and ministry.
The Church is the leaven of the coming kingdom of God in the world. The leaven is not the end in itself, but the end: the bread. That is, to make the world into tasty, enjoyable, nourishing bread. To this we are called. Not to pious piety, but to participate in every endeavour that seeks the truth of the kingdom of God, that is, peace, mutual respect, a better living for all people on earth. Jesus lived among us as a real man and lived for those around him, regardless of who or what those people were. He healed their illnesses, fed them, shared in their sufferings and joys, told them how to live among themselves so that they could be happy.
But he also told them that all this life on earth is only a view of realities from a certain angle, that behind it is eternal life. Behind human order and justice there is the kingdom of God and its justice, behind human misery there is the happiness of salvation. It is this Christ that the Church proclaims to the world through the living word, through obedient service in every good cause, through the practice of love without discrimination and, if necessary, through suffering! This is the way we are going, in spiritual communion with the whole Hungarian Reformed Church.
3) And finally, on an even broader scale, we also want to live our spiritual communion with the universal Church of Christ ever more deeply in the New Year! It is about what we have been hearing more and more in recent times, what that strange word means: ecumenism, or ecumenical endeavour. Christ has one Church! Not two, or three, or twenty-five, or a hundred, but one! This one church is the body of Christ, and every believer who confesses Christ as Lord is in fellowship in this church. All believers in Christ together form one body, one big family community. All believers are Christians, no matter what adjective they wear. There are, of course, Reformed Christians, Roman Catholic Christians, Evangelical Christians, Baptist Christians, etc. But Reformed, Roman Catholic, Evangelical, etc. are only adjectives - and Christian is a noun. Let us not change this order! The unity of the Church cannot be broken by the fact that it has several forms of expression. Although, unfortunately, Christianity is fragmented, the unity of the Church of Christ cannot be broken up by different church walls! It may happen that children of the same family are intermarried, they may move apart, but that does not remove the fact that they are brothers and sisters! This is how the mystical bond of brotherhood remains between those who, although according to different rites, in different churches, address the same God as "Our Father"! They are all one flock, the flock of one Shepherd. Not uniformity, but unity, spiritual unity! It is obviously the work of the Holy Spirit of God that today this ecumenical vision is increasingly growing in all Christendom.
So: to live the inner spiritual unity of our congregation, to live the unity of our congregation with the Hungarian Reformed Church, and to live the unity of our congregation with the universal Church of Christ. This is our most precious gift and our greatest task in the New Year!
Amen
Date: 1 January 1965.
Lesson
Zsolt 121