Loyalty to the few

[AI translation] In recent weeks I had to take flowers somewhere. I went to a nearby florist and picked out some beautiful roses. When the lady who was serving me wrapped them up and I paid, she wrapped up a rose stalk separately and handed it to me with a nice smile, saying. I was surprised. I said, "Please, I didn't ask for that! She just smiled and said that again: Thank you for shopping with us! And she handed me the rose. To this day, I still have the good feeling that this kind attention and polite thoughtfulness gave me. I felt like I had received a very big gift. And indeed I did: a drop of kindness from a stranger.This little experience reminded me of this Word that I read as a basic verse. Here again, it is about the little. The everyday little things in life that we ourselves, if we do them or fail to do them, do not notice them, attach little importance to them, but it is these little things that make life around us more beautiful or uglier, more pleasant or unpleasant. It is in this sense that I would like to take up this saying of Jesus: 'He who is faithful to the few is faithful also to the many; and he who is unfaithful to the few is unfaithful also to the many' (v.10).
This is important if only because in fact our whole lives are made up of little things, little things. And the so-called big things in life are also made up of little things. Many of you are probably familiar with the old adage that a couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary were asked by a guest or relative: "What was the secret of living in such a peaceful, happy marriage for 50 years? The man replied, "Simple! Fifty years ago we agreed that every little thing that came up in our lives would be decided by my wife and every big thing by me. And did we succeed?" continued the relative. Oh, yes, it was great, because for fifty years there had never been a really big thing in our lives! Well, there is a lot of truth in this old adage, even if it is a little humorous exaggeration. That it is in the little things that we spend most of our lives, and that it is in these little things that faithfulness is the secret of peaceful human coexistence.
I talk to a lot of people, I get insights into the inner problems of many family lives. I know how much people grind alongside each other in families and offices, how much they suffer from each other. And if you look at the reasons why, it usually turns out to be just little things. They ruin each other's lives with little things like little bad habits, and disregard for each other, or little misbehaviour and missteps in tone and behaviour. An annoyed voice, a disapproving remark to someone on the tram, in the queue at the shop: it's a small thing, and yet you've ruined the day of a stranger you may never meet again. I know someone who really has no malice towards his fellow human beings, only a manner so gloomy, so lacking in serenity, that there is a constant tension around him. Or some slight irresponsibility towards the other person, a lack of benevolent helpfulness. It's just that if a colleague approaches him about something, he simply shakes it off, saying: 'It's not my job, it's none of my business. Or that he secretly kicks the rubbish under his desk under the other person's desk: it's a small thing, but it's the kind of thing that slowly poisons the whole atmosphere in that office. Or, for example, a tiny little lie that you don't even notice anymore, a slight distortion of the truth. We tell something, but not quite as it happened, we add just enough or withhold just enough to make it seem more interesting, or to justify ourselves a little.
And it is such little disloyalties in small things that later become the great disloyalty! Especially in marriage! Perhaps it starts when husband and wife forget to kiss each other in the morning, when one goes to work. Then it continues with the husband forgetting to notice how carefully his wife has prepared dinner for him, and the wife perhaps forgetting to take an interest in the problems of her husband's work in the evening, so that a gulf slowly deepens between them, they become more and more indifferent to each other, and suddenly they realise that they have almost nothing to do with each other! Young or older husband, when was the last time you brought flowers to your wife? You, wife, when was the last time you stroked your husband's troubled head with the reassuring warmth of love? Little things, little things? Yes, they are! But it is on such little things that the happiness of your marriage may depend!
And do you know that our whole life of faith, whether it grows stronger or declines, depends most of the time on very small things? It depends on how faithfully we persevere in daily quiet time before God, in immersion in the Bible and in prayer. A person usually loses the vitality and strength of his faith, and eventually his whole faith, not because of some great calamity or because he has been in an unbelieving environment, but because of something much smaller, a little thing. It is not by neglecting his daily quietude that he is faithful to the little, the little eight or ten minutes in which he bathes his soul daily in intimate communion with God. It is no great thing, just a few minutes of intimate conversation with God, and yet how much depends on it. (Lk 16,10b) In other words, whoever is not faithful in this little, in this little thing, faithfully perseveres day after day, slowly loses his whole faith, his life of faith becomes false, false, that is, not real, only an appearance, only an imitation of the real.
Yes, so important and full of consequences are those certain little things! It is well known that many more pocket watches or wristwatches are ruined by a speck of dust getting between the wheels than by a blow. A speck of dust is not a big thing, it's a tiny little thing, but it makes the whole movement unreliable. Yes, a speck of dust is sometimes more dangerous than a blow. Especially the human soul is such a strange thing that when it is hit by a big blow, it usually tends to turn even more towards God. In a calamity, in a peril, in some great thing of life, it strives at once to be faithful! Yes! Much more than in the little events of life, in which one does not even realize how unfaithful one is! Or if one of our fellow-men is struck by some great calamity, or gets into trouble, even those who in the little things of everyday life have made his life so miserable with so many little bad words, envy, and drilling, try to turn to him with tenderness and helpfulness.
But why only then? As if we wanted to make up for some of the little wrongs we have done to others. Again we want to be faithful in the big, when we were unfaithful in the small. But being faithful in the big is not worth much to someone who has not been faithful in the small, because Jesus said, "He who is unfaithful in a little is unfaithful in much", he who is unfaithful in the small is unfaithful in the big! Or especially, when someone dies, we feel how much we loved him, how much we are indebted to him, what sacrifices we would be willing to make for him - but again, why only then? And why not until we could have shown that great love in the everyday little events of life? Why? Because it is harder to be faithful in the small things than in the big! It is in being faithful or unfaithful in the little things that our true self is revealed! In the big things, loyalty, tenderness, attention, kindness, helpfulness are impressive: it is a pleasing role - but only a role and a mask that looks good, that shows well - but in the small things there is no point in playing the role, there our true, unmasked self is revealed. There the real, the true loyalty or infidelity is revealed!
There are so many wounds in this human society, and so much need for people who can be faithful in just those few. That is, in whatever you can get your hands on. Someone once said that the most important time in our lives is the present moment, the present now, and the most important person for us is the one we are with! Use that moment faithfully with that person. So be faithful on this few! Faithful in the self-discipline, faithful in the sense of responsibility to help, faithful in taking advantage of the moment to do something good, faithful in the choice of expression. Jesus once said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35) The only way to prove your faithfulness is to do something for others! Something small. Not so big that if he falls in the Danube, you jump in after him. Such a big thing rarely happens in a person's life. It's something small. Here in the church, someone gave the other person a seat, held out his hymnal, in the boarding school, shined his partner's shoes, and the whole public spirit changed! Be faithful to the few, for "he who is faithful to the few is faithful to the many".
But is it enough to say, "Be faithful"? For we have just seen that we are not faithful! What does it mean to be faithful? Let me draw your attention to a strange but very simple truth. In the original Greek text, faithfulness and faith are expressed by the same word. In Hungarian, it is almost the same. For example: be faithful: we say the same thing: be faithful. Faithful, called: believer! Faithfulness and faith: same thing! But what is a believer? It is something like living my life in relationship with God, in communion with Him. In the Psalms there is a verse like this: "The time of my life is in your hands" (Psalm 31:16). So we accept it in the big things. But here, it is a question of putting all the time, every minute, every moment of my life in the Lord's hands! Consciously! Intentionally! With the knowledge that I am accountable to Someone for every minute, every word, every movement, every expression of my manners, my nature! Responsible, so I am responsible! Because I am held accountable. Not only for the big decisions of my life, but also for the little things! Everything!
So there is only one solution: to submit our whole life to the guidance of God's Holy Spirit! Not only the big things, but also the little things! The everyday events of life, the happenings, the decisions, the moments, the now! For Jesus died, rose again and gave us His Holy Spirit so that we could have such a real and permanent relationship with the living God. Whoever seeks to place himself more and more under the guidance of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, can meet the requirement of being faithful to the few! The little one! Even in things that seem insignificant! So, who is truly: a believer! He believes, he realizes by faith what Jesus promised: 'Behold, I am with you always, I may add, for it is fitting that I should be with you every moment and every minute, until the end of the world' (Mt 28,20).
Look: we can change little about the big things in life. We have no power to end war in the world, nor to put a stop to the moral decay that is overwhelming the world. But we can do one thing: we can take up the fight in our lives against the daily dust that, as I have said, makes the whole clockwork unreliable. We can cleanse ourselves of those certain little things and make sure that the grain of dust that tries to stick to our lives day after day doesn't stay there and ruin life around us. If we do this with faithfulness, we have already done a lot to make all human life around us more beautiful and pleasant! Sort of like our song says:
Fused together in love, Members of one body,
We can fight for each other, If need be, shed our blood.
So loved his earthly flock And died for us our good Lord;
It would grieve Him to see us, That we cannot love.
(Canto 395, verse 2)
Amen
Date: 18 August 1968.