Calvin Synod Herald, 1987 (87. évfolyam, 1-5. szám)
1987 / 5. szám
CALVIN SYNOD HERALD-4-REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA Words to a Son (An Ordination Sermon based on Acts 22:6-14) Believe me, it is not easy to preach at the ordination of my third, my youngest son. What to say and how to say it. How to tell him that I wish 1 could pass on not only my old robe but also all the worldly and divine wisdom of the more than 50 years of ministry, in Hungary, in Canada and in this country, in Hungarian and in American churches. I cannot pass it on. Everyone must learn by himself the worldly wisdom. But 1 can try to convey some of the divine wisdom I collected during my long ministry. To do so 1 will have to use God’s word. 1 do not compare you to Saul who eventually becomes apostle Paul. But through his story I can show you and show everybody, how one can become a tool in God’s hand. 1. ) Saul goes to Damascus with the idea to fight Jesus. To persecute him and all those who follow him and who believe in him. You came a long way to this day. In a way you were constantly fighting your call, your Lord, your destiny. In college you wanted to be a classical scholar and you majored in Latin and Greek. Then you changed your interest and decided to study a modern language and you earned a master’s degree in German. And then, although nobody in the family told you, you made a decision to go to seminary. So you went to Princeton. After one year in Princeton you felt that you can do more for your fellow human being if you do social work. Two years were enough of social work and you went back to seminary again, this time to Washingon D.C. Before you finished you received a two year scholarship to Hungary to study philosophy and political science. When in 1985 you returned from Hungary with your wife you found in Hungary, you accepted a call from the Springdale church and finished your seminary studies in the Pittsburgh Theologial Seminary. You arrived to your Damascus but in a roundabout way. You arrived to this point all the time wishing, hoping to do something else. A constant fight with your call. You wanted to do somethig else and the Lord wanted you to take up his yoke. But the Lord was with you all the time. He never let you go! 2. ) As Saul had an encounter with Jesus at the gate of Damascus, so did you have your encounter with the Lord. And as Saul and Jesus asked questions, so do you. a./ The first question was and is even today: "Why do you persecute me?” The interesting part is that Saul never answers this question. It stands as a fact without answer. And when the Lord asks us, everyone of us, including yourself, we have no answer. We all persecute the Lord when we disobey him, when we do not witness for him, when we trust only ourselves, our own wisdom, our own strength, our own plans, more than his. b. / But then Saul asks a question in the encounter: “Who are you Lord?” Who is Christ? Not according to some book, to someone's opinion, but really, who is Christ to us? To me, preaching, to you, waiting for the ordination, to you sitting in the pews. I cannot talk for you but for me, he is my savior who loved me so much that he gave his life for me. For me Christ forgave my sins, for me his body was broken. For me he shed his precious blood, for me and for you he died on the cross. For me and for you he rose and he stands in this church and in your heart and tells me and you that we are his and he is ours. c. / And then from the depths of his heart Saul cried out and asked the third question: "What shall 1 do, Lord?” I must confess that 1 asked the same question so many times in my long life. Oh, how many times we were on the ground at a damasquien gate. I didn’t know what to do. And the Lord’s answer is: “Get up and go!” It’s just that simple. Don’t just stay on the ground, don’t feel sorry for yourself, get up and go. There are so many things to do. 1 can be a witness to this, I can’t stop; there are so many things I can, I should, I must do for the Lord. 3.) The final question today is in our minds and hearts. All right Lord, 1 get up and I go but to do what!? And the Lord answered me and answers you, too. Get up and go: a. / First to follow me. We followed Jesus with my wife, your mother, all the time of our adult lives. And that’s what the Lord wants you also to do. I can tell you, and you know it, it wasn’t always an easy task. The Lord never promised a rose garden to his followers. Oh, yes, we had SOME ROSES on our way, we had our children, our congregations, but with the roses there were a lot of thorns. b. / Secondly, the Lord wanted me and wants you, to get up and go and obey him. And that is also a very difficult and bothersome job because we have to obey him even against our own wills. We have to do things we don’t want to do. We have to put ourselves in the second place, keeping the first place for Jesus. c. / Finally we have to get up and go and speak for him. Speak from the pulpit, speak his message. Speak as a Christian whenever you speak with anyone. Be a representative of the Lord. 1 could go on and give you all that is swelling now in my heart. But I cannot do that. But I can pray for you all the time. And that I will do with your mother as long as we live. (The preceeding sermon was preached at the ordination service of Daniel Borsay on October 16, 1987, by his father, The Reverend László Borsay, in Springfield, Pennsylvania. Daniel and his wife are the proud parents of a new baby girl, Naomi Heather, who was born just recently.)
