Calvin Synod Herald, 2017 (118. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2017-01-01 / 1-2. szám
4 CALVIN SYNOD HERALD room - to a special task. A task that if WE - if YOU - don’t do it, it won't be accomplished. Because WE - YOU - are placed in a special place in life where only YOU can touch certain people in a certain way, no one else can. Not everyone is called to do the same things in life, because we are all blessed with different talents and different gifts, different abilities. No tasks are more important than others - they are all part of God's plan, and all must be accomplished. I hope that at one point everyone here heard the voice of God with His Call to you, showing you how YOU can make a difference in this world for the better. He works through us - each of us. If you haven't heard it yet, begin listening - he has been catling you all along! At one point in his life Csaba Krasznai heard God's Call and for some reason he was listening and he responded. And ever since he has been on a journey that he would not have imagined before that day. 1 cannot tell you about his journey. Only he can tell you what he experienced, how many new things he saw, how the world changed from before he heard the Call and after he answered the Call. But I am sure he is a changed person because of it. Answering the Call to be a Pastor is not simply deciding on a job - a career - a vocation in life. One of the things pastors come to understand, whether they knew it in the beginning, is that they come into a special relationship with God. 1 am NOT saying they are now "more in God's favor". It is something else. Our Uncle James, in the third part of his letter to us, warns us about not taking our relationship with God without serious thought and contemplation: "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness." Ooops! Pastors are teachers. And Pastors, therefore, will be judged in all they do "with greater strictness! ” Well that's no fun! But that is something every pastor is faced with, and every pastor keeps in mind. At the same time, we have faith and knowledge that Christ died for OUR sins, still - we will be judged "with greater strictness." There will be a reckoning for pastors that is more severe if they do not take their vows seriously. Each of us must answer one day for his or her life, for their actions. Jesus' tells of the last Judgment in Matthew 25, when all mankind will be separated as to whether they obeyed Jesus' command and cared for others through active love. We tend to lean on the Gospel of John's writings. John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.", and John 11:25-26: "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die...." And we feel safe in the thought that if we simply believe in Jesus the Christ, this is like a "get out of jail free" card, freeing us from responsibility and allowing us to bypass "judgment". But this is not so! We are reminded of what Jesus expects of us in the letter written to us by our Uncle James, written well after John wrote to us, so he was aware of John's message. And our Uncle James writes in his second chapter: "What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So, faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead." The "Faith" - "believing in Jesus as Lord and Savior"- that John refers to is a "living faith", and an active Faith. If it does not produce fruit - as Jesus describes in Matthew- it is a "dead faith ". We might call on the name of Jesus, and profess we love Him, but Jesus asks us in Luke 6:46: "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?” Well, that is because, as James says, our faith is Dead! And if your faith is "dead", your "get out of jail free" card is no good. And so, it is with pastors. Our profession of "faith" which we make when we become a pastor requires us to be even more vigilant, because we will be judged in all we do "with greater strictness!" So, we come to the place where we are on this day. Csaba Krasznai committed himself to be a servant of the Lord, and he became "Rev. Csaba Krasznai". And now a new responsibility has been thrust upon him. Perhaps one he had contemplated before, but surely not one he had planned on "just right now," as it were. Those with whom he serves as a colleague asked him to be THEIR pastor, to be the leader and teacher of ALL the ministers and congregations in our greater church body, the Calvin Synod. And I am sure that he had to contemplate this. Was it only the invitation of his friends? Or was it God's Call, Calling him with his talents, his skills, his abilities, now, at this place, with this people? Rt. Rev. Dr. Csaba Krasznai understands being Bishop is not just an "honor," as many people seem to view it. For six months, he did the job when it was thrust on him from one day to the next. And I think he is aware of the feeling that past bishops have all come to feel, best expressed in the story of the man who was mobbed by the angry and ungrateful people in a village, tarred and feathered, and run out of town. When he was asked his thoughts about the incident, his reply was:
