Rev. Balázs is minister of UUCF's Transylvanian partner church, the Unitarian Church of Szentgerice (Galateni), Romania. This sermon was translated from Hungarian by Emery Lazar.
My dear brothers and sisters of Fairfax!
I am standing in front of you today with a peculiar feeling. Do you know of whom I would like to create a true likeness today? Of you, the UU Congregation of Fairfax. I am sure that many of you will be prompted, justifiably, to harbor this thought: How weird, this stranger wants to introduce us to ourselves? Excuse me, but I will use my prerogative as a guest to give it a try. So, I will proceed.
In a sermon recently delivered here I heard this admonishment: We should slow down the fast pace of our daily lives, so that we can find time for our spiritual nourishment and growth. This is demanded by our so-called "holy striving for perfection," this is what will allow us to progress and attain fulfillment in our lives. I know this to be true, and I, too, am advocating it. I hold the person who recently urged you to put more emphasis on spiritual growth in such a high esteem that I would not dare to engage in a debate with him. But please allow me to tell you how I, personally, and we in Szentgerice, think of you. We, as outsiders, respect you--among other things--for your calmness, patience, and thoughtfulness toward others--your lives do not reflect a spirit of lack of caring or indifference.
You have amply demonstrated that you care about what is happening to your fellow human beings, and this is the most beautiful character trait one can have. Ever since I have been in contact with American partner congregations, and especially you, here in Fairfax, I am reminded of this parable of Jesus:
A man is walking on a road connecting two locations. His appearance, body movements, his entire presence radiates momentum, resoluteness, a sense of purpose. From one minute to the next, all of this momentum and resoluteness come to a sudden halt, with the semblance of being destroyed. The walking man is attacked by highwaymen, robbing him of all his belongings and leaving him lying in blood on the dusty road. The broken and humiliated man is in effect an SOS signal, which remains unrecognized by two passers-by, a priest and a teacher. They are hurrying to do their thing: to pray at church, to teach prayer at school; that is their work and their responsibility. That is what they think and how they act, not realizing that the most beautiful prayer is helping those who are in trouble. Many people hide their indifference under the slogan, "I do not have time." I would like to whisper into the ears of such people: "You don’t have a soul--you are not suffering from lack of time but from lack of soul."
A third man, a stranger, arrives at the scene. This stranger bends down, lifts up the robbed victim, and returns him to life, to his loved ones. A person willing to help is able to bend down to assist his fellow human being lying in the dust. True human compassion doesn’t know the impossible, it forms a bridge across the ocean, it knows how to communicate in spite of unfamiliarity with a strange language. True prayer is love; it is not words, which fly away; it is a manifestation of life-ennobling caring for others.
Thus, the most beautiful prayer is to take notice of, to help, our fellow human beings. When you turn toward Szentgerice and try to lift us up, helping us to forget our deprivation, I believe you are uttering the most beautiful prayer, in silence, from the bottom of the soul. You are validating the saying of the ancient Greeks, "a deed speaks more beautifully than any word." In effect, through your deeds you have given us confidence and hope for our future.
Communism, the highwayman of East Central Europe, was seemingly rich in ideology but evil in its implementation. It deprived us not only of our freedom, but robbed us of our centuries-old heritage, and of the secure existence that we had created through hard work and sweat. It also took away and nationalized our church properties under the slogan, "everything belongs to the people."
This catastrophe has held back generations from development and progress. To quote our poet, Sándor Kányádi, "they stupefied us back into the past," our hope for the future was near destruction. One of the reminders of this hopelessness is present here today. Don’t get a false impression of me--I am happy now--, but it is a sad reality that when I learned a variety of things in school, it was not even imaginable that knowing English would be an advantage at any time in my life. Now I am 40 and something, and I can only say this much, "zee Inglish lengvitch iz veri difikult."
You are all familiar with the political happenings in Romania in 1989. But real freedom, the real change, came from here, from America. You not only noticed us, but you extended your hands and hearts across the ocean, you awakened in us our human dignity. All your manifestations, your thoughtfulness, your generosity--and let’s not forget to mention the love with which the choir is preparing for the Transylvanian concert tour--each of these is a hymn through which God says, "I am coming into your lives."
Did you recognize yourselves? Did you see yourselves reflected in this light? Was I able to help you get acquainted with yourselves more completely? If the answer is "yes," I am very happy.
For a few moments, I would like to go further: You not only influenced us spiritually and materially, but also helped us in our relation towards others. In our literature, there is a beautiful poem-I will now call it a sequence of thoughts:
It is not enough to want to do good,
One must do what is good,
It is not enough to do what is good,
One must call others to do what is good.
Yes, you are calling us, through your example you are motivating us to do what is good. To illustrate this, I will cite two examples:
In 1998, a huge natural catastrophe--a crop-destroying hail--struck certain parts of Transylvania, including Unitarian villages. Our bishop sent a letter to each parish, requesting generous donations to help the victims. After discussing this within the congregation, we decided to send our relief contribution in the form of agricultural crops. We scheduled this relief effort for a Sunday afternoon; 6 teams of farmers agreed to work 2 hours each to accomplish our goal. During the church service earlier that morning, I talked to my congregation about the assistance we had received through your selfless generosity in Fairfax. In the course of the communal work in the afternoon, I visited each team of volunteers, and I heard the feedback from the working farmers. The essence of their remarks was this: "Let us give generously, because we, too, are happy when we receive donations from the Americans. If our friends in Fairfax had not helped us, we would have had to contribute much more to fix the church steeple; let us thank them at least in this way." I am proud to be able to tell you that Szentgerice contributed as much to this relief effort as 15 other church parishes combined. And the magnitude of our success is largely attributable to your example of generosity.
The second example is from my personal experience. In Marossárpatak, a village located near my former congregation in Székelykál, there is a nursing home where I used to visit an elderly woman for years. Fourteen years ago--still during the Ceausescu regime--, on Christmas Eve, I was thinking about the residents of this nursing home, whether anyone remembered these unfortunate people who, prior to their confinement, had lived their lives with their families, for their families. After the church service, my parishioners and I jointly decided: "Let’s make a trial visit to the nursing home." That initial visit resulted in a permanent program; during all major holidays, we visited the residents and brought them home-made baked goods and other presents, according to the particular holiday.
When I assumed my ministerial post in Szentgerice, I left this idea with my successor as a bequest, and he promised to continue the visits but didn’t follow through. I turned to my colleagues representing different denominations, told them what a beautiful and uplifting experience it was to visit the nursing home, and that any of these visits really sanctified the holiday and constituted the true church service, but nobody went to visit the nursing home. I am ashamed now that at that time I was thinking along these lines: "I now live far away from the nursing home, it is no longer my business to visit there." And then, when I received my first salary supplement from you--which I now would like to thank the Fairfax congregation personally--this thought passed like lightning through my soul: "Fairfax is much farther away from me than I am from the nursing home." Therefore, I neglected this holiday-ennobling act only once, and never again.
Your silent, beautiful prayer is reflected in the bread of Muzsna (the village where Szentgerice’s hail-relief effort was focused), in the listless but thankful glance of a resident at the Marossárpatak nursing home, and I could cite numerous other examples.
Your generosity emboldens me to ask you, "Let us contemplate together the following: The most beautiful deed is when we help those who are not yet or no longer able to help themselves." The concept of establishing a facility for orphans has been waiting for over a year now to emerge into the light, in the land of freedom. Here, everything can be realized which ennobles the world of humankind. I believe that this will not be an exception; it will be created through our loving collaboration.
May God bless you; I thank you for everything, and not in the last order for the opportunity to be here with you today. Thank you! Amen.