Dear friends, what do you think is the answer to the question “What God expects from a man”? Which commandment is the greatest of all? It should be clear to us … but sometimes, we are like the scribe, who needed to ask Jesus this question. He asked because he had no right idea of God, for he probably didn’t know God as well. Maybe God was for him as a business partner, maybe dealer but not healer. God has our life in His hands. But, He is expecting something from us. Love. He is waiting for us to love Him and also our neighbor. If we do not love Him, if we do not love our neighbor any of our “sacrifices” are totally useless. Whether you like it or not, it is true. Everything we have comes from God. God has given us everything and He can take everything anytime. All that we really can give to Him is love. Honest, true, visible love in our life, in our deeds, in behavior toward others. It should be in everything we do. It is good to love and be loved. And this should be in our churches as well. Last week pastor Doug and I were on training of Building Capacity for Synod Antiracism Teams and it took place at the ELCA Churchwide Office (Lutheran Center) in Chicago, IL.

Unfortunately, only about 50 delegates from several ELCA synods were there. I am very grateful to have been able to take part in such training. The Lutheran Church in Slovakia (later just ECAV) does not do such training. Even if the pastors meet, they mostly take a passive participation and if so, they talk about secular things and not about community. When they are dealing with some important issues the president is a bishop, and most of the time he is the coordinator. What surprised me about training in the US is how it is the opposite. Although we had this training in a building where bishop’s office is, she did not participate in this training, nor did we see her – the pastors in the groups were discussing, opening some questions, dealing with them and the outcome of these meetings moved further. I am very glad that pastors of the ELCA accepted me as one of them. They wanted to hear my opinion on this subject, what position I had and what I thought the church in America could do. At the beginning, each of us had their 2 minutes of fame. So, I introduced myself as well. What was most shocking for them was the fact that this kind of training is not enforced in  Slovakia, nor in Serbia. In Serbia, the training is done by the pastor on his own – it is sad, but it is true. In Slovakia, when it comes to embracing and discussing issues like the ones we did here in US, you will find some people who will immediately hit your head with Bible and tell you that it is unbiblical that it is not in accordance with the teaching of the church. – it is so sad.

My church in Serbia is a historic church. Why is it historical when all the churches are historical? Slovaks in Serbia, or from the former states, in the Slovakian areas survived thanks to the church. It was the church that tried to keep the Slovak language far from the Slovak land in the time of Hungarianization of the population. Some of the churches were succumbed to Hungarianization or they later assimilated. Some of the churches in today’s majority in Serbian areas are the only place where Slovak language can be heard – but only as a liturgical language (liturgy is in Slovak language and sermon in Serbian) . The majority of the population – the Serbs – are Orthodox, the Hungarians are mostly Catholics or Calvinists, and the Slovaks are Lutherans – according to these religions, the people of Vojvodina will know which nation you belong to. It would be good to cooperate with all nationalities more intensely, although there may be a risk of losing the Slovak language not only as a liturgical but overall as a language from Vojvodina, because such a problem appears in denominations in Slovak environments that bring foreign language into worship (Serbian) and, in fact, they become Serbs – even though they don’t know that. (I’m talking from my own experience). The church in Slovakia does not seem to have such problems. Everything is in perfect harmony. However, it has many open questions ahead and no answers. On the margo of my Chicago training, it is nice that the Lutheran church wants to work with the Roma people – it is even one of the questions before the ordination “whether I am willing to work with the Roma people” – but to be honest: is there a church in which the Roma people belong? I personally met with the pastors who never had contact with the Roma people in church during the service or other church activities in their lifetime. So, it seems that Roma people did not want to be in contact with the church, or they are already belonging to some denomination. However, if you do not know anything about the Roma, I will give you a brief description. Roma are a group in Slovakia that is not very well accepted. Most of them are labeled as African-American people in America were back in the day – as thieves, robbers, the lower layer, those who get the worst jobs. If the church really wanted to work with the Roma people, it should actually prove it is working on it. As the Apostle James says: Faith without works is dead … so the words about working with the Roma people are just words without deeds. In other words, the ECAV in Slovakia is afraid of the Roma people. This is just one open question to which I do not hear the answer to, or I do not see the answer – the result. I have nothing against the Roma people. I have a very good Roma friend, who works in our Seminar. In Serbia we also have family friends who are Roma and they are honest people.

I am very glad that I could be at this Chicago training. That I could hear the testimonies of African-American pastors who serves in ELCA. That they shared their story with us. I met the nicest people here. God bless them!

ps. I wanted to share with you my thoughts from this training, so events that happened last week will be mentioned next time.