Bulletin 253 – Hungarian Goulash

We arrived in Budapest for the first time not knowing what to expect. We had been to Vienna, Prague, Paris and Rome but this capital city was a new experience. However, the excitement and anticipation of our son’s wedding in a couple of day’s time put a spring in our step as we walked from our hotel to a restaurant for our first taste of Hungarian food. Naturally I started with Hungarian Goulash Soup – excellent. At the end of the meal I was presented with a bill for 25,000. Once I had got up from the floor and converted it back into pounds sterling my composure returned and I started to get used to prices in Hungarian Forints.

It was in the grandiose setting of the Hilton hotel which stands high on a hill in the Buda district next to St. Matthias’ Church and the Royal Palace that I was to offer my contribution to the wedding ceremony. I would speak in English while my trusty companion broke in at pre-defined points with a translation in Hungarian. The wedding ceremony was fine however the speech I gave at the reception highlighted the stark difference between the English sense of humour and that of our Hungarian friends and relatives.

Still, the point of all this is not about happy memories but about how to offer the gospel in a setting like this. Our son, Andrew, enjoys an international life-style having worked in Vienna and now in Geneva for the United Nations. His wedding attracted people from all over Europe as well as India and Bangladesh. His wife is Hungarian and so there was a strong local presence too. So, there we had a group of 75 people from different ethnicities and backgrounds converging on a ceremony which was not overtly Christian. My challenge was to breathe the gospel into this setting.

Fortunately we had a couple of days before the wedding to meet some of the international guests and get to know them. There was one man from Geneva who had been seriously damaged by his experience of the Christian Church having been sent to a church school. There was a man from Hungary who, although he professed Christian faith, was more at home in Buddhism. There were some family members from the UK who, although vaguely sympathetic to church, were not regular attendees and are people who I would describe as ‘Ecclesiates Christians’ – more at home with the cynicism of this book’s approach to the world than the approach taken by St. Paul in his writings.

So how do you present the gospel to an audience as diverse as this in just a few minutes? I felt a little like St. Paul who said, “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” (1 Corinthian 9:22)

Firstly I avoided overtly religious language. During the wedding ceremony itself I focussed on St. Paul’s epic words in 1 Corinthians 13, paraphrasing somewhat to emphasise the perfection and timelessness of love and the need to underpin everything we do with love. Secondly I didn’t divulge the source of the words in the ceremony itself – I waited for people to ask me afterwards, thus allowing a fruitful conversation with those who had been touched by the words. This is in recognition of the fact that the Bible speaks for itself through the Holy Spirit – I am simply a mouthpiece. Also I didn’t want people to think I was ‘Bible-bashing’.

But throughout, the most important thing for me was simply to portray Christ as best I could through the person I am. The way you greet people – the way we accept them in a non-judgmental way – the way we show a meaningful interest in who they are rather than projecting who we are. The thing which attracted people to Jesus was that he was such a good person to be with. I am strongly influenced by the words of St. Paul who said, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1)

The religious elite who brought a woman to Jesus, baying for blood because she was an adulterous person, were eventually turned away, not by Jesus but by their own realisation of unworthiness in his presence. Jesus demonstrates clearly in this episode that his mission is not to condemn but to transform (or save). So it is with us. I remember Joel Edwards, former director of the Evangelical Alliance complaining that the church is too often seen as ‘a million wagging fingers’.

I hope that in my meagre attempts to convey the gospel to this international gathering, people went away saying of me ‘he was a good person to be with’ and someone with whom they would be comfortable to share their deepest needs without fear of condemnation.