31 Comments

The sermon is amazing. The Grace of our Heavenly Father goes beyond any imaginable. It makes Jesus while on the cross say to the one (probably a murderer ) crucified beside Him: “today you shall be with me in paradise“!! That man wasn’t baptized, didn’t speak a conversion prayer and what not. I love the Lord!!

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Timely for me. In 2 days, I will once again go through the agony of a parole hearing for a multiple murderer who killed the family of my best friend. I have struggled for years with the inability to forgive him. I have finally turned that over to God and forgiven myself for not being able to forgive. Grace abounds.

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Wonderful thoughts. Loved the ending. It is not used very often at the church I attend. It speaks to me. I crossed myself upon reading it.

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One of the most personally powerful sermons I have ever absorbed. I keep coming back to it and I have written a new serenity prayer based on it:

Lady Wisdom, grant me, please

The serenity to accept that I do not need to change

The courage to be unafraid of my failures

And the wisdom to enjoy my forgiveness

Thank you!

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Dear Nadia, you really were on your drive for exorcising. I felt a demon casted out in me while reading. The bad spirit in whose hell I dwell too often.

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“Christianity isn’t supposed to be about controlling the masses, Christianity is supposed to be about raising the dead.” Now that’s a great line.

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I am full of compassion and love and forgiveness for everyone apart from myself. The bit about the devil and the old garbage spoke to me and is something I am very familiar with. It was good to hear it articulated in this way. The messages can be so subtle and pretty constant sometimes it hard to know it is not fact. Thanks for sharing this sermon. 🙏

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“...forgiveness for everyone apart from myself” Oh how well I understand THAT, Emma. After listening to Nadia’s sermon, I wrote my own Serenity Prayer. Maybe it will help you too:

Lady Wisdom, grant me, please

The serenity to accept that I do not need to change

The courage to be unafraid of my failures

And the wisdom to enjoy my forgiveness

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Hi Adrienne, thanks so so much for sharing. I love it. I don't write prayers enough or add to the ones I know. Beautiful beautiful

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Foregiveness? I cannot or maybe I will not. On the 1st of May I saw a male priest sexually assault a young teenage altar server three times during the recessional—he had not even left the church or removed his vestments. The church handled it badly—CYA. At 8 weeks, I called the police myself. What he admitted to them was creepier than what I saw. How can his hands hold Jesus and within minutes do this? I have never gone back to this church. Now I worship with Ukrainians in Ukrainian. All I can do is pray because I am language illiterate.

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I just wanted to thank you for speaking up...and share that in my experience there is often a cost to pay for those doing the right thing. So sorry it happened but very glad you were there and took action. I pray your peace is restored.

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Judith--I hear you. As powerful as Nadia's sermon is here, I think the follow-on question is: and yet we sometimes do indescribably horrible things to each other and what then? How do repentance and forgiveness interact? And do actions have consequences? I think one of the most powerful things that has happened in my lifetime is South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation project: recognize evil was done and actively create a way of forgiveness and reconciliation. In truth, I recognize I want there to be some kind of punishment for evil deeds. Do I want there to be an eternal Hell? Not really; eternity is an awfully long time for even evil deeds done during a finite life. But I know finite me doesn't really want an easy forgiveness for horrible acts that ruined the finite life of someone else. A friend of mine, a pastor, was raped while in jail by a police officer when she was arrested at a civil rights protest in the '60's. I asked her: is forgiveness possible without repentance? She said "That's the big question, isn't it?" She went on to say that she had to forgive the officer, even though he never repented to her, in order to get on with her life. I thank God I'm not expected to be God, but I don't really know how to put all these pieces together.

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Check our Rabbi Danya Ruttenburg's new book, On Repentance and Repair - it's quite good.

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Thanx for this suggestion.

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Had I been there, I would have shouted "Amen"! Seems as though that is a very un-Lutheran way to respond. 😊💕

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Had I been there ins person, I would have shouted "Amen"! But I guess Lutherans are too reserved to do that. 😊

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Facing my fears about forgiving my father, this hit home. Thank you.

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I love this. So needed in today’s world ❤️

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I particularly love this sermon as it has deep meaning for me. I was struck by this passage

Sometimes at the center of my own maze I get stuck in tide pools of resentment toward myself and others - stuck swirling in an eddy of my own remorse. Caught in the shame of both what I have done, and what has been done to me. Trapped in thinking that I will never be more than who I was in my worst moment. And those who have harmed me will always be who they were in their worst moment.

Caught in the shame of both what I have done AND WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO ME

And suddenly the title takes on double meaning for me.

Enjoy your forgiveness

- That which is given to you by God for what you have done (and not done)

Enjoy your forgiveness

- As you forgive those who have sinned against you.

And I want to live into the second meaning. I want to enjoy the forgiveness of what has been done to me. I find forgiveness easy when it comes with reconciliation. But when there is no repentance and there can be no reconciliation, forgiveness is so hard. How do we forgive the unforgivable? How do we learn how to lay that burden down. We were never meant to carry it and it is so heavy.

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Simply: WOW! Keep waking up at 3 AM- it will save us all! ✌🏼💜Bob Kantner

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This was very helpful. I am very grateful for your ability to teach grace so personally. More that this, you were present for my now 44 year old daughter when she was a confused middle school camper several summers at Rowe Camo in MA in the 1990's. I only found you recently but my daughter remembers you warmly. This is probably the wrong place for this message but I am a bit of a luddite. Forgive me, Many thanks, Robin Capoor, mother of Reykha of the cutest toes.

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Robin, I totally remember Reykha - what a beautiful girl. Please give her my best!

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Thanks so much for this love and wisdom. Exactly what I needed. I am curious about the sermon you scratched though lol

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