Are you struggling with today’s news? Me too! I have copied below the sermon I wrote for today’s service at a church where I provide pulpit supply. I hope it will help you! The topic is on forgiveness, specifically forgiving societies and national leaders. I feel that this topic is quite relevant to the concerns of today’s world. Unfortunately, I was sick today and did not deliver this message in person, and so a fellow church member did a wonderful job bringing it to life on my behalf. However, I believe that the message of forgiveness is an important one, and I hope you find inspiration from my take on this topic. Thank you. Blessings, G.
Scripture: New Testament: Luke 23: 33-34
Sermon
Forgiving Societies/National Leaders
Good morning. Today is the final Sunday in the sermon series on forgiveness. We will be looking at forgiving a society or national leader who you feel has caused suffering. This is an extremely difficult type of forgiveness, because we often do not have control over decisions made by government leaders, even though those decisions may affect us negatively. For this reason, I believe that forgiving societal policies or governing officials is the hardest form of forgiveness, and perhaps is not always possible. However, we can look to both Jesus and to other devout Christians for examples of how to achieve forgiveness.
First, I would like to look at the words of Jesus from today’s scripture reading. As Jesus is being crucified for crimes he did not commit, he speaks the words, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” A short but powerful sentence. Jesus is forgiving the political and religious leaders who nailed him to the cross. He knows that they are ignorant of the enormity of the evil in their actions. Jesus’ forgiveness in his moment of suffering and death amazes me. How can I hope to replicate His actions and attitude? If I were in a similar situation, where my life was tormented or taken due to a political leader, could I forgive that person? Would I be able to follow the example of Jesus?
I would like to tell you the true story of a woman who did achieve the seemingly impossible, and followed the example of forgiveness demonstrated by Jesus. I met Irene Gut Opdyke when I was 14 years old while attending a reading for her book tour in May 2001. Mrs. Opdyke wrote a book entitled In My Hands, about her experiences as a resistance fighter during World War II. She was personally responsible for rescuing 16 Jewish people, at risk to her own life and safety. When I met her face-to-face while having my copy of her book signed, she took my face in her hands and whispered the word, “Beautiful.” I looked into her clear blue eyes and I felt a peace and calm come over me, as if I were meeting an angel. I will never forget that moment. Let me tell you more of her story.
Mrs. Opdyke was born Irene Gut in Poland on May 5, 1918. When Word War II began, she was 17 years old, and training as a nurse in a Polish hospital. The war took her across Poland to many locations as the country became occupied by the Russians and the Germans. Finally, she ended up working at a dining hall doing slave labor for the Nazis. Initially, Irene was unaware of the extent of violence and evil that the Nazis were enacting on the Jewish people. However, by age 20, Irene began to witness first-hand what the Nazis were capable of, and she dedicated herself to fighting against them. She began slowly at first, by smuggling food into concentration camps. Soon, she had the opportunity to expand her resistance.
While working at the dining hall, Irene gained the attention and favor of an older Nazi major, who I will call Major R. for ease of pronunciation. Irene used his affection to press her advantage in aiding the Jews in the nearby camp and ghetto. Eventually, Major R. asked Irene to move in with him as a housekeeper at a nearby villa. Irene set up the basement of the villa as a hiding place, and kept 13 Jews secret whom she had rescued from a murderous raid by the Nazis. However, one day she was caught with two of her Jewish rescues in the villa’s kitchen by Major R. She begged him not to turn herself and the Jews in to be killed. Major R. was furious, but he agreed to keep her secret if she would become his mistress. Irene agreed, feeling that she had no other choice, even though it was, as she described it, “shameful and humiliating.”
Throughout her recounting of the experiences of the war, and all the suffering she endured so that she might aid the Jews, Irene described a devout faith in God. There were periods where she wondered if God was around, due to the evil she was viewing, such as public executions. But Irene always came back to prayer and visiting churches whenever she was faced with tough situations. She never lost hope, and she never gave up on finding small moments of God’s love with her companions. Irene remarked more than once of the beauty of nature that God created which seemed untouched by the ravages of war. For example, the birds would still sing, and the seasons would still change. The day after Major R. took her as his mistress, the first thing Irene did was attend a mass at the local church. She said in her book, “I had God’s blessing, I was never more sure of anything.”
I believe that it was this intense faith in God, which sustained Irene during the perils and trials of World War II, that eventually led to a moment of forgiveness towards Major R. He had forced her to come with him while the Germans were retreating from the Russians at the end of the war. At night, while he was securing her a hotel room, she said, “In spite of everything, I felt grateful to him; he had helped me save many lives. I was already forgiving him for what he had put me through.” When Major R. left the hotel for the night, Irene escaped him, and joined the resistance guerilla fighters who were living nearby in the woods. They were the only people she knew who would look after her.
Irene began to confront her anger at the Germans and Russians for invading Poland by acting as a spy for the resistance. However, she felt uncomfortable with the violence of the guerilla army, and eventually left to look for her family. When her search for her loved ones was unproductive, she transitioned to working at a hospital for displaced Jews and used her old nursing skills. These steps aided Irene in a slow process of accepting her experiences in the war.
In a similar way, when we feel that forgiveness for a government is too hard to accomplish, we can take a step towards forgiveness through our behavior. Perhaps we cannot change the world, but we can have an impact such as the one Irene had. By following God’s will through righteous action, we free ourselves from the burden of anger in our hearts that can block forgiveness. We must let God hold our leaders accountable for their sins. It is only our job to take what action we can to combat injustices.
Irene Gut Opdyke eventually immigrated to America, and lived to age 85. She wrote her book as a response to Holocaust deniers in the USA. She began touring for her book, which was published in 1999, to remind Americans that the Holocaust was true and terrible. However, her overwhelming message was one of faith in God and she emphasized the love we must have for each other. In the dedication to her book the words, “Remember, love not hate,” stood out to me. She lived through tragedy, but she triumphed with a message of love and forgiveness despite it all. I encourage you to learn from her example. I am truly humbled by her story, and the life she led. God calls us close to Him, to live, love, and forgive like Him. If Irene Gut Opdyke can forgive a Nazi officer and let God work through her, we can follow in her wake in our everyday lives. Let us gain courage from the example of Jesus and His servant Irene, to act with a forgiving heart.
The Ladybug 