Since the Northern Illinois Synod Assembly for 2020 was postponed until 2021, a few of the presentations that were to happen during those two days together at Augustana College were turned into Zoom webinars. I recently participated in the Rev. Louise Johnson’s presentation: All Questions, No Answers: Navigating Change in an Uncertain World. Pastor Johnson serves as Director of Leadership Development for LEAD. I have known her since I began discerning my call to seminary. As the Associate Director of Admissions at Wartburg Theological Seminary she helped me navigate the admissions process and welcomed me to campus as a new student in the Summer of 2003. I have always appreciated her perceptive insight into the gospel call that makes the stories of Jesus come alive in new and stimulating ways today.
Pastor Johnson in helping us walk together through these uncertain times drew on an array of biblical texts and images. It was this first text in her talk that resonated deeply with the kind of imaginative persistence and creativity that I hope emerges amid the systemic challenges facing the church amid the pandemic and beyond this current crisis.
When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. 2 So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. 3 Then some people[a] came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” – Mark 2.1-5
As we reflected on this text from the second chapter of Mark, Pastor Johnson invited us to consider the logistics of carrying this paralyzed man and then imagine them coming upon this scene of a great crowed blocking the door. All their hard work and preparation only to run into another unforeseen obstacle.
The story tells that when they could not get in the front door they went up on the roof, dug through it, and lowered their paralytic friend down on the mat.
It is the creativity and persistence of these friends that eventually gets this paralytic to Jesus. And this persistence Jesus calls faith.
Life happens fast and with great urgency in Mark’s account. As Pastor Johnson said, “It’s only chapter two in Mark’s Gospel and already they are tearing the roof off to get to Jesus.”
In a telling insight for leadership in times of change Pastor Johnson reminded us that these friends could not have planned for the challenges they faced when the crowd blocked the door to the house. No amount of strategic planning would have involved tearing through the roof as option two in their pursuit to get their paralytic friend to Jesus. And yet, with ingenuity and urgent determination, they figured out how to get their mat-bound friend up on the roof, began digging, and lowered him to where Jesus was.
The image of tearing through the roof to get to Jesus sticks with me. I wonder about the new unthought ways of meeting the challenges before us today. What new actions become possible because old ways simply will no longer work?
I pray that the same creativity and persistence that guided these friends to see new possibilities when the world around them changed will invigorate our imaginative actions today. And by God’s grace may they be seen as faith.
Peace,
Pastor Robert Franek
Interim Associate Pastor
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