All the Stories Are All Our Stories

When I came home from work on February 1st, the first day of Black History Month, I found a package at my front door. I didn’t place any recent orders and was not expecting anything, so it was a surprise.

Upon opening the box, with some anticipatory excitement, I saw that this was a gift from a dear friend. It was the book Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African American, 1619-2019, edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain. I had read about this book and watched some book promotional interviews with Dr. Kendi so was eager to check it out when it published. Now, here it was on my table on the day of its publication.

The book it divided into ten sections each covering a forty year span of time with a different author writing a brief essay on something significant during each five year period. Each section then concludes with a poem summarizing the themes of that era.

Eighty authors and ten poets then comprise the writing of this volume. And as Dr. Kendi explained in one of his interviews, so much of history is written from the perspective of one man. One man simply cannot tell the story of such a diverse people. The essayists in Four Hundred Souls represent a diverse array of professions, geography, and perspectives. They give us a new way of telling the story of our past.

Last weekend I read the first section in Four Hundred Souls. I grieved the past did not know and was never taught in school. I was glad to learn about these first forty years of African American history, notably starting one year before the famed 1620 and the Mayflower with instead 1619 and the White Lion.

I look forward to reading the rest of Four Hundred Souls for its storytelling of so much that has not been told in our singular voice his-story history. It is refreshing to read from a choir of voices gathered for this collective.

I hope and pray that this Black History month is the beginning of a renewal that continues forever and ever. We need to put aside calendrical tokenism and embrace the truth that Black history, indigenous history, and all the rest are undeniably and inextricably American history. We cannot talk about the Mayflower without first confronting the awful truth of the White Lion. And so on from there.

A recent meme I saw on Facebook reads: White supremacy won’t die until white people see it as a white issue they need to solve rather than a Black issue they need to empathize with.

For too long too many have seen white supremacy as limited to the KKK, Jim Crow, and the awful events that happened in Charlottesville in 2017. But white supremacy is much more subtle than these overt expressions. It is not telling the story of the White Lion in schools when I was a kid. It is seeing white as the norm and everything else as different, an other. It is a system of policies and a caste structure that is the air we breathe, the water we swim in, and the culture we absorb from the youngest of ages.

Dr. Kendi concludes his introduction to Four Hundred Souls: “I don’t know how the community has survived—and at time thrived—as much as is has been deprived for four hundred years. The history of Black America has been almost spiritual. Striving to survive death that is racism. Living through death like spirits. Forging a soulful history. A history full of souls. A soul for each year of history. Four Hundred Souls.

As people of faith we are bound up and together by the waters of baptism that unite us across every form of division that we construct by God whose face is manifest in every person we meet.

Kendi and Blain have given us a template in Four Hundred Souls for a new way of telling the stories of the past with a choir of voices that we may know them anew today. May we hear them as part of our collective and shared past and not as something set apart for a special month. May this soulful history help us recognize and dismantle the white supremacy that has persisted for four hundred years too long.

Peace,

Pastor Robert 

Service of Lament and Observance of Christ the King

 “This liturgy is intended to move us from lament to hope.”

As co-chair of the Northern Illinois Synod Worship Committee I have the privilege of working with a dedicated team in planning worship for our life-together as people and congregations of the Northern Illinois Synod. In collaboration with our synod staff, we are pleased to offer this Service of Lament and Observance of Christ the King.

Over the course of these now more than eight months of living in this pandemic there is much to lament: the sickness and death from Covid-19, the economic impacts on families and businesses, the loss of rituals for celebrations and grief, the fatigue of online meetings, the stress on daily life in an anxious and uncertain world, and so much more.

This service is an opportunity to name the laments we share collectively and those that are personal. And in naming our laments, we remember God’s faithfulness in the past as a sign of God’s faithfulness for us now and turn our hearts toward hope in God’s presence with us and promise to deliver us again.

As Bishop Jeffrey Clements has said, “This liturgy is intended to move us from lament to hope.”

In the sermon, Bishop Clements helps us move from lament to hope in a conversation with his pastor the Rev. Dr. Janet Hunt, First Lutheran Church, DeKalb, IL, with Psalm 13 as a guide.

Synod staff are the primary leaders of this service with music coming from congregations throughout the synod including Bob Rub and St. Mark singers who provided the music for the Gathering Hymn in this service. We are grateful for their music offering and all who contributed to this service.

I invite and encourage you to experience this Service of Lament and Observance of Christ the King as a way to move from lament to hope in your own life and share in our life-together as people of God in the Northern Illinois Synod. 

This worship service is available for streaming at the Northern Illinois Synod YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/_Px-ra4pswY

Peace,

Pastor Robert

God's Relentless Pursuit for Workers in the Kingdom

The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who when out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. - Matthew 20.1

The Men’s Bible study resumed this week with a study of Matthew chapter 20. The chapter opens with this familiar parable of the laborers in the vineyard. We often remember it for its punch at the end when the workers are paid in reverse order of when they were hired and all are given the usual daily wage. It was the wage agreed upon by those early morning workers for a day’s work and the payment given for even the eleventh-hour workers so that they would have sufficiency to meet their needs. It’s a parable of justice and grace.

However, I don’t think we often pay close enough attention to the behavior of the landowner in this parable. This landowner goes out early seeking workers for his vineyard. This is to be expected. But then this landowner keeps going every few hours in search of more laborers for his vineyard. At nine and noon, three and five the landowner goes out again and again hiring workers.

If I put on my business hat for a moment, I have to wonder if this landowner is incredibly bad at knowing how many people to hire for the work that needs to be done. But human resource management is not the problem for this landowner.

The landowner is relentlessly in search of workers to go out into the vineyard. There is plenty of work to be done and the landowner will always have room for more workers who will each receive the wage they cannot earn.

Can you believe it? It is simply never too late in the day for this landowner to go out seeking more workers. Even at the eleventh-hour workers are being sent out into the vineyard.

Perhaps there have been times in our lives when God’s grace has found us at the eleventh-hour, surprising, unexpected, and abundant.

The good news for us is God’s continued pursuit for workers in God’s own vineyard. The surprise is in the payments which all turn out to be the same, sure. But also, in our God who spends the whole day getting laborers for the vineyard and giving us along with all the workers in the vineyard the joy of work in the kingdom of God.

Together we as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are known at the “God’s Work. Our Hands.” church. All our hands are needed in the vineyard of God’s kingdom. God has called you to this work and through you is calling others to join in tending this vineyard.

God is never done seeking out new workers. Our joy is in the labor for we have already received the grace we cannot earn.

Peace,

Pastor Robert Franek

Interim Associate Pastor

Tearing through the Roof: Creativity and Persistence

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

Glad to Be with You

Grace to you and peace, people of St. Mark,

It is good to be walking with you following Jesus’ call to take up our cross in the way of discipleship and neighbor-love. As we now walk together in partnership living out the hope of our calling and sharing the good news of God’s love and grace in Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit let me introduce myself to you.

Though I was born in North Dakota and lived in a small rural town for seven years, I primarily grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Even as a young kid, I quickly found a home and a welcome in my congregation that I did not have at school, where I loved learning and hated recess. I grew up in a small congregation with an eclectic mix of members and friends. There were some 40 to 60 at worship on Sundays. I loved my years assisting as an acolyte and washing the communion ware. Some of my best Saturday nights as a teen were spent trimming candles and changing paraments!

Though quite active in my congregation growing up serving on the altar guild and mowing the lawn with my dad, I never imagined going to seminary. I even began college with a declared major in accounting. Nevertheless, I knew from the sixth grade that I wanted to go to a college of the church for the connection of faith and learning. Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota (class of 2003), eventually emerged as the community that had the right fit for me.

I intentionally took an introductory liberal arts class from a religion professor in my second semester. One day maybe six weeks into the class I asked him about what the requirements were for a religion minor. He said, “You’re a religion major, start planning now.” His perception was greater than my awareness at the time. I was quite happy with my business classes but enjoyed what I was learning in my biblical studies and theology classes. In the spring of my second year, a theology and ethics course sealed the deal for me, and I added religion as a major.

I graduated from Wartburg Theological Seminary in 2007 but was around for another year while in the call process. During that time, I began studies towards a second masters degree in theology and worked in the admissions office coordinating campus visits and other projects.

After completing my internship at Immanuel Lutheran in Dixon, Illinois, I returned to the Northern Illinois Synod in July 2008 for my first call at Faith Lutheran in Wataga. I served there for over ten years. In the fall of 2018, I moved to Rockford to begin serving as the interim pastor for Emmanuel Lutheran where I was until January 2020.

I have heartily embraced the identity of “church nerd” over the years. In addition to being active in the life of the congregation where I grew up, I always sensed a connection to the Rocky Mountain Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as a denominational institution. I have been subscribed to ELCA news releases since I had my first email address in high school. Over the years I have been especially attentive to the development of the Social Statements and Social Messages of our church. I enjoy synod and churchwide assemblies. I have been a frequent visitor at churchwide assemblies and one-time voting member (2013), and I tell people my favorite nonliturgical season is synod assembly season. I am always inspired by the ministry we do as church together for the sake of the world. I currently serve on the Synod Council, as co-chair of the synod worship committee, and as a member of the Rostered Ministers Continuing Education team for the Northern Illinois Synod.

Perhaps it was being raised in a home with parents who are social workers that primed my interest in public policy advocacy. My dad was the county director for family services for all my growing up years in Cheyenne. I learned about the privilege I had being in a loving home, not having to worry about my next meal or when the public assistance funds would come each month. So, when I heard about the ministry of Bread for the Word in seminary and the impact of scale that public policy has compared to charitable efforts, I was hooked. Over the years I have continued to learn and grow in how to make the connections between faith and public life. For most of my years in ministry in Illinois, I have participated in the annual Lutheran Day in Springfield where the morning is spent learning about the needs of our social service partners and nonpartisan advocacy for a particular policy proposal. In and the afternoon there is opportunity for advocacy for a particular bill at the statehouse and a prayer service for all our elected leaders.

After my first year of seminary, my parents moved from their home in Cheyenne to Fargo, North Dakota, where they have lived since 2004. My two-years younger sister has recently moved to Northern Colorado. She is a navy veteran. With her Master of Music in Performance, she served as a trumpet musician in the navy band at Pearl Harbor for five years. Since completing her military service, she has earned her Master of Social Work degree and is passionate about ending homelessness and mental health awareness and advocacy.

Beyond my interests in theology, biblical studies, and areas of ecclesiastical ministry, I enjoy reading in the areas of economics, constitutional law, sociology, current affairs, and cultural studies. Over the years since seminary, I have become somewhat of a coffee connoisseur and discovered that I prefer dark roast coffees from particularly South East Asia. !00% Kona coffee is also an indulgent treat. I relish the quite beauty of botanical gardens and arboretums and especially enjoy the brilliant boldness of color in the blossoms of Asiatic Lilies and coleus plants.

I love to travel for conferences and to see family and friends. I am fascinated with the wonders of nature from forests to waterfalls. One of my dreams is to return to the Grand Canyon and experience it from the skywalk.

I am grateful to join in the mission and ministry of St. Mark and look forward to the gospel work we do together striving for justice and peace in all the earth.

Peace,

Pastor Robert Franek

Interim Associate Pastor