The Chicago Memoirs:
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, 1967-1972

Chicago, South Side, 1967 (Part Two)
“[Hilmar] stuck it out in Woodlawn when all the white families moved out. He wouldn’t be moved by white flight, only by the Spirit of Christ. ... A pot roast picnic on Hilmar’s back porch in the rain in Woodlawn was memorable.”

— Joel Nickel, The Chicago Memoirs

I marveled at the faith of Hilmar Sieving, a faith conditioned by much loss, struggle, and persistence. He exhibited an overflowing hope which grew out of grace received. His favorite greeting was “Peace!” and you knew he was blessing you. Hilmar tempered my oft misplaced idealism. He knew when I was setting myself up for a fall — with a grounded enthusiasm that functioned as a “holy infection.” He stuck it out in Woodlawn when all the white families moved out — he wouldn’t be moved by white flight, only by the Spirit of Christ. As the head of the education library at the University of Chicago, he had many friends and also worshipped at St. Gregory of Nyssa in addition to Our Redeemer. A pot roast picnic on Hilmar’s back porch in the rain in Woodlawn was memorable. He made small wooden crosses for our acolytes to wear, one of which is still in my possession (having been repaired as a prized possession). There is a quote which describes Hilmar quite well: “Only those who have experienced great suffering know what goodness means.” He was a father to us, especially to me, having recently lost my father at the age of 59. Hilmar was also president of the Our Redeemer congregation.

An overflowing hope
Hilmar Sieving, with his daughter Cathy, greeted us, gave us the keys to the parsonage at 6418 South Harvard. Hilmar was president of the congregation.

Hilmar was very encouraging. He attended the Wednesday evening Vesper services that we scheduled in the naively mistaken notion that people would come flocking into the church once they saw the huge oak front doors flung open. Often the service consisted of just the two of us. We kept the vesper services going through the Advent season. In order to form a small worship area in the back of the church we turned some pews around to face each other. Hilmar designed a moveable pulpit-altar with a cruciform shape and cut a hardwood cross for the front. Les Armstrong, Betty’s husband, used his carpentry skills to put it together. I designed and built a crucifix to hang from the side aisle arch over the pulpit/altar: the cross was painted black, the corpus was made from aluminum clothesline, and the crown of thorns was fashioned from barbed wire which used to be festooned atop the parking lot fence to keep children out of the parking lot. It was like the image found in Isaiah 53 — the suffering servant comes to carry our sorrows and bring us peace and healing through his wounds. Christ is still wounded in Englewood; the barbed wire is his crown. The number of worshippers was slight, and this fact confronted me with the question: how does a white pastor in a black community, which generally identifies a given church with its pastor, break down this assumption that because the pastor is white, the church must be white?

So we started a food pantry to begin to deal with a growing hunger problem. One afternoon three small boys came to the parsonage door asking for cookies which we liberally distributed on other occasions. When I explained that the cookie jar was empty, one of the boys stared at me in disbelief and said, “You mean you own that big church and don’t have any cookies?” That was the credibility gap in a nutshell, and raised a question: Can the church risk its own poverty in order to serve the poor? Can it sell its goods and give to the poor? Can it become an advocate for the poor? Can the “good shepherd” go looking for the one lost sheep and seemingly neglect the ninety-nine already in the friendly confines of church?

I was beginning to feel much stress, wondering what I’d gotten myself into. A curious round bald spot appeared on my head centered to the rear; my hair fell out and it looked like I had a tonsure. I explained my situation to a doctor who shook his head, said I was stressed out, and gave me cortisone shots beneath the skin of my scalp. The hair grew back, but I knew I had to find an outlet for my stress.

Next:  The Chicago Memoirs of 1967 (Part Three)