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In about September of 1982, Joe Sittler visited Columbia, Missouri.
He spoke to the congregation of St. Andrew's Lutheran Church,
focusing on the discussions about a new Lutheran Church (which
became the ELCA in 1987), but he also spoke to a freshman class in
Religious Studies, a new department at the University of
Missouri-Columbia. The founding chair of the Department, who invited
Joe, was Jill Raitt, who had been a student of Joe's at Chicago. As
I recall, the class was entitled something like "Death and Dying in
Western Religious Tradition"; I sat in the back of the classroom,
with about 15 freshman students sitting in a circle with Joe at one
end. The young people were all young, vigorous, healthy. Joe was
frail, walked with a cane, was quite hard of hearing, and nearly
blind. The contrast was amazing, as Joe talked about the nature of
dying to these young people who surely were immortal.
Joe said "Most of you think about life and death like a light switch
on, you are alive; then at some moment, the switch goes off and you
are dead. But it's not like that at all. Rather," Joe said, "life is
like a piece of fabric hanging on the wall. At some point,"he
continued, "a grandmother dies, and a thread comes out of the cloth
and floats to the ground. Then a friend is killed in an automobile
accident, and another thread floats down through the air. After a
few years, your grandfather dies, and another thread comes out.
Later, you father dies, and then your mother, and more threads fall
gently to the floor. As the years go on, soon, there are only a few
threads left, and, one by one, they drift to the floor and the
fabric is gone."
The students were absolutely silent. It was one of the most
profoundly moving moments I have ever experienced.
Mel George, Columbia Missouri
Gerry Hubbarth, Director of Food
Services at LSTC, tells a story about Joe, who used to sit at the
table nearest the cash register when he came into the refectory.
Some 30 years ago, jazz from a local radio station was piped into
the refectory. One day Joe looked particularly troubled and Gerry
asked him what was wrong. Joe replied, referring to the music, "This
is not a nightclub; it's a Seminary!" That very day, said Gerry, he
cut the wires into the refectory, so from henceforth the radio
played only in the back room!
Mel George, Columbia Missouri
On one occasion, Joe was coming up to
preach at the baptism of Pip, our son (this sermon is on tape in the
Archive). Since grandparents were coming for the baptism and would
stay with us, we arranged for Joe to stay (for two nights, as I
remember) with one of our parishioner families, Don and Nancy Nord
of Goodhue. JoeÆs first question to them was, ôAm I taking your bed
away from you, because I wonÆt stay anywhere if it means you have to
move out.ö He was assured he would be in the guest room and Joe
settled in. Later Don told me that Joe wanted a full tour of the
farm and hog operation. Joe followed Don around through the mud,
observing everything and asking lots of questions, about feeding the
hogs, their inoculations, and all other details about the operation
of the farm. He specifically wanted to go into the farrowing house
to get the full aroma as his sight might be failing, but his
ôsmellerö was perfect! This is typical of JoeÆs interest in
everything.
Gerry Gengenbach, Northfield, Minnesota
This is a story from Paul Westermeyer, told to me on January 5,
2011.
Paul Westermeyer, Professor at Luther Seminary and St. Olaf College,
tells of his first encounter with Joe Sittler. When Paul was
deciding about a PhD program that would enable him to do both
theology and music, as he desired, it was suggested to him that he
contact Joe Sittler at the Divinity School, U of Chicago. So Paul
called Dr. Sittler, explained what he was looking for, and asked
Joe's advice. Joe said there were plenty of opportunities there at
Chicago, that Joe would be happy to be his advisor, and Paul could
indeed do both theology and music. Joe suggested that Paul fill out
an application for graduate work at Chicago and send it to him. So
Paul did.
After some time, having heard nothing, Paul called Joe again, saying
"Dr. Sittler, I sent you my application but have heard nothing." Joe
replied that he was very sorry, but he had lost Paul's application.
"But," he said, "I'd still like you to come to Chicago, so please
fill out another application, but don't send it to me."
So Paul did just that, was admitted, arrived at Chicago to learn
that Joe had just announced his retirement and would not be taking
any more students — so Paul worked with Martin Marty instead.
Mel George, Columbia Missouri
This story was sent to me by The Rev. Charles Lewis of San
Francisco, who was a student in Joe Sittler's systematic theology
class at Maywood in the late 1950's. Pastor Lewis remembered three
things from the class:
First, "Joe came to each class and delivered his lecture. Sometimes
it was 40 minutes. Sometimes it was 50 minutes. In every case, he
said what he had to say and that was it. Many times we appreciated
the extra 10 minutes just to absorb his creative use of language and
interpret it in contemporary terms.
One Sittler phrase I will always remember. 'Keep your categories
clean.'
And finally the final exam in one systematic class was this: "You
are sitting on a bus reading the religious pages of a newspaper. A
man sits down next to you and asks, 'What do you believe about all
that stuff?' You have 3 hours to tell me what you believe about God,
Christ, the Church, etc." With that, he left the room and returned 3
hours later to collect our blue books."
Mel George, Columbia Missouri
This story was told to me by Pastor
Victor Victorson, First Lutheran Church, Albany New York.
Pastor Victorson is an LSTC graduate who attended an LSTC event
(perhaps a Leadership Conference) in 1986 or so. During that event,
Joe Sittler spoke in the old chapel to a group of the attendees, and
one of the participants, likely a young alumnus pastor, asked Joe to
recommend a list of books for pastors to read. Joe replied that he
was not going to do that, because he'd recommended books to read
before and they hadn't read them!
Mel George, Columbia Missouri
When I was serving in my first parish in
Liberty, North Carolina (1973-1976) I led a synod-wide campaign to
increase the awareness of the importance of having the Eucharist
weekly in worship. I recommended one year that all the district
assemblies that year have as their program a biblical-theological
study of the Eucharist and its place in worship and that Dr. Sittler
be invited to make all the presentations (about 7 scattered over a
week in geography spanning the entire state). My recommendation was
accepted and I was appointed to contact Dr. Sittler. He agreed to
come for round-trip airfare and $200 for the week! I was his
chauffeur. He was lecturing in a liturgical environment that did not
value weekly Eucharist and, as might be expected, never came across
as judgmental, but seductively inviting. He focused more on
community and what it means and the Eucharist as an expression of
that than the rote repetitive act of a weekly worship ingredient. He
did it as a humble servant of the Word.
Pr. Tom Ford,
Arcadia, California
One night Dr. Sittler
was to conduct a seminar at the Lutheran School of Theology at
Chicago. I was the first student to arrive and Dr. Sittler was
already there and smoking his pipe. The scent of the tobacco was not
particularly pleasing. I, a pipe smoker, asked, "Dr. Sittler, what
kind of tobacco do you smoke?" As he reached for the tobacco pouch,
he retorted, "Anything that burns." Then he pulled out a pouch of "Buglar"
cigarette tobacco, the kind you use to roll your own cigarettes.
Pr. Tom Ford,
Arcadia, California
Joe Sittler preached at the 1985
installation service of John Buchanan as pastor of Fourth
Presbyterian Church in Chicago. John told me that at the beginning
of the sermon, Joe, who was by that time in his life blind, told a
joke. When the congregation laughed, Joe remarked "Good. Now I know
where you are!"
Mel George, Columbia, Missouri
Albert Keck (born in 1910) met Joe in
1927, when Pastor Keck started at Wittenberg College as a freshman.
At that time, Joe was a student at Hamma, who was also doing some
teaching at Wittenberg. The two met at a fraternity at Wittenberg.
Later, Pastor Keck himself attended Hamma. There was a professor at
Hamma (Evejen) who "set the students on fire", particularly a group
of students called "Ne Plus Ultra", in which Joe was a leader.
According to Keck, Joe "was rather rebellious"! Albert was invited
to join "Ne Plus Ultra" and so continued his connection with Joe.
Keck told two stories
about Joe as preacher. A fraternity brother of Keck's who was a
member of Joe's congregation (in Cleveland Heights) reported that
Joe "had quoted Shakespeare in every sermon for a year." Joe once
preached at an all-student convocation at Wittenberg, and he began
his sermon, "Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit," this way: "Preachers
normally start their sermons, 'I'm a preacher but don't worry, I'm
not going to preach'". Joe continued, "I am going to preach, and if
I don't, it won't be my fault." That sermon was handwritten by Joe,
given to Keck by Joe following the convocation, and later sent by
Keck to the Archive where it is now.
Years later, Keck (then
a parish pastor in Sterling, Illinois) was Secretary of the Board of
Trustees of Maywood Seminary. The seminary had reached a low point,
and the board decided to ask for the resignations of most members of
the faculty (with the exception of H. Grady Davis). The board then
called Joe as part of a new group of faculty, and Keck had the honor
of calling Joe to tell him the news. He then saw Joe more
frequently, through the Maywood connection.
Sittler was very
"commonplace," Keck recalled. He said Joe had once remarked, "If I
ever were to build a house, I'd have one room that is all concrete
with a drain in the floor. Then when the kids come in from playing
outside, I'll put them in there and turn on the water."
After Keck moved to a
parish in North Carolina, his congregation planned a new organ and
Joe and Jean (who was an excellent organist) sent quite detailed
directions as to the kind of organ, the best builder, and so forth.
Keck says that Holtkamp organ from Cleveland, Ohio, turned out
wonderfully. Later, when Keck was called to be the Professor of
Practical Theology at Southern Seminary, he contacted Joe for
advice. Joe responded "You'll feel lonely as hell to begin with û
more lonely than in the parish. But you don't have all the mess of
the Ladies Aid Society." Keck served at Southern for 5 years.
When asked about a theme
of Joe's that he especially remembers, Keck replied it was Joe's
emphasis on 'genuineness' and 'purity of effort' in the role of the
pastor.
The Rev. Albert Keck
(reported by Mel George), Hickory, North Carolina
I graduated from LSTC in 1979, way before
the seminary courtyard was enclosed. In fact, there had been nothing
planted in the courtyard since the building had been constructed. It
was a non-descript expanse of crab grass.
Joe thought some trees should be planted.
I don't know how he raised the funds to buy the trees, but I joined
a couple of classmates in helping him plot out where to plant the
trees. Of course, by 1979, he couldn't see across the courtyard. He
spoke of his idea for a design, and we helpers tried to lay it out.
But where to begin? How to orient
ourselves for the beginning of the design? Joe had an idea. He
marked out the first corner of the arrangement — by jamming his
umbrella into the soil and placing atop it his pork pie hat!
One of the things I appreciated about Joe
Sittler was his absolute lack of pretension!
Andy Ballentine, Williamsburg, Virginia
Joseph Sittler is my grandfather. I met
him when I was a young child, when he was already blind. I don't
remember much about him, but this website is an invaluable resource,
in that it allows me to get an idea of what he was like and what he
meant to the people who knew him. I hope that this site continues to
be a beacon of his teachings, and a preservation of his memory.
Although I am not religious, I know that he has deeply influenced my
upbringing in the moral values that he instilled in my father, and
the rest of his children. If only I could meet him today, I know we
would have much to talk about.
Edward (Chumley) Sittler, Austin, Texas
My husband Krister and Joe Sittler were
two of the major speakers at a conference at Luther College,
Decorah, Iowa, in 1981. At the time, Krister was in a wheelchair,
awaiting a double hip operation. He and I had never met Joe Sittler,
but we found that the three of us were intellectually alike, and we
had so much fun together. On our walks together on campus, Joe
insisted on "driving" Krister in his wheelchair. As Joe took off
each time with Krister, my heart was in my mouth as I watched this
blind man pushing the lame, I knew not where. I always ran after
them, quite afraid of an accident, but all was well and we continued
to enjoy the conference and each other's company.
Told to Mel George by Brita Stendahl,
Cambridge, Massachusetts
After Joe died, the time came to clean out
his office at LSTC. Before the furniture was moved to the basement
or dispersed to other rooms, my mother asked permission to buy an
old wood chair that had been in Joe's office. In and of itself the
chair is nothing remarkable. Camel back. Sturdy arms. Fading finish.
There were probably others just like it in other offices on campus.
But this one was Joe Sittler's chair! It now sits in my mother's
home in a place of honor. I have been told that some day it will be
mine. What a treasure!
Heidi Rodrick-Schnaath, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
I recently attended a memorial service for
a good friend and mentor, The Rev. Clyde McCormack, who had been a
student of Joe's at Maywood Seminary and, for 25 years, the campus
pastor at Northwestern University. It was there that my wife and I,
as undergraduate students, knew "Mac" in the mid-50's, and it was
Mac who introduced us to Joe Sittler, which was the beginning of our
lifelong friendship with and admiration for Joe.
At Mac's service in Ohio last December,
the liturgy was constructed as Mac had instructed, and the pastor
preached a fine sermon. During the sermon he told of having attended
a funeral years earlier that had been conducted by Mac for a "good
Lutheran." In the course of that earlier funeral, Mac had told this
story - Luther was once asked, "What is the duty of a Christian
man?" Said Mac, "Luther replied, 'Drink your beer, love your wife,
and say your daily prayers", emphasizing that the Christian man can
live easily in God's grace.
After that funeral, the pastor went up to
Mac and asked where in Luther's writings did that story appear. Mac
replied that he really didn't know, as he had only heard the story
from Joe Sittler. The pastor continued, in last December's message,
by reporting that he had carefully checked Luther's writings and did
not find such a story. At that, there were broad smiles on the faces
in the congregation of those who had known Joe and his penchant for
attributing to well-known persons things they really SHOULD have
said but probably didn't. And it was typical of someone who
respected and loved Joe as much as Mac did to "sin boldly" by
repeating the story publicly.
Mel George, Columbia, Missouri |
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