From the moment my grandmother first read me the "Little Golden Book About GOD" I already had my own private idea about what religion was. Perhaps it was because she said I looked just like the little girl in the illustrations. But when I experienced things that the book talked about, that little girl was the way I looked to myself, too. The book showed me who I was and how things should be. God simply encompassed everything and explained everything, and that was all one ever needed to know. This version of GOD was remembered long after the book was forgotten. Only once did I waver...
"The right hand shouldn't know what the left is doing." Pastor Rittberger intoned.
That seemed a little uncoordinated didn't it?
"Why do we do good works?" he continued.
"Because it's the right thing to do?" I proffered.
"How can you know what the right thing is?" He answered with another question.
"It's like when everybody benefits and nobody gets hurt?"
"That could be called 'secular humanism.' But, what 'benefits everybody' would always be different depending on the situation, right?" he observed.
Oh, new words! I nodded.
"That's called 'situational ethics.' The idea that you can think your way through and arrive at the right thing."
That sounded about right. This was fun.
"You agree with that?" he asked.
I nodded enthusiastically.
"But what if you can't think of the right thing?" He thought he had me there.
Huh? "Oh, that's easy! You can always tell by how the other person feels."
Ha, got him instead!
"That's called empathy. But what if you can't tell how someone else feels?"
Empathy. Another new word. I like that. But what a silly question.
"Can't you always tell?"
"But what if you couldn't? What if what was right involved more than one person, or the other person didn't know what was right?"
I felt my forehead wrinkle.
He persisted: "That's what's wrong with situational ethics. You can't always know by yourself what is right. That's why God gave us the Bible. So we would know how to live."
"Like the Ten Commandments?" somebody else piped up helpfully.
"That's right. They are God's rules to live by."
I noticed the reflections in the black shine of his shoes. I still felt wrinkled.
"But, but, then we're just supposed to follow rules? ...There aren't enough of 'em." I observed.
Now it was his turn to get wrinkly.
"You mean... there aren't enough rules to cover every situation?"
I nodded. "And, and, what if you think a rule means something different?"
Pastor: "What if two people think the same rule has..."
"Yeah, then wouldn't that be sitchu-ational too?"
Try to get outta that one!
Now he was looking thoughtfully down at his shoes and slowly started to pace.
"That's why we are Christians. We all believe in the same rules."
"But why are there so many kinds of Christians? Why doesn't everybody always follow the rules if that's all you have to do?"
"Christians always want to follow God's rules," a fellow student suggested.
Pastor grabbed at it. "That's called intention. We always intend to do the right thing by following God's word."
From that point on I hardly ever let Pastor finish a thought. He challenged me or I challenged him. We never compromised, or quite reconciled our beliefs. He said it was the most interesting confirmation class he'd ever taught, even if he never quite got around to teaching what he had intended to. Toward the end I worried to him that maybe I wasn't Lutheran enough to be confirmed. Even as I took my first communion I couldn't help but feel that I might be a fraud. But he was proud to think that his faith was open-minded enough to accommodate more 'far-out' interpretations. And he thought my own heritage was enough of an incentive for me to join the church, which was eminently logical.
Pastor Rittberger always stood reassuringly tall and handsome in the pulpit. No one thought of him as the 'new guy' at First Lutheran by the late 1960's, which was around the time I'd been confirmed and graduated from Sunday School. How grown up I felt listening to his sermons instead of toddling off to class mid-service with the kids. He commanded the service with a velvety basso voice with just the right amount of flourish. Guiltily, he made no secret of loving the pomp and theatrics of his profession. Yet, far from counting the 'number of angels that could fit on a pin,' he spoke as much about science as he did religion, which didn't endear him to everybody. He had me convinced, however, that both science and religion were just using different words to explain the same things. There can be an understanding between the two about the universe. And a new hopefulness came from trying to divine the nature of their combined paradox. A much needed hopefulness when wars and riots and assassinations were seemingly all around us. Sometimes it is easier to trust what is "beyond all understanding" than to try to make sense of chaos. In difficult times, we were blessed with this Pastor's understanding for us 1st 'New First Edifice' kids to trust. So long, B.P. (Beloved Pastor).
Love, Steff
In the Albany Times Union...
Rev. William H. Rittberger, 80, of Albany, died Sunday, July 4, 2010 at Albany Medical Center. Born on July 30, 1929 in Queens, he was the son of the late Carl F. and Frieda E. (Gerner) Rittberger. Rev. Rittberger was a graduate of Wagner College in Staten Island in 1952 with a B.A. in history. He graduated from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia with a master's of divinity degree in 1955. He was ordained on June 8, 1955 at St. John's Lutheran Church in Manhattan. Rev. Rittberger's ministry started on June 15, 1955 when he was called to organize the St. John's Lutheran Church in Burlington, N.Y. In 1958, he was called to serve at the St. John's Lutheran Church in Hudson, N.Y., until 1965, when he was called to the First Lutheran Church in Albany. He retired from active ministry on July 31, 1991. He received an honorary doctor of divinity degree from Hartwick College on May 3, 1984. On May 23, 1953, he married his beloved wife, Joan (Fox) Rittberger. They were married for 57 wonderful years. Also surviving is their daughter, Lisa Rittberger of East Greenbush. A celebration of his life will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the First Lutheran Church, 181 Western Ave. in Albany, N.Y. Donations may be made to the Abiding Memorial Fund at the First Lutheran Church, 646 State St., Albany, NY 12203. Arrangements are with the Bates & Anderson - Redmond & Keeler Funeral Home, 110 Green St., Hudson 12534.
