My Son
“My son, if you accept my words and store up my commandments within you; turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as silver and search for it as hidden treasure, then you will know the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” (Proverbs 2:1-5)
This morning I woke up thinking about the past. Old people do a lot of that. My mind went back with a sense of gratitude for the home in which I was raised. I was taught by words and life the wisdom and joy of knowing Jesus Christ and living according to God’s Word.
My father was my model and hero. Rev. Robert A. Rieben, was an evangelist, church planter and a preacher. He was a true believer! He was a man of faith. He believed in prayer. He loved Jesus and served the people Jesus gave him. He lived the same way in the parsonage as he did in the pulpit. He loved my Mom and we knew he would never leave her or us.
A few years ago, I had the privilege of being the speaker at a church camp in Wisconsin, one my father had helped found. At lunch one day, and elderly man came and asked if he could join me. He sat down and then asked, “Are you Bob Rieben’s son?” I said “Yes.” He then said, “I was your father’s superintendent when he was just beginning his ministry. He was the most positive man I have ever known.” That was my Pop!
I like to say about my father what missionary and martyr Jim Eliot said about his dad: “He didn’t know a lot about theology, but he knew Jesus.” Dad knew Jesus! It made him different from the rest. He stood tall, walked fast, drove faster and you would never find him in one spot for more than five minutes. He would visit all of his church members, but he could not stay long. He was on the go! His stride was so quick and long I would need to jog to keep up with him. There was always more to do for his Lord.
He was a big man. Big bones and big hands, the hands I avoided at all cost. He had a BIG presence. He was respected. He was looked up to by his congregation and his peers. When I have run into the former members of his congregation, I have heard on more than one occasion this sentiment: “Your father was always the standard by which we judged the pastors that followed him.”
He was a leader of men and a servant to the poor. At my fiftieth high school homecoming, I met a man who was a member with me in my father’s church in Muskegon, Michigan. He volunteered that his education had led him away from Christianity and was no longer a believer. Then he added, “But, your father was bigger than life.” I responded: “That was one of the reasons why I am still a believer.” He showed me the Faith was truth and Jesus was alive.” Even as a boy, I wanted to see what my father saw.
He had a presence that led to some funny incidents. Once while sitting in the central park of a Wisconsin town, he noticed a man continually looking at him nervously. Finally, the man rushed over and said, “Okay. You got me. I am the one who robbed the bank.” Unshaken, my father responded, “Well, it will go a lot better for you if you turn yourself in. There is the sheriff’s office over there.” The man thanked him and gratefully hurried off to the sheriff’s office and turned himself in.
Wherever he pastored, his peers would elevate him to represent them as their leader. But that never went to his head. He was above all, a servant. As a young man, I worked on the staff of two churches. Both senior pastors related to me where my father stood up for them in denominational conflict and intervened on their behalf. I also had occasion to speak at two denomination conferences while pastoring in California. In two separate incidents, pastors came up to me after the sessions and expressed how my father looked after them when they were just beginning their ministry, bringing them food and counsel.
He took the Scriptures literally. When he was saved as a young man, he read, “Let not your heart be troubled.” He reasoned: God must not want him to have heart trouble. He prayed and God healed him of his heart condition. It never gave him another day of trouble until he died at 78. He read, “Go out into all the world and preach the gospel” so, he picked up his Bible and guitar and at the age of 18, preached in the center of the towns throughout Wisconsin. As soon as he had enough followers to form a church, he would establish them in a building, call a pastor to replace him and be on his way to the next town.
Having money was never a priority. He would give our things away and would turn down raises from the church board, much to our chagrin! While in Bible school, the head of the school told him of an opportunity to start a church a few hundred miles away. So, he hitch-hiked to the farmhouse where he was to meet the couple that made the offer. They sat down in the living room and the man asked his wife to go and get the suitcase. When they opened it up there was around five thousand dollars (Big Bucks in that day!) that they had saved for the building of the church. In the middle of the night, my father quietly slipped out of the house and hurried back to school. He did not want to be tempted with so much money!
When I was told that my father had suffered a heart attack, I rushed to Florida to be with him and mom. Arriving at his hospital room he was not there. I asked the roommate where he was. He said, “He is making his rounds.” Dad was going room to room praying for the sick. He ended his days as he had lived them. Serving others by pointing them to Jesus.
My father had one theme that he carried with him everywhere he pastored. It was this: “Why live in God’s world without God?” We put that quote on his tombstone. It is a question that was answered for me many years ago. I thank God for my hero, my model and my father.