Re-defining an Old Word.

 

We gathered with a little group of folks at sunrise on Easter Morning, April 9, 2023, on the beach in Rehoboth.  The following is what I attempted to share with that group:

We are gathered here to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.  We live every day with the awareness, but we take this one day, get up at the crack of dawn, in the cold, and stand on this beach… to celebrate.

This morning I don’t want to specifically discuss the resurrection, but an idea Jesus communicated after the resurrecton, and just before he left this earth.

Before we get to that, we have to back up a little.

As many of you may know, our daughter Katherine just gave birth to our second grandchild.  When I shared that on Facebook, I mentioned the word “tribe”.  Our tribe had just increased in number, and it is about to increase again when Sarah has her child. I was thinking about this and the word “tribe” at about the time we were considering having this gathering.

So “tribe” is what I want to discuss.

The term “tribe” is familiar to us because of the 12 Tribes of Israel.  The 12 Tribes were the descendants of Abraham, and were a nation of people God promised to Abraham.  Throughout the Old Testament, we see God dealing with this group of people.  The people themselves identified with one tribe.  The concept of tribe was important to them.  Like we would do, they probably viewed their closest connections as their immediate family, then their extended family, then their tribe, and finally the whole nation of Israel.

That is the Old Testament concept of “tribe”.

Fast forward to the New Testament.  The concept of “tribe” doesn’t seem to be mentioned as much in there.  Instead, the focus seems to be on a few basic divisions of people – the Jewish People, their religious leaders, and everybody else - referred to as the Gentiles. But I suspect the concept was never far from their minds.

And along comes Jesus.

Jesus lives among His people and at about the age of 30, His public ministry begins. Then the trouble starts.  The trouble starts because what he preaches isn’t what His people are expecting to hear, especially the religious leaders.

Jesus is eventually killed for what He is preaching. Then, to everyone’s surprise, He is resurrected from death. Safe to say Jesus had a record of being misunderstood. He spends a short time here on earth after the resurrection, and then He gives what we call “The Great Commission.”  It’s found in Matthew 28.

The Great Commission,  Matthew 28

¹⁶ But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. ¹⁷ When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. ¹⁸ And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. ^19 [a]Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you ^[b]always, even to the end of the age.”

Now there’s been plenty of teaching about how his followers were to go about this “Great Commission”.  I don’t want to discuss any of that teaching.  Instead, I want say in different words what I think Jesus was getting at.

I think Jesus was basically re-defining the concept of “tribe”.

What do I mean by that?  Part of the problem with God’s people in the New Testament was their insistence on holding onto old things.  They remembered the 12 Tribes in their hey-day, when they were a powerful nation.  In the New Testament, they are no longer powerful, but under the thumb of the Roman Empire. They were waiting for God to restore their power, and once again make them 12 powerful tribes of Israel.

That’s not what Jesus had in mind at all, and that’s basically what got Him killed.

What He DID have in mind was something between God and mankind based on relationship. He wasn’t abandoning the idea of “tribe”, but He was expanding upon it. 

In the Old Testament, people had learned what it meant to be part of a tribe.  They learned what it felt like to be part of a community, to be cared for and blessed by God, to have a direction. But Jesus came along and said “all that served a purpose.  It taught you something, but it wasn’t the end goal.  The end goal is for ALL mankind to come to know God, not just a select group of people.”

And how would this be done?  Easy, just look at what Jesus did.  He lived among His people. He ate with them. He shared in their grief and their happiness.  He walked alongside them. He showed them how to be kind and compassionate.  He sat with people others would NEVER sit with. 

And then He gives this thing we call “The Great Commission”.  What was He saying?

Basically, I think He was saying “Now go out and find your new tribe”.  In other words, go out and live among people just as I have been living among you.  Just as you saw me, be that way to your tribe. Go out, and remembering that love I had for you, and that love you had for your old tribe, give it to your new tribe.

What does this look like?  It means that God will bring us people who become part of our tribe.  We devote ourselves to that tribe.  We live among them, we walk along side them, in the good and bad times. We share our lives together and learn from each other. We become a huge family.

I think we have a history of misidentifying who our tribe is meant to be.  It isn’t just the people who we like, or the people who think exactly like we do. Just like the Jewish people in the New Testament had to do, we have to put aside our old thinking. The longer we’re at this, the easier it becomes for us to see who our tribe is.

And once we see that these folks are part of our tribe, we very naturally, or supernaturally, begin to treat them as such.  We treat them as Christ would.  We find ourselves involved with all kinds of people, just as He did.

Which brings us back to why we are all here this morning.  Yes, it is to celebrate what Jesus did at the Cross, but it’s also about what He asked US to do in response to Him.

My encouragement to you is to go out and consider who your tribe is.  And then devote yourselves to those people.  We can’t devote ourselves to every single person and every single situation… it’s just not realistic.  But I believe that if we are open to the idea, God will bring people into our lives who He intends to be in our tribe.

I don’t know all the specifics of the Great Commission.  But I do know this… as we walk in it, Jesus promised to be with us, always.

I've done what I came for

 

You may consider it in poor taste to post this, so please know I've thought of that, and elected to post in anyway, because I want to say this:

 

Sarah and Tyler just gave us this sketch (which Sarah did) with the note on the back side. What they express is what Tina and I have striven for our whole lives. It is THE driving force behind most of what we do. 

 

Those of you who know me well know that I'm very introspective, very hard on myself, and often have the concern I'm not quite walking in my calling to my full potential. I'm going to say it right here. I am almost 61 years of age. If I get run over by a truck today, I am leaving this earth without those concerns. 

 

There is certainly more that we want to do, but with this simple thank you note from our daughter and son-in-law, I have complete confidence that my life is complete. Thank you Sarah and Tyler.

 

 

Balance

 

Asher left for work on his motorcycle.  He needed to make to quick stop at his high school to drop of his borrowed laptop and calculus calculator.

Thirty minutes later, Tina answers the phone.  In a matter of seconds I could tell something wasn’t right.  Thought maybe Asher had broken down.  Then I realized it wasn’t Asher she was speaking to.

By the time she got off the phone, it was clear something had happened.  The information she was given was brief.  Asher had had a motorcycle accident in front of the school.  They thought he would be ok, but the ambulance was coming and may end up taking him to the hospital.  That was about the extent of the information.

Both of us quickly thought the worst, like he had collided with another vehicle either when turning into the school or coming out of the school.  The wording “thought he would be o.k.” registered in my mind as “non-life threatening injuries”. 

“Where would they take him” was the first question out of my mouth.  Tina called the school right back and was told it would be Nanticoke Hospital.  We wondered how we would know whether to go to the school, or to head directly to the hospital. 

This state lasted about 3 minutes. I wouldn’t call it hysteria; it was more like a laser focus on how we were going to get to where our son was. 

Then Asher called.  He said he was o.k., described the situation, and told us we just needed to come get him and his bike.  We know our son well enough that this immediately put us at ease.  I hooked up the trailer, and we headed to the school.

It was a relatively minor event.  Asher was slowly turning into the drive to the school (they actually caught it on camera) and hit a small patch of unexpected sand on the asphalt.  The rear end slipped out in a heartbeat, and he ended up on the ground, under the bike.  The Sussex Central High School staff was fabulous.  They rushed to his aid immediately and watched as he got his wits about him in the nurse’s office  He had some scrapes, the bike had some scrapes, but overall, he and his bike will be fine.

It’s one of those things – one of those things that remind us of how quickly something can happen which could alter the future.  It is one of those things that remind us to appreciate every moment…one of those things that change us… one of those things we are thankful for because of the lessons learned.

Motorcycle riding is by nature much riskier than riding in car or truck. If you look at the statistics, it’s… well, you don’t even want to know.  It’s a choice made with known risks.  We let our boys make that choice with those known risks.  I ride myself. Why would we do that?  Would we rather our boys didn’t engage in such an activity? It isn’t that simple.

A life lived without taking any risks is not really living at all.  We take a risk when we choose a college major in the face of uncertainty.  We take a risk in practicing a sport when we may potentially be embarrassed by failure.  We take a risk in choosing a life partner. We take a risk in changing jobs.  We take a risk in buying a home and committing to pay a mortgage for the next 30 years.  A life without any risk is a life of not moving forward.  It’s not really a life at all.

Of course, there are ways to reduce risk, and those things we do do, and with a passion. At some point there is a balancing of the passion to live, and the passion to walk in wisdom. And that’s really the secret of life.  People choose different ways to go about it.  Maybe you lean on your faith in God, or maybe you lean on your faith in yourself. Personally, I’ve been disappointed in my own strength way too many times.

At the risk of making you feel like I’ve tricked you into a discussion about God, I’ll share this.  After the discussion of whether there is a God or not and Who that God is, comes what I’d say is the one of the most prevalent debates about faith – what does God do, and what do I do.  People fall all over the spectrum on this.  It would take me volumes to try to communicate where I’ve landed personally, and honestly, who really cares what I’ve concluded.

I’ll just say this.  I want my boys to walk in wisdom, to not be averse to taking risks, and to trust in God in the midst of doing that.  I want them to take risks, live well, and ride safe.

Asher's Gift to Us

 

 

Last night we stood on the football field after the ceremony, surrounded by people. The voice inside my head began to speak, as clear as it ever has.

 

Our long run with the Indian River School District had apparently come to an end. It had started back when our oldest daughter was in the fourth grade – about 16 years ago. She, her sister, and her brother had graduated already. Our last child, Asher, had just received his diploma.

 

Parent’s typically consider the great accomplishments of their children as they graduate. This certainly did not go unnoticed in Asher. He has a work ethic that is off the charts, and completely self-driven. At the risk of overlooking his accomplishments though, I’d like to consider not so much what he has done, but what he has given us.

 

We have spent the last 16 years involved with our schools (North Georgetown, Georgetown Middle, Sussex Central High). As I looked around the field, I didn’t see just a mass of people. I saw classmates of Asher’s we had grown fond of, teachers we had become friends with, administrators we had walked through problems with. The voice in my head clearly said, “This isn’t just a mass of people… these are your friends…this is your place… this is your life.”

 

Unwittingly, this is what Asher and the rest of our kids have given us. They built friendships, got involved, helped their peers. They opened the door for us. If not for them, this would not BE our lives.

 

As I scanned the field, off to the side one of our daughters stood with her husband (also a SCHS graduate). They had been members of the band back in the day, and joined the band at graduation to play a couple of songs for the ceremony. Sarah has just been hired to teach Art in our high school. Occasionally our band director will call on adults to fill in a slim section of instruments during a concert. Hopefully, our daughter and her husband can fill that role once in a while.

 

All those thoughts came together and the voice in my head spoke again. It said “You and Tina are not done here yet.” ... Wait… what? What does that even mean? I’m sure it will become clear as we make the transition to this slightly new season in life, just as it will become clear to Asher what his path shall be, and just as it becomes clear what the paths of our other children will be, one step at a time. This is family. This is life.

 

(Thanks Ben Ables for the picture.)