Tribe Show Notes

The sixth in a series that defines what it means to Live BRIGHTLY. It starts with B – Believer, R – Rest, I – Identity, G – Gifts, and now T – Tribe.

Star Spangled Banner

You have heard the Star Spangled Banner, the national anthem for the United States.  Francis Scott Key wrote it while on a prisoner ship in the ocean watching the battle for Fort McHenry. Current movies makes It easy to imagine him writing that song while watching the battle rage on.

Fighting the war of 1812 to maintain the freedoms the United States of America takes many people to accomplished. We know many people were with Francis Scott Key on the ship. Notwithstanding, the commander of the ship and the United Kingdom patriots didn’t prevent his writing. Keys didn’t come up with it in isolation, nor was he surrounded by those who agreed with his position.

Accordingly, he wrote that poem because of everything going on around him, what he was a part of, and the group of people he was working with. To support his countries ability to trade on the world market without interference from the British nation. Thereby, establish a system where each person had access to equal opportunity and freedoms that wasn’t dependent on the hierarchy of the king, the lords and landowners. Conversely to the way most governments functioned up to that point in history, we the people were standing our ground apposed to external control.

The Wall of Tribe

What begins with T – Tribe. Jesus tells us we are the light of the world. To let our light so shine that they will see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven. But what does that mean? This is what we talk about here on Living Brightly. Accordingly, to explain what that means and ensure we are on the same page I took the letters to BRIGHTLY and used each letter to describe one facet defining what it means to live brightly.

The first four letters represent our personal intimate relationship with God means which is critical to live brightly and let our light shine. The next four represent the relationships we have with other people.

Therefore, the first four can be referred to as your vertical relationship with God, the last four are your interactions with others and how we live out our light. Similarly, where the first four represent your vertical relationship with God, the last represent the horizontal relationships with others. This sixth letter, T for Tribe represents your circle of influence.

Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner for the United States as an individual but simultaneously as part of a tribe. Generally we consider writing a solitary thing. Yet, a nation is a type of tribe as is a culture a type of tribe and this is what we are going to talk about today.

What is Tribe?

Tribe is a group of people, an aggregate of people with common ties. Likewise, the word tribe brings to mind a group of people of a nation. And the United States has many native tribal nations; Choctaw, Mohawk, Crow, and others. There are also the twelve tribes of Israel. Whereas they are brothers, they also represent large groups of people.

Therefore, a tribe can be as small as a family. In Genesis 1:22 God tells the fish[i] to be fruitful and multiply. Have babies and fill the waters in the seas. Therefore, make a lot of fishes. Continuing, in verse twenty-six God said let us make man (the word here is adam) in our image, and in our likeness to dominate the earth.

Thus, God made adam in His image and likeness, male and female He made them. (Adam means humans and is not gender specific.) Further in verse twenty-eight God blesses them and tells them to be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth, subdue it. Rule over everything. Some translations say ‘bring under submission’ instead of subdue. The idea is to rule over the earth or to subjugate it.

Second Law of Thermodynamics

We have learned the physical law, the natural law of physics is that everything in the universe goes toward chaos. Accordingly, if we leave a garden go, it will be overrun with weeds, briers, scrub brush, and different things if we don’t push back the chaos. Thus, when God created man, male and female, He told them one of their biggest jobs, your biggest responsibility, is to push back against the chaos that wants to take over the earth.

Furthermore, it is our job to create a livable space that is both good and pleasing for you as humans and the animals, the birds, the fishes, and water creatures. That is a tall order. This does not mean we do not use any of the resources. Certainly, God provided those and wants us to use trees to build houses, dig up coal or oil and use it for heating or electricity. Still, we must be good stewards.

In Genesis chapter two, there is a retelling of the creation story with a little twist to it. It says God planted the garden and put man in it, gave them trees for meat, and then a discussion of four rivers and gold that is good. Thereafter God put man (adam) into the Eden[ii] and said work it, subjugate it. Again, this command to control it, push back against the chaos. Subsequently, God says it is not good for man (adam) to be alone, let us make him a helper.

The First Tribe

If it was just about being married we would immediately see God anesthetize adam, pull a rib out, create Eve, and present the Even to him. But He doesn’t. Furthermore, God goes on to bring every animal before adam, and have adam name them. So adam had to name all the birds, all the animals, and still there was not a helper found. Finally, God anesthetizes him, does the surgery, takes out the rib, and makes a woman. And here we see the first idea of tribe.

Genesis 2:23 says ‘she will be called woman because she was taken from man’. These are different words than every other time man was used. Prior to this verse every use of the word man is the word adam, it’s always adam. Adam is a generic word for human, it’s not gender specific. Basically, God said, we are going to make a human. However, when Adam meets Eve he says ‘she will be called woman’.

Now the Hebrew word there is isha which means wife. This is a woman he will share his life with. Additionally, it says she will be called woman (isha) because she was taken from man. This time the word man is not adam, it is ish, an adult man with responsibilities, with connection, with tribe.

Continuing in verse 24 it says he will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, in one flesh.  That is the basic unit, basic idea of tribe, that we need each other. This is not to say men don’t need other men and women don’t need other women. Moreover, we need other people in our lives. To make our life full and to make the most out of it.

Isolation

There are many studies about isolation. Consequently, they have had to alter the laws and rules that govern torture and imprisonment because isolation is so hard on the human mind and soul. Therefore they have to restrict the amount of time a person can be totally isolated.

I recorded this in 2021 when the Covid pandemic was still active. And we have really realized how hard it isolation can become even in this day in age when we have television and radio, skype and telephone calls. It is not the same as having face to face human contact. Being part of a tribe, being part of a community, as small as an intimate partner and as large as a culture and a nation is vital to letting our light shine.

Why does it matter how bright our light is, of there is nobody around to see it? Similar to a tree falling in the woods, does it make a sound? Of course it makes a sound. Just because you didn’t hear it doesn’t mean it doesn’t make a sound. But if you are a light to dispel the darkness and help other people find their way. Nonetheless, what good is that light if you are going to put it under a bushel as the children’s song goes? Moreover, if you build it in a place of isolation, apart from other people, then it has no effect to help guide them, or help show them what God’s love is like.

Tribes band together

The New Testament is full of verses about doing things for one-another, with one-another, because of each another. Jesus new command is to love God and love others. Likewise we need to be with others. We cannot do it all alone. In Scripture there are a lot of ways we should treat each other in the positive. Conversely, there are a lot of ways we should not mistreat other people. We should be loving and represent what loving looks like. We are so hard-wired to be in community that we can see this all the way on the negative side as well.

Yes we can band together to build a family, and build a country, to form a brand new way to govern a people. That this group of people in the United States would have more freedoms, more rights, more opportunity, and generate more wealth, create more medicine, create new and ingenious ways to communicate, to entertain, to serve, to help, … So many things were developed because of the American Revolution, and people working together for good.

When people are completely isolated, they don’t have a tribe, but they will fight to connect with somebody, anybody. Subsequently, of you are in a situation where you don’t know how precious you are, and how valued you are to community as a whole, you can attach yourself or connect yourself to someone who is not looking out for your best interest. Someone who is not taking care of you but rather looking to serve themselves or deal with their own insecurities.

Hostages

In 1973 there were four employees of a bank held hostage because desperate people decided they would rob a bank. They were motivated by other recent successful bank robberies. Subsequently, they thought, let’s do this. So these men went into the bank and had only the bank employees as hostages.

As a way to control them they put dynamite around them. Consider it a crude version of a suicide vest. So they wrap them in dynamite and hold them hostage because they want to rob the bank.

There is not a whole lot of detail as to why they held the hostages for several days, but they did. Nonetheless, over six days as being a held hostage with sticks of dynamite around their bodies, the bank robbers talked to them. Additionally, the robbers brought the hostages food and water, shared their story and struggles that led to them to rob the bank, their money problems, and all the reasons they had to do what they were doing. Consequently, the hostages developed a relationship with the robbers.

Eventually, the robbers got arrested and the hostages set free. However, in the process the prisoners didn’t want to help the police officers. They actually supported the robbers. Furthermore the hostages didn’t want to see the robbers arrested, testify against them, or taken into custody. Notwithstanding the hostages resistance they were tried. They got eight years.

Thereafter, one of the hostages was so adamant that the robbers were not as evil or dangerous as they had been portrayed. This captive worked hard to help the robbers and was successful in getting one of the prison sentences commuted, meaning he was set free. He didn’t have to serve any more time and was released from prison.

Strange phenomenon

We hear these types of stories and think it’s kind of crazy. This incident took place in Stockholm Sweden coining the term, Stockholm Syndrome, based on the response of these captives. People held with dynamite wrapped around them wanted to protect the people who put them into this position. A position of imminent death. We see similar responses to extremely negative behavior in people who have been kidnapped, held captive, or domestic violence situations. Where it is a very painful, destructive, evil type of a relationship and yet the prisoner or captive feels so connected to the person who is mistreating them that they don’t want to testify against them, report them, or leave them. If they do leave them they often go back.

It is a very interesting phenomenon psychologist can’t explain and don’t recognize as a mental disorder. Nor do many professionals recognize it as a syndrome like other physical syndromes. It is more often described as a coping mechanism.

What kind of coping mechanism would be so strong as to make you go back to someone who abuses you? Someone who pushes away family members and friends because it’s disrupting or agitating the abuser. Therefore, they become isolated in a dysfunctional relationship and the bond becomes stronger.

Created to live in community.

We are created for a tribe. Subsequently, we need each other; other people in our lives we can serve and who can serve us. People we can lean on, trust, and believe they will encourage us, who will support us, and protect us. If we do not have anyone who will do this in a positive way we will even connect with someone who will do those things in a negative way. Further isolating you form others while you become their whole world.

If we are going to live BRIGHTLY and let our light shine, then we need to have a community connection. Our first most intimate community connection, our first tribe, is our family home. Our family of origin, mother, father, and siblings.

Tribe desolation

We see the destruction of that most intimate tribe, the family in society.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was leading the civil rights movement in the 1960’s in the United States Eighty percent of the African American families, black families in America were complete with a father, mother, and children living in the home, working together, being their own tribe. Currently, or according to most recent numbers from 2020, those numbers are flipped on their heads, and eighty percent of black families in the United States are single parent homes.

When that immediate tribe, man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, is destroyed, it has ripple impact on every other aspect of tribe going out. Therefore, if the immediate tribe is your spouse, and out from that is family, then friends. Thereafter are your co-workers or casual friendships. Beyond that is community, state and nation.

These ripples rolling outward over the concentric rings of connection. But when the first, most intimate ring, the first most intimate tribe is dysfunctional or broken or not working right it will impact all the rest because your world view of the rest is slanted.

Healthy Tribes

Some are single by choice while others are widows. Hence, even if you are a widow you still have a very intimate tribe. Moreover, men and women look at the world differently, with different perspectives and we need that to have healthy functioning individuals. Hence we can then have a healthy functioning community.

Every dimension of life is impacted by every other dimension of life through our interpersonal relationships and how we let our light shine. As long as you have other relationships in your life and communities that fill those rolls then you can identify where you have weaknesses and people who are strong in those areas where you are weak. Therefore you can lean on them to get those needs met. Accordingly you can take the areas where you are strong and serve those people around you who are weak in those area. Thereby the whole benefits; the whole tribe, whole community benefits.

• • Who is in your most intimate tribe?
  • Are you supporting, encouraging, and loving them?
  • Can they trust you, lean on you?
  • Ask for your support when they need it?

That is step one. From there, there is no limit to the ways that God can use you to love on His other children. Chiefly, this is the last great command of Jesus. Love God and Love others.

It sounds simple but it is really complex. Loving others can be difficult, exhausting, sometimes requires we put what we want, what we would like to do or what we would like to have, on hold so as to serve God’s other children through our time, talents, and treasure. The skills and gifts He gives us to let our light shine. Serving God’s children is like putting fuel on your fire.

Working together for a common goal

When Francis Scott Key wrote the national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner, he wrote it thinking of, not just the prisoners he was seeking to free by negotiating a deal with the British Empire. Additionally, he was thinking of all the people who were fighting the British Empire at Fort McHenry. That his tribe, his people, his future depended on the people who were still on land while he was sitting out at sea.

According to legend, if the flag went down at Fort McHenry, the British would consider the fort surrendered, the war over, and the American rebels will again submit to the king. The flag remains because the fight was something bigger than the individuals, it was for the United States of America.

Francis Scott Key knew they were working as a tribe. He wrote the poem based on what he saw; this nation working together. The result changing and benefiting the whole world. Every country on the face of the earth has been blessed by the freedoms created during the revolutionary war, and the defense of those freedoms in the war of 1812 (when the battle of Fort McHenry took place).

God created tribes

We are told in Genesis to fight back against the chaos, to create tribes, to create family units. God paraded the animals before Adam because animals are not enough. Yes, we use horses, cattle, and lots of animals to help us in our work. However, animals and tools are not enough.

We need each other to do the work together. To push back the chaos so that we can create a safe space, a healthy space for everyone to live, including taking care of the animals. If you have ever been on a farm you’d know it’s not a one man show. We need each other, our tribe, and community.

Accordingly, we need community that works with us to not only push back the natural chaos trying to overwhelm us but also so we can be the light to those who don’t know yet the truth and the love that Jesus offers.

Consequently, this is why the psychologist don’t get it. This is why they cannot explain Stockholm syndrome. They think it’s a mental coping strategy because they know it’s not a mental disease, disorder, or syndrome. Nonetheless, it’s not just mental, it is spiritual.

We were spiritually made to live in a tribe, in a community. To live with each other no matter how difficult or wonderful it can be we need each other. We need our tribe. Hence, our most intimate tribe and those ripples of tribe. The ripples that include our family, friends, church members, community, culture, country, nation. Each one of those ripples can be impacted for the Kingdom of God.

Working together as believers, Living BRIGHTLY, we can:

• • Work together
  • Acknowledge each other
  • Support one another
  • Love each other

Being part of a bright city

This is one of the walls of your building. Where the first four represent your four cornerstones; Believer, Rest, Identity, and Gifts are all your personal connection and intimate relationship with God as the foundation of who you are. Subsequently, on top of that foundation you build the walls of your building. Then our individual buildings coming together creating this light to the darkness. In order to show the way, to draw people to Christ.

The first wall was Honor, how we honor each other. The second is Tribe. Further, you can see how honor and tribe go together. You need both of those as you build this living temple[iii] that you are. Importantly, you can be the light of the world[iv] and to the world. Together we can show the way to a life that believes in the One True God, in Jesus who gave it all, so we can have a relationship with Him. Not, so that you can get some type of award or accolade but so people can be drawn to Christ. Drawn by what makes us different.

Good different

In what way are you different because God is in your life and you trust Him with your

• • future?
  • finances?
  • where you are going to live
  • what you will do
  • how you respond to difficult situations
  • Why you respond to difficult situations the way you do

These are the ways we impact those around us.

What begins with T? Tribe. We are going to let our light shine that we can glorify our Father who is in Heaven as a member of a tribe. A member of a bigger community. Serving God’s children is like putting fuel on your fire.

Living with other people, sharing this journey, sharing this life with other people and having companions you can support, encourage, and help. Simultaneously, having companions you can call on when you need support, encouragement, or a kick in the pants. We were created for community. Created to be part of a tribe. Who is your tribe?

Pray with me

Dear Lord,

Thank You for the concept of Tribe. I know I have taken others for granted and not given my best, forgive me. Thank You for showing me Your Truth concerning tribes. Jesus your example with your disciples is beautiful. Thank You for being a personal and loving God who wants us to be the light while giving us the gift of each other to share the ups and downs of this journey together. Thank You Lord for putting me here at this time; Show me how You see those You have put in my life. Holy Spirit guide me to be love and light first to my family and then rippling out. Teach me about the person You made me to be.

In Jesus name, Amen.

 

[i] Correction to podcast, I mentioned birds and fish but God only commanded the fish to multiply. He told the birds to be fruitful.

[ii] The garden is named Eden in Genesis 2 which means pleasure.

[iii] Romans 8:9, 1 Corinthians 3:16-17

[iv] Matthew 5:14

 ©2015, 2021 Elayne Cross

Tribe Scriptures

Considering others

• • Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
  • Acts 20:35 help the weak
  • Matthew 23:11 the greatest will be your servant.
  • Galatians 6:2 bear one another’s burdens
  • Hebrews 10:25 do not neglect gathering together
  • 1 Thessalonians 5:11 encourage one another
  • 1 Peter 4:10 use whatever gift you have to serve others, as faithful stewards of God.
  • Philippians 2:4 not looking to your own interests to the interests of the others.
  • Romans 12:9-13 be devoted to one another and honor one another
  • 1 Peter 1:22 love one another earnestly
  • Colossians 3:13 forgive as you have been forgiven
  • Romans 14:13 do not judge but decide to not put a stumbling block before a brother
  • Galatians 6:1 restore a brother caught in sin
  • Proverbs 18:24 a real friend sticks closer than a brother
  • Philippians 2:3 do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant
  • James 5:16 Pray for one another

Considering yourself

• • John 15:13 no greater love than a friend lay down his life for another
  • Proverbs 17:17 a brother is born for adversity
  • Romans 13:7 pay to all what is owed to them
  • Acts 5:29 we must obey God rather than men.
  • 1 Peter 5:5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.
  • Proverbs 11:3 the integrity of the upright guides them
  • Ecclesiastes 5:2 don’t make rash promises
  • Romans 12:3 do not think of yourself as better than others
  • Romans 15:7 welcome others as God welcomed you
  • Galatians 5:13 do not use your freedom for ill, but to serve each other
  • Proverbs 28:13 the one who confesses and renounces his sins finds mercy

Considering God

• • Ephesians 5:1 be imitators of God
  • Mark 10:45 Jesus didn’t come to be served, but to serve.
  • 1 John 1:7 if you walk in the light as He is in the light you will have community together
  • Ephesians 4:32 be tenderhearted to one another, forgiving each other
  • Proverbs 19:17 he who lends to the poor lend to God
  • Ruth 1:16 where you go I will go
  • Ecclesiastes 5:4-7 if you make a promise to God, keep your promise.
  • 1 John 3:23 the New commandment; believe in Jesus Christ and love one another

 

Copyright © 2021 Elayne Cross