The Motorcycle Wave

I've noticed that the times I've gotten a new (to me) car, it's caused me to notice how many other cars of the same model there are on the roads. Sometimes I even like to give my car buddies a friendly little toot-toot on the horn. When I lived in a small town, I saved up $900 to buy a 50cc Yamaha Vino scooter and, while I didn't notice too many other Yamaha Vinos on the road, I did notice something else I had never noticed before.

The town we lived in was just off Highway 22, so the local diner got quite a bit of motorcycle traffic. Since I, too, drove around town on my two-wheeled hog, I noticed that all the other motorcycle drivers almost always gave each other a wave when they drove past each other. Maybe you've noticed the same wave— the left hand extends slightly, with two fingers lazily pointing out just enough as if to say "We are riding motorcycles."

Once I caught on I gave the wave a try to the next motorcyclist I passed, but was disappointed to not get a wave back. So I tried again with the one after that... and got nothing. I decided that maybe my scooter didn't have enough cc's, or my top speed wasn't high enough, or my fellow riders could tell I didn't have (or require) a motorcycle endorsement. Or maybe it's just that scooters aren't allowed in The Motorcycle Wave Club. Whatever it was, I was pretty bummed to not ever get a wave back.

Tucked in the middle of Ephesians 5:22-6:9 where Paul is addressing those in the Church about how to treat each other is a passage (verses 6:1-3) directed to children:

Children, obey your parents as believers in the Lord. Obey them because it’s the right thing to do. Scripture says, “Honor your father and mother.” That is the first commandment that has a promise. “Then things will go well with you. You will live a long time on the earth.”

I heard Kaitlyn Schiess recently mention on a podcast that something striking about this passage is that it shows us that Paul assumed that children would be mixed in among the churches that this letter was written to— they were addressed right alongside leaders, husbands, wives, parents, etc. This pattern and paradigm shows up over and over throughout scripture, that not just children, but everyone is of equal importance to God (Galatians 3:28 is a great example).

I know that because my top speed was only 37 MPH while going downhill while being tucked into the most aerodynamic position possible I didn't deserve to get The Wave, but it would have made me feel a part of something big and important if I did. I wonder what we could do a little differently to help younger people, or older people, or people with different backgrounds feel like they belong alongside us in our church.

Andy Pullen