Partnership with God

There was a moment when the Gospel stepped into Europe for the first time. It happened in a swirl of divine directions and a dream, settling on a synagogue near the riverside and a woman named Lydia. God opened her heart and she opened her home. I like this combination!  It was the foundation of the church in Philippi, a “partnership in the gospel” Paul calls it, the beginning of a “good work” that will continue until it is completed “at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Perhaps we here in Annapolis are a part of that continuing good work. Perhaps we are being called to such a partnership in the gospel.

The Marriage Supper

Lauren and I met at Pine Summit Christian Camp in Big Bear Lake, CA, August 15, 1977—the day Elvis Presley died. Three years and one day later we were married in the same place. Since the camp was about two-and-a-half hours from our hometown, we kind of had a “destination” wedding in the bucolic San Gabriel Mountains.

 Our reception was held in the camp dining hall, and the food was prepared by Esther, the ancient and grumpy camp cook. It wasn’t what you’d call gourmet…but it was wonderful.

 That celebratory “feast” was the culmination of three years of waiting, and the beginning of something beautiful. Nearly forty-five years, three sons, three daughters-in-law, and four grandchildren later, I look back on that day as a glorious foretaste of the life we’ve shared. And the joy, love, and community we felt were only a glimpse of the eternal celebration that awaits us as people who hope in Christ.

An ownership stake

“Skin in the game” is an aphorism popularized by Warren Buffett referring to the real benefit of executives using their own money to buy stock in the company they’re running. It’s to have a personal risk, or stake in the outcome of the business.

t’s an idea that was also important to Lauren and me over the years. Although our children are now grown and married, even when they were young we were big proponents of them having “skin in the game” in things that were important to them, rather than simply providing it for them…even when we could easily afford it.

Because it’s a simple fact of human nature that we take something more seriously when we have an ownership stake.

n the same vein, in this week’s Gospel Jesus describes himself as “The Good Shepherd”—not just a shepherd, but the good shepherd of Psalm 23. Not a hired hand who abandons the sheep at the first sign of danger, but the owner of the sheep who willingly gives himself for them.