My Cup Runneth Over (Musings of an Unspecialized Generalist)

What’s the best way to get to know another person? It is to learn his/her story; isn’t it! Everyone has a story, and it’s nearly always true that the better you know someone’s story; the better you know the person. Could the same be true about getting to know God? Yes, the better one knows God’s story, undoubtedly, the better one knows God. There is a difference between knowing a person or God and knowing their story, but the two go hand in hand.      The Bible is God’s Story. For many years I thought that the Bible was a book of theology. (I could not have articulated that early on, but that’s what I thought.) “I might know the stories of the Book, but it was the preachers who really understood the Bible.” And, if I wasn’t going to be a preacher, which I wasn’t , I probably wouldn’t ever really understand that somewhat foreboding, “funny talking” book with its “thee”(s) and“thou”(s); etc. Oh yes, I knew that the Bible was God’s Word.   ...

I had the joy and honor of preaching the Resurrection Sunday sermon at Plainwell Presbyterian Church; here is my message, somewhat abbreviated, and written after delivery from an outline, but very much as I spoke it.      In the grand scheme of All, how big do you think the issue of Easter is? (pause)  It's huge, isn't it! The importance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ probably cannot be overstated; it's cardinal; it's right there beside the incarnation in terms of its importance and relevance. Narrowing our thinking down a little, what would you say the message of Easter is? What is the proclamation of the resurrection?      For many years in my Christian experience I would have answered that question something like this: “The importance of Jesus’ dying, and rising from the dead is that it guarantees that I can do the same.” And, so can anyone who puts his or her faith in Jesus Christ. A few years ago I came to believe wh...

A somewhat abbreviated message by David Youngs, to First Presbyterian Church Basic Scripture: John 10: 1-11 & 14; Colossians 1: 15-20      You have noticed some similarities in most of my messages, haven’t you? It didn’t take long for me to realize that we are the kind of church that you don’t have to park your brain at the door. Of course, it’s not all about the brain, but I like propositional truths, and I operate from a base of those. The Bible is God’s story; I believe in it’s narrative primacy, but it has many, many propositionally stated truths. Check Genesis 1:1; Galatians 4:4; Revelation 21:3; for instance and multiplied others.       My launch proposition for today’s message, “What Does God Want?” is: There is always a bigger picture than is readily obvious. You have all been in situations where sooner or later you realized there was something bigger going on than you first realized. We all have spi...

The following is very similar to a sermon-teaching that I recently delivered at First Presbyterian Church of Plainwell.             Time! Benefactor or dictator? Enemy or champion? Friend or foe? How do you view the ever-moving hands on the clock of time, even if silently, clicking away? Thoreau said that time was but a stream he went “afishing in.” Solomon viewed time as something pre-ordained. There is a time for everything, birth, death, and all of life’s events in between. What’s your reaction to that? One person might say, “Yes, and I didn’t have anything to say in any of it--that’s fate.” Another might say, “Yes, and even though I didn’t choose when to be born or to die, I believe there is a good and sovereign God behind time; even though I don’t alway   understand His timing, I know that it is ultimately good.” Generally, which attitude reflects yours? Yes, of course, you know where I am going wit...

Going to funerals usually has a contemplitivising effect on me; I come away thinking of my own last time at church. (That’s where I want my final rite of passage held.) On Saturday I did the Words of Comfort and Hope  for my cousin Rudy Leutzinger at South Bend, Indiana. He was only a little more than an year younger I am, but he was a Christ-follower. I came away with a sense of great privilege. My thanks go to Donna and Bill, Rudy’s wife and son, for asking me to minister in that way. I have done funerals for three of my cousins, Ralph Leutzinger, John Douglas Beukema, and now Rudy; and it has been an honor.   When my generation of the Leutzingers was complete, cousin John was born in 1965, there were 36 of us. (We had lost Connie Lou and gained Jim Larnard.) I was fourth to be born; there are now 26 of us with Rudy's passing. I did not love a course in statistics that I had to take for my Master's, but I remember enough to realize that the fourth to be born out of 36...

“This too shall pass away.” a mighty monarch was told, after he had charged his sages to come up with one grand and concise truth that would always and forever hold true. Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote a poem so entitled, and Carl Sandburg picked up on the phrase for one of his poetic gems. Every thinking person knows that change is inevitable and continuous, even so, do you think or get the feeling that there has been a huge crescendo of overall change of late?  (I do understand that many older folks’ favorite pastime is playing   “Ain’t It Awful,” but that’s not what I am doing.)        Change has been in constant motion since the Fall; it's rate has been sporadic. Throughout history there have been epochal changes, and I believe that for several years, our culture has been and is now experiencing exactly that. It's not just that our way of saying and doing things has changed, but in a deeper way our culture’s manner of “seeing” all things...

Robyn and Richard Wixom of Bloomingdale were part of the church that I pastored for many years. When their twenty four year old son Cole was killed in an Army training accident, they asked me to do the funeral along with Pastor Jim Robertson. I was an honored to share these words. Many of us here are undoubtedly familiar with the words of Ecclesiastes, chapter three; and certainly everyone here knows the truth of those lines, ”For everything there is a time and a season; a time to be born and a time to die; a time to grieve ----”  Everyone knows the fact of death; we seldom argue with it until it comes close to us, but most people have a great argument with the timing of death, especially when it takes one so young as Sargent Cole Wixom. Who here has not asked, “Why did Cole have to die? The fact that you would ask such a question, says that you believe that there is more to this whole scenario than we can see. He was so young. Just getting started. He had found himself ...

Order in the universe fascinates me. Watching Jeopardy a while back, I learned something that I probably should have known long ago. When a double rainbow appears the second bow is a mirror image of the first--the colors are in reversed order. I mentioned my newly acquired knowledge to several others; some knew it, but nobody seemed to think that it was as profound as I did. (Where was I when this bit of knowledge was passed out?) So, the pattern of the first or main bow’s top half-ring is  red, descending to orange, yellow, green, blue and finally to indigo, and that is just reversed in the second, upper, bow. Every time two rainbows occur, that will be true. I find this fascinating and indicative of something greater. There is, of course a rational explanation to this meteorological wonder. It’s just a matter of reflection, refraction, and dispersion of light in water droplets as well as prismatic mirroring. Beyond being fascinating, however, this truth is beautifu...