You are peculiar people. Some of you more than others.

But collectively, together, you are strange. You are odd.

And I can prove it.

You show up on Sunday mornings when you could be

sleeping in. You sing out loud, in public, together, in

harmony…sometimes. You pass a plate and give your

money away—your hard-earned, deserved money. Not

for a product. Not for a service. You just give it away.

And you call all of this worship.

You greet each other with ancient words of peace. You

build friendships that span decades. You share the

burdens that you cannot shoulder all by yourself. You

show up for funerals of people you barely knew. You

bring food to families in crisis and shoes for children who

are not your children. You call all of this discipleship.

By any rational measure—comfort, convenience,

conformity—you are wasting your time.

Unless…it’s true.

Unless Jesus Christ really is Lord.

Unless death really has been defeated.

Unless this costly, inconvenient, irrational thing called

grace is the strongest power in the universe.

If that’s true, then what you do here carries weight

beyond measure. But, will anyone notice?

Philippi was a Roman colony. In fact, it was a kind of

showcase city for imperial power. Everywhere you

looked in the city of Philippi, carved in stone, stamped

on coins, proclaimed in public, these words: Caesar is

lord. Worship. Obey. Bend the knee.

Now, the Apostle Paul writes this letter from prison. His

body bears the scars of his resistance. And he says to

the Philippians—and to us—here’s what you must do:

Shine like stars in the night sky. Don’t blend in. Don’t play

it safe. Don’t keep your head down. Shine.

Where? In a crooked and perverse generation—

Paul’s words, not mine—you are called to be visibly,

unmistakably, defiantly different.

Somewhere along the way, I think we forgot. I think the

greatest threat to the Church today is not rejection. It

is invisibility, that no one notices us at all because we

sound, act, and are carved up just like everybody else.

In the beating heart of Roman rule, our ancestors dared

to profess:

Christ is Lord.

Not Caesar.

Not empire.

Not wealth or nation or party.

Christ is Lord.

It was the earliest and most powerful Christian

conviction. And if it is true, then everything changes. It

starts here. It starts with us when we refuse to shrink

the gospel, to confine it to one small part of our lives or

our witness, when we refuse to blend into a broken age.

You start by seeing. Every person you encounter reflects

the image of God. You know the ones I’m talking about.

The neighbor whose uncut grass or obnoxious yard

sign makes your blood boil. The stranger who crossed

the border for work to feed his family. The friend whose

Facebook posts offend you. The believer told their

identity is unworthy or unholy. All of them. Each of us.

The estranged family member you struggle to forgive.

You see, God’s image is not yours to grant or deny. It

is frustratingly and beautifully beyond our pay grade.

And so, scripture must shape our faith, not endorse

our opinions. The Bible is not a weapon to wound our

enemies, but a mirror that tells the truth about us.

If Christ is Lord, then we must refuse to excuse cruelty

from our own side. We must stay at the table across

deep disagreement. We must hold one another

accountable to a standard higher than victory—and

that’s when we become strange. Peculiar. Odd. Hard to

label. Impossible to co-opt.

The crisis we face isn’t that people have rejected faith—

it’s that they’ve seen a Church that looks just like the

world. Tribal. Fearful. Shallow. But we draw others not by

force, but by radiance. We shine, not to be seen, but to

be faithful. Jesus tells his disciples, “When you’ve been

given a light so great that it lights up the whole world,

you cannot hide it. You cannot blend in. You have a role

to play. A mission to fulfill. A purpose.”

Right now, in our city, that faithfulness takes shape

in Streets to Homes Indy, where we partner to find

permanent supportive homes for those who need them

most. Let me tell you, this is patient work. It is relational

work. It’s the kind of work that doesn’t produce quick

victories. The kind of work that defies the math of

efficiency and ROI. But for 47 souls in the last three

months, who now have homes, it is lifechanging work.

A month ago, I received this note from a parent in

our congregation. Her five-year-old, Ethan, had been

listening carefully to the sermon that Sunday, and when

the plates were passed for the offering, he turned to his

dad and said, “Dad, the church needs money to help

people. I need a thousand dollars.” (I love this kid!)

She writes, “He settled for a twenty, and then proceeded

to decorate the offering envelope in order to make

people feel better.” Five years old—learning right here

what generosity means, what it looks like to be part of

something bigger than yourself.

Three weeks ago, I was visiting with a member of

our congregation, one of our saints. I had joined her

for lunch at her new retirement community, and she

insisted that after lunch we have a scoop of mint

chocolate chip ice cream. She said it was the best in

the city, and she was right. And as we enjoyed the ice

cream, she told me how members of this congregation

showed up for her this summer when she needed it

the most, when it mattered the most. She said, “I don’t

know how they knew, but somehow they knew. Right

when I needed a phone call, my phone would ring. Right

when I needed a visit, somebody would show up. In the

moment I needed a card, one would arrive in the mail.”

And then she said these words. She said, “Without my

church, I would not have made it. You go tell them that.”

That Sunday, right after the benediction, just over in

this section, a guest sat in one of these pews. She was

weeping. It was quiet, but heavy. The kind that comes

when home has become unsafe but leaving it feels just

as dangerous. And she was here in this sanctuary, safe

for just a moment. And after the service, she lingered in

that spot, and most of us were headed toward coffee,

conversations, the Colts playing on TV.

But I noticed one of you change course. You walked

across the aisle. Sat down. Placed a hand on her

shoulder. And there, in the pew, you prayed. You saw the

image of God, afraid and alone, and you stayed. That’s a

strange thing to do. A moment of grace.

Of course, when this church has been at its very best,

we’ve always been strange. We’ve refused to bend the

gospel to fit the times. Our founding pastor, Henry Ward

Beecher, stood in Second’s pulpit on May 28, 1843, and

from that pulpit he called slavery a moral evil. He was

just shy of thirty years old. It was risky. Indiana. Before

the Civil War. In fact, the local papers covered the

sermon and the fallout. It cost the church members. It

cost the pastor friends. Even job security. In fact, he had

waited to speak for those very reasons. But after four

years as your pastor, he couldn’t wait any longer. And

so, he spoke.

Down in South Carolina, there was another

Presbyterian pastor. His name was James Henley

Thornwell. He was a brilliant scholar, a graduate of

my alma mater seminary. Henry Ward Beecher called

Thornwell the best debater in the General Assembly.

And James Henley Thornwell had a clear message for

the Church and preachers like Beecher. Stay in your

lane. Thornwell quoted Proverbs, “Put your hands upon

your mouth.” Slavery, he said, was a political matter, not

a spiritual one. Not the Church’s business.

Thornwell said the Church should stay silent.

Beecher determined silence was the sin.

And Beecher was right.

The argument echoes in our time:

Cuts to hunger programs and childcare vouchers for

poor families.

Contempt for those from other lands.

Political issues. Not the Church’s business.

But then pastors weaponize scripture against people

whose stories they do not know, real people with

names, and faces, and families, and souls. And leaders

in our state defend dehumanizing policies on Christian

grounds, fueling fires of suspicion and fear. And the

voices repeat: put your hands upon your mouth. Just

blend in.

But somewhere I read, “I was hungry and you fed me.”

Somewhere I read, “I was a stranger and you

welcomed me.”

Somewhere I read, “Beware of wolves in sheep’s

clothing who lead the flocks astray.”

Somewhere I read, “Woe to those who deprive the poor

of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed.

Look, I know this is hard. Tough for me too. Part of me

wants to hold back. Play prevent. But Beecher rings

in my ears: the greater sin is silence. And the Church

cannot be silent. The gospel is too beautiful to be

reduced to a politics of fear. God’s kingdom is too vast

to fit within the narrow walls of nationalism. These are

not party lines. They are gospel demands. We will differ

on how to translate these convictions into policy, but

together we must uphold the dignity granted every

human soul by God.

Second Church—what will you choose? Comfort or

costly faith? Narrow allegiance or the Lordship of Jesus

Christ? Will we bow to lesser gods—or stand firm? Will

we shine—or blend into the night?

After worship today, I’ll have an hour to sit with our

eighth-grade confirmands. Twenty kids. You know their

faces. You made promises at their baptisms. Some of

you taught them in Sunday school. You watched them

run our halls, climb these pews. You saw them sit and

sing on these stairs.

Now, they’re asking the ancient questions: Who is God?

What does it mean to follow Jesus? What place will the

Church hold in my life?

They’re asking, and they’re watching. Will they see

a church formed by scripture, even when it costs

comfort? Or a church bending to power, blending in to

avoid attack? What will we choose?

I’m asking you to commit generously to Second

Church today. Your generosity sustains the pastoral

care that holds us together—hospital visits and crisis

counseling, the relationships that span decades. Your

generosity sustains confirmation and worship and

fellowship and formation.

Your generosity sustains our witness beyond these

doors. And all of it, every bit, matters. All of it. It matters

to a five-year-old in the pew decorating an offering

envelope. It matters to a woman adjusting to life in

a retirement home, and to our unhoused neighbors

downtown, and to eighth graders on the second floor.

Not to keep the lights on. Not to pay the bills. But to

sustain a church that chooses courage over comfort,

the vulnerable over convenience, and Christ over every

competing loyalty.

The world does not need Christians who blend in or

build power. It needs Christians made strange by Jesus.

Our city needs a church like that.

Fifty years from now, those twenty teenagers will tell

this story. My sons will tell this story. I think about that

a lot. I’ll be ninety-three. Probably well past preaching.

An old man wondering what difference it all made. Did I

tell the truth or keep the congregation comfortable? Did

we shine—or blend in? Were we bold in our witness or

silent in fear?

I want them to remember that, in this church, we

refused to bow to lesser gods. Christ alone is Lord.

From his prison cell, Paul pleas across centuries: Hold

fast to the word of life. That word runs through the

story of this place. Christ’s call. Beecher’s courage.

Our legacy. The next chapter is yours to write. Hold

fast to faith. Hold fast to courage. Hold fast to the light.

Peculiar people, it is time to shine.