“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such

times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to

decide is what to do with the time given us.”

Friends, we live in difficult days of decision. The stakes

are foundational, and the question before the Church is

not subtle. Which light will we reflect? Whose image will

we bear? Will we follow the Christ who emptied himself,

or bow to the forces of fear? Will we honor souls or

chase worldly gain? Will we become radiant reflectors of

holy light or warped mirrors of a cruel age?

I need to quote Marilynne Robinson again. I know—

it’s becoming a bit of a running joke in our pastor

meetings. Thanks to the work of one of our intrepid

elderly members, I’ve started a pen-pal friendship with

Dr. Robinson, one of the world’s great writers, and here

is my humbling discovery: her emails are every bit as

luminous as her novels. Envy is the word I need. If I can’t

write like her, I can certainly quote her.

Robinson writes: “The concept of the soul is the

profoundest possible bond among us, an unshakable

basis for compassion, recognition and love which,

acknowledged, would enable us to love enemies,

welcome strangers, and all the rest.”

What Robinson asks of us is reverence. Reverence.

Not the stiff, stuffy kind, but the kind that arrests your

attention. The kind that makes you notice a toddler

clutching her mother’s hand, or a neighbor’s exhausted

sigh at the end of a long day, and whispers to you, “This

person matters. This moment is holy.”

Reverence or fear. That’s the choice before us.

Reverence sees the soul. Fear sees the threat.

Reverence loves the stranger. Fear turns away.

Reverence trusts God’s power. Fear grasps for our own.

And I do worry that we’re losing the capacity for

reverence. It’s easy to see in the world out there. We’re

trained to categorize quickly. Notifications ping. Faces

blur. We lose sight of the profound mystery of the image

of God in the person next to us. If we cannot see each

other—soul to soul—we cannot love each other.

The Church is not immune. Even in here, reverence

can slip. Fear can take its place. We can be tempted

to chase cultural power and call it zeal when it is only

sanctified tribalism. We can miss the beauty of the holy

hiding in plain sight. We can see the need of another

and turn away. We can justify our indifference. Not my

tribe. Not my people. Not my concern.

Paul writes to the Church, to Jesus followers facing

intense cultural pressure to prove their power. He

anchors his appeal in mercy. Since it is by God’s mercy

that we’re engaged in this work, we do not lose heart.

God’s light is shining in us. We have this treasure…in

clay jars.

Not in locked vaults. Not in fortresses behind walls. Held

in the fragility of human clay.

Paul is under pressure. Critics in the church want a

different leader. They want a leader who will project

strength and certainty. They want power that looks

powerful. And Paul refuses.

In fact, he doubles down. He says, “Yes, I’m weak. Yes,

I’m fragile. Yes, I’m broken. And that’s the point.” God

welcomes our weakness so no one claims credit for

the extraordinary power that belongs only to God. In

other words, the cracks in these earthen vessels aren’t

accidents; they are architecture, the architecture of grace.

Paul insists we don’t proclaim ourselves. We proclaim

Christ as Lord. In a cross-shaped community,

inadequacy is no liability, it’s the foundation for the glory

of God.

And yet, we must confess that we’d often rather

worship Caesar than Christ. Faith easily becomes a tool

of domination, a public performance, a shield against

vulnerability. We trade God’s costly kingdom for our

own comfort. We are enthralled by the wolf and ignore

the shepherd.

Some in the Christian community embrace this vision.

They wrap it in religious garb. They speak of “taking

ground for Christ” while ignoring the hungry, the

stranger, the vulnerable, the very ones Christ came to

save and sends us to serve. Instead, cultural victory,

tribal loyalty, personal brand-building become measures

of faithfulness. The gospel is built as a platform or

refashioned into a weapon. One word captures it. Fear.

Fear slips in like shadow. It says that neighbors are

threats. It elevates narrow moralism above God’s

mercy. It demands uniformity, idolizes authority, and

blurs ideology with theology. It isolates the hurting. It

warps worship into a rally while reverence recedes and

communities fracture.

People walk away. Not from Jesus, but from churches

where fear, harshness, and tribalism block the light

meant to shine through fragile vessels. Some find their

way here.

One of them wrote me a few weeks ago, a former leader

at another church in town. He stepped away when the

tone grew too sharp and the words became too militant.

He showed up here one Sunday and told me he wept

through the entire service—not from sadness, but from

relief. God renewed his hope in this place. I think I know

the tears he shed. They signal freedom, release from

religion that must fight to prove its worth.

What if God does not require our rage? What if God

does not need our protection? What if we don’t need to

live in fear? What if the Church set down its sword?

There is another way. A church that proclaims

Jesus—and no one else—as Lord. A church shaped

by reverence, resisting fear. God does not need your

defense. God demands your discipleship, people shaped

by a story so dependent on God’s power that it needs

no human validation, so defined by reverence that it

sees the sacred in each God-breathed soul.

It happens here. On Wednesday afternoons, volunteers

gather before doors open to pray for families coming

for groceries and grace. They gather to pray to remind

themselves that every human being who will enter

the doors of our food pantry is created in the image of

God, deserving of our respect and our reverence. After

worship, deacons will arrange flowers, crafted as a

message of peace to somebody grieving the loss of a

loved one. All week long, pastors will arrive in the early

morning hours of hospital rooms to pray before surgery.

Second graders will joyfully remember their baptisms

and celebrate with a friend welcomed in these waters.

Parents will make faith a priority in chaotic calendars.

Greeters will ensure that every person crossing our

threshold knows: you belong here.

I swear I saw God in a newly paved parking lot last

week. Sunday night. It was getting dark, and I’m

waiting for the buses to bring Samuel back from his

first overnight retreat with our youth group. Eventually,

the buses pull in, the doors open, and teenagers spill

out, dragging their stuff behind them. They all have that

unmistakable adolescent exhaustion in their faces. A

ragged bunch. Bleary-eyed. Fragile for sure.

Putting on my most energetic voice, I asked, “How

was it?” Reports came back, slowly at first: “Awesome.

Amazing. So good. Definitely going again.” Somebody

chimed in, “Even the God parts were fun.” Like you,

I laughed. But then I stopped, and I looked at them,

strangers one day earlier, now sitting on their bags

shoulder to shoulder. And they were glowing from

within. Look closely. A clay jar, every single one of

them. Not generating light; but simply, unmistakably,

gloriously reflecting light. Reverence evokes a response.

This moment demands a choice. Will we reflect the

gospel or bow to fear? Will Christ be our light, or will we

turn inward, hoarding grace while neighbors go hungry,

the vulnerable unseen, the hurting abandoned?

Later in this letter, Paul reminds us: your abundance

exists for others’ need. Your clay jar holds treasure—not

to store, but to share.

Yes, this is a commitment sermon. I’ll tell you what

we do. Our family tithes. We give ten percent. We’ve

done it for years, and we try to share that practice with

our boys. Benjamin, age eight, recently pointed out—

helpfully—that we would have more money for fun if we

didn’t give it away. He’s right. But he also understands

why we give.

Giving is not a bill we pay; it is a story we tell. A

declaration that the light we’ve seen is the light we

trust, come what may. That we are being formed by

a story this world cannot tell. That life is not about

accumulating—not money, not power, not stuff,

not status. Here, we say life is about belonging to

something larger than yourself. About living for a

purpose beyond comfort.

Next Sunday, we will come together to commit

ourselves afresh to this work of light.

Friends, let your giving tell the truth about the story you

belong to. We have been entrusted with much. We must

give accordingly. Not from guilt or obligation, but as an

act of resistance to fear, a reflection of reverence.

You are jars of molded mud. Fragile, dependent,

luminous with borrowed light. This moment is starving

for your light—for those who will hold what is precious

with gentle hands, who let their broken places become

windows for God’s light.

Reverence or fear. That’s still the choice. And it’s not

easy. Loud voices claim to speak for God and say we

should be afraid. Cruelty beats relentlessly against the

soul, claiming that contempt is a Christian virtue. Not

so. I have staked my life on this promise: that the world

will not be redeemed by rage or fear. God grants them

no power to save. The world turns on grace. Grace. The

only story worth telling.

Reverence. Clay jars, glowing in the dark. Ordinary

souls, daring to shine.

Second Church, let’s go tell a better story.

Pray with me: God, give us eyes to see your image in

each face. Make us reflectors of your light. Amen.