Jesus, Dolly, and Jars of Clay

by John Roy. August 2026

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." — 2 Corinthians 4:7

On Tuesday, we learned of the passing of Dolly Parton.

So I decided to write a little something. At the time, there was no plan, just a bit of catharsis for me, but I kept writing, and I ended up with something that looks and sounds like a sermon.

I call this The Gospel According to Dolly — or possibly High Heels and Rhinestones.

The immediate reaction from all corners was how beloved she was. I'm sure in our country, where everything is polarized, someone will produce something less flattering in the weeks to come. I'm presenting this understanding full well that Dolly was not perfect — that there are likely some things she's done that might make me wince.

But I'm old enough now to know that everyone in this room has done something they wouldn't want aired for public consumption.

All I see is a bunch of sinners, including when I look in the mirror.

Further, the original gospel writers were imperfect vehicles themselves. They weren't perfect, although the Savior they wrote about was. Paul knew this about himself better than anyone — he's the one who told the church at Corinth that we carry this treasure "in jars of clay," cracked and ordinary vessels, so that nobody could mistake the power for coming from the jar instead of from God.

So, a Gospel According to Dolly doesn't mean Dolly needs to be above reproach.

It means she was a jar of clay who spent much of her life pointing past herself to something bigger.

She's sharing the Savior's good news.

It's popular today to present information like this:

In a world of narrow-minded religious zealots faking persecution, be a Dolly, a follower of Jesus who is a zealot for love.

You get it — in a world of takers, be a giver. In a world of talkers, be a doer.

The low-hanging fruit would be to say, "In a world of — fill in the blank with this week's biggest problem — be a Dolly."

It's probably an oversimplification.

But I would argue that we need more Dollys, not less.

I'm using a few quotes this morning from Dolly, and I've sourced them to make sure they're bona fide.

In 2012, she wrote a book, Celebrate the Dreamer in You, and this is a quote from it:

"I asked my mother once why God let me be so successful when others in my family were more talented. She said, 'God knew you'd be willing to share.'"

I love that answer.

And Dolly did share.

In 1998, she brought every seventh and eighth-grader in Sevier County into a room and asked them to pick a buddy. She asked the kids to sign a contract. If both kids graduated, both got $500. (It's 1998.) If one failed, nobody got any money.

The county dropout rate dropped from 35% to 6%.

When the time came, she handed out the checks herself.

She was a generous soul. Her foundation has given away hundreds of millions of dollars. She even gave money for COVID-19 research. Jeff Bezos gave her $100 million in 2022 to distribute as she saw fit. Her Imagination Library provides free books to children.

In a world where celebrities and politicians keep their hands in their pockets, here you had Mona, Truvvy, and Dolly being generous souls and sharing.

I know generous people. Sometimes they have great wealth. Others don't. Generosity does not come from what's in your wallet; it comes from what's in your heart.

Because generosity is more than giving money.

Generosity is a way of seeing the world.

It says, What I have is not only for me.

My time is not only for me.

My talent is not only for me.

My success is not only for me.

My life is not only for me.

And I think Dolly understood that.

So the first word of her gospel is:

Be generous.

Hold that for a moment.

If you haven't seen her movie Steel Magnolias, I hope you will. The gathering space in town is Truvy's Beauty Salon. Dolly played Truvy. Dolly was not a hairdresser; she was a glamour technician. The whole story is about making room for everyone, and gossiping a bit.

Insiders, outsiders — it didn't matter. No one was turned away.

In a world that aches to hate someone, Dolly found a way to preach, live, and sing love.

In 2023, The Hollywood Reporter asked her about gays and lesbians and same-sex marriage. She's quoted as saying:

"I just want everybody to be treated good; they can't help who they are any more than I can help being Dolly."

While the quote is imperfect, we also know her actions were always on the side of love. On the same subject, in 2009, on the Larry King show — I know, I can't believe Larry King was alive in 2009 myself — she said:

"I think all people have a right to be who they are. We are all God's children."

I've heard some people use these quotes and say she wanted a more tolerant world.

But I don't think that's quite right.

Others have upped it a bit and said she was calling for respect, not just tolerance.

Yet, as some celebrity said this week, Dolly treated everyone like an old friend. It didn't matter who you were or when you had seen her last. Get ready, because you were about to get baptized in lipstick and makeup. Which leads me more toward acceptance — or love.

Jesus never asked us simply to tolerate one another.

Jesus did call us on numerous occasions to love one another.

Further, he warned us that judging was beyond our scope of work.

In Matthew, Jesus says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” In John, it is recorded that he said, “As I have loved you, you must love each other.”

The church should listen to the Savior, if not our Savior, then maybe Dolly:

"All people have the right to be who they are. We are all God's children."

Gay.

Straight.

White.

Black.

Native-born.

Immigrant.

Even Franklin Hart, the boss in 9 to 5.

The second word of her gospel is acceptance.

So hold that word for a minute.

And now I want to come back to that first quote.

"I asked my mother once why God let me be so successful when others in my family were more talented. She said, 'God knew you'd be willing to share.'"

Do you hear it? Humility. I know we don't hear much of it anymore.

It sounds like a foreign word and concept.

Dolly said, Uncle Bill can play.

My brother Randy can really sing.

And my sister Stella — oh, she's beautiful.

Nobody had Dolly's talent or drive, and yet she was humble enough to believe others were as deserving as she was.

Because humility is not thinking less of yourself.

Humility is knowing that you are not the whole story.

Dolly could acknowledge her gifts without pretending they were entirely of her own making.

She could be successful without believing success made her better than everyone else.

She could become famous without needing everyone else to become small.

She could rise without forgetting where she came from.

And there's another word from Sister Dolly: humility.

So now we have three words to hold: humility, acceptance, and generosity.

But to hear the whole gospel she preached, I must tell you a little more. It doesn't fit neatly into three words. There's always a little more, and in Dolly's case, these are the Rhinestones.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a coat of many colors.

— Genesis 37:3

The coat of many colors has always been a visual image of what it means to be loved. Israel loved Joseph so much that he gave him a coat of many colors, a beautiful coat.

I suspect Dolly heard this story in her Sunday School class — at least her mother did. It was a story about uncommon love.

Her impoverished mother stitched her a coat out of rags — scraps too small and mismatched for anybody else's use — and told her the story of Joseph while she sewed.

Little Dolly wore that coat to school, proud as Joseph himself.

And she got laughed out of the room for it.

She said carrying that memory hurt her for years.

And it wasn't until she turned it into a song that she felt some of it heal.

Grief and shame don't leave us just because time passes.

Sometimes they leave because we finally tell the story out loud, in front of people, and let somebody else's love — a mother's, a Savior's — get the last word over the ones who laughed.

Genesis 37 tells us Joseph's coat marked him as chosen, set apart, favored — and it's precisely what got him thrown into a pit by his own family.

Dolly's coat marked her as poor, and it's what got her mocked by her classmates.

Both coats, it turns out, were about the same thing:

Uncommon and Unconditional Love

In Steel Magnolias, Dolly turned a beauty shop into a sanctuary — a room where women brought each other's grief and joy, and nobody had to pretend either one away.

That's not so different from what a good church is supposed to be.

A good church ought to be a place where you can bring your joy and your grief.

Your certainty and your questions.

Your best days and your worst ones.

A place where you don't have to earn your welcome before you receive it.

Dolly kept building those rooms her whole life — on screen and off it, through libraries and foundations and businesses and all the other things she touched.

Rooms where people didn't have to earn their welcome first.

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." — 2 Corinthians 4:7

Hear this — as clearly as you can.

The treasure doesn't make the jar more important.

The treasure makes the jar more responsible. The treasure we have in Jesus.

And that's what Dolly understood.

“To him or her who has been given much, much is expected.”

— Luke 12:48

There is a rabbinic saying that goes, “On the day of judgment, God will not look at you and say, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ God will look at you and say, ‘Why didn’t you give all you had?’ God’s not asking any of us to do what Dolly did. Yet we are treasures in jars of clay, so God is expecting us to follow, serve, and be difference makers.

So here's Jesus' good news filtered through a girl from the mountains of Tennessee.

Be generous.

Be generous with what you've been given.

Your money.

Your time.

Your talent.

Your attention.

Your love.

Be accepting.

Accept people who are different from you.

Accept people whose lives don't look like yours.

Accept the person who doesn't fit neatly into the category you've created for them.

Because Jesus never seemed particularly interested in our categories.

He was interested in people.

And finally:

Be humble.

Remember that whatever treasure you carry, you carry it in a jar of clay.

You didn't make yourself.

You didn't get here alone.

You have been loved.

You have been helped.

You have been forgiven.

And perhaps that's why Dolly Parton has meant so much to so many people.

She didn't spend her life trying to convince us that she was extraordinary.

She spent much of her life reminding us that we could be extraordinary.

God knew Dolly would be willing to share — so there's our question this morning:

What has God given you that you are willing to share?

Because the gospel isn't that some of us are better jars than others.

The gospel is that every jar can carry treasure.

And the treasure is not ours to keep.

Be generous.

Be accepting.

Be humble.