“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you
bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be
loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19)
Keys are pretty important, don’t you think? Now that I’m in my sixties I
tend to misplace my keys a lot, and that causes a certain quantum of anxiety. I
need my keys, although there are some things now that used to require turning a
key but no longer do—like starting your car. But back in the day you had to
have keys to get into stuff. One summer when I was in college I worked at a
ladies’ shoe store. I was a full-timer, so I got a key to the front door of the
shop. The assistant manager also had a key. Of course, it required both keys to get in. I guess the retail powers-that-be
didn’t trust pitiful underlings to enter the store unaccompanied.[i]
Only the all-powerful manager possessed all
the keys.
In our gospel lesson for Pentecost 13, Year A (Matthew 16:13-20),
Jesus—who seems pretty pleased that Peter has passed his little oral quiz—tells
his disciples he’s giving them the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. They get the
privilege of locking stuff in or opening stuff up. What this basically meant in
Jewish tradition was Jesus gave his twelve buddies (and, by extension, all of us in the Christian faith) the
authority to prohibit (bind) or allow (loose). BUT: we’re reminded that we’re
only trustees here. We may think we’re only turning the keys here on earth, but
we’re actually turning them in the Kingdom of God.
The main key we’re given is the key to understanding our relationship
with Jesus. Peter has seen Jesus do some pretty freaky stuff. He’s seen him
cure the sick, feed the hungry, square off against the high muckety-mucks, and
even walk on water and calm a storm. He’s heard him preach some fantastic and
puzzling words of alternative wisdom, too. Peter isn’t a super-educated guy. He
may not understand geo-politics, quantum physics, or why his religion won’t let
him eat a cheesesteak, but he knows one thing for dead sure—his friend Jesus is
the most awesome human being he’s ever met, and if the Spirit of God is
dwelling in no one else, it’s dwelling in Jesus of Nazareth.
The first key to our faith is the person of Jesus and our answer to the
question, “But who do you say that I
am?” (v. 15)
I think there may be any number of keys we could use to unlock this
question. There’s the Norman Vincent Peale key. It says that Jesus is your very
present help in time of trouble. You can always think positively because Jesus
is there to look after you and bring prosperity to your life. There’s the Billy
Graham key which says Jesus is your savior who died for you and saved you, a
poor, miserable sinner, from the just and terrible reward for your iniquity. There’s
the Dorothy Day/Reinhold Niebuhr key which says Jesus is your guide to
compassion and activism for the sake of the poor. There’s the Nadia Bolz-Weber
key which says Jesus is the voice of love and inclusion for those who have been
marginalized, victimized, and left out of society. Perhaps we need all of these keys plus a key or two we
haven’t thought about yet.
We’d do well to consider, however, that being handed the keys of the
gospel is like being a sixteen-year-old kid who has been handed the keys to his
dad’s car for the first time and told he better bring it back without a dent or
scratch on it. The keys of the kingdom come with responsibility. They are not
meant to lock us inside in snug safety. They are to open the door of our
thinking and our hearts and allow others to come into the presence of Christ.
What is the key to your faith? And when was the last time you opened it
up to someone else?
I hope you’ll think about that this week. Maybe you’ll share your
thoughts in the comment section, too. But regardless, thanks for coming by. Do
come again!
[i]
Actually, there was no guess work about this. They DIDN’T trust us. We had to
take a polygraph examination before we were hired. The assistant manager I
worked with that summer graciously validated the company’s paranoia by stealing
thousands of dollars of merchandise from the store later that year.
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