Holding the Keys to the Kingdom, By The Rev. Dr. Donald L. Hamer, Rector
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Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford, CT
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Proper 17
Romans 12: 1-8, Matthew 16:13-20
Holding the Keys to the Kingdom
And I tell you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 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 16:18, 19
With these words found in this morning’s Gospel, Jesus officially establishes the notion of a “church” that, in some as yet undisclosed way, would affiliate his followers. Notice he doesn’t say anything about what that will look like; it just represents the whole body of people throughout the world who confess Jesus as their Lord. This is true throughout the Christian scriptures – the word “church” refers not to a building or even a place, but an assembly of people professing Jesus.
And it is on this occasion that Jesus chooses to change Simon’s name to Peter – or Petros, the Greek word that means “rock.” And with this strong name, Jesus appoints Peter as the first in what Roman Catholics and, in a different way, Anglicans and others consider to be an unbroken line of succession of church leadership to this very day. Jesus gives Peter “the keys of the kingdom.”
Quite a responsibility! And don’t lose the symbolism here: Jesus – who is God but who came to earth as a full human being – has begun the process of turning over the movement he started to a mere mortal. I sometimes wonder if Jesus regretted these words mere moments later, when he refers to Peter as “Satan” when Peter refuses to accept Jesus’ forecast that His earthly ministry will end in his death. Not to mention that Peter, within earshot of Jesus, denies even knowing him three times immediately before the death that Peter said would never happen. Way to go, Peter!
How many you are parents that have experienced giving the keys to the family car to a child for the first time? How many of you remember receiving the keys to the family car for the first time? How many of you aren’t 16 yet and can’t wait to get the keys to the family car? It’s a big deal, right? So you can imagine what it felt like to Jesus to name Peter to be his successor as the leader of this movement that Jesus had started. Peter himself pretty clearly, at least at this point, didn’t have a clue what Jesus meant. He got the keys and then promptly drove the car into a ditch. I wonder if Jesus felt a little like parents do when they give their teen-aged child the keys to the car for the first time. Sure, child had some training, but how will they act when they are out on their own, when the rubber meets the road? You have to be a little worried.
Clearly Peter has just received a big promotion. If there was ever any doubt about his leadership among the small band of disciples, Jesus has erased that doubt. What did Jesus see in Peter at that point that the text of the Gospels does not reveal? Perhaps it was not Peter’s actual behavior that caught Jesus’ attention – surely there was a lot of room for improvement there. It not his behavior, then, it may have been Peter’s heart, and his faith – simple as it was – that allowed Jesus to see the leader in him. Perhaps it was his testimony: You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!
I mentioned earlier the office of Pope in the Roman Catholic tradition and the office of Bishop in both the Roman tradition and many Protestant denominations, including our own. The Rev. Dr. Jin S. Kim of The Church of All Nations in Minneapolis, commenting on this text, has written that “the temptation of the church has always been to attempt to shore up its authority through external means, the doctrine of apostolic succession being one of them. . . . Furthermore, the authority of its ministers has become rooted in seminary education and ordination certified in a particular denominational tradition. Jesus is a very mercurial figure, though, who cannot be boxed in and used in these ways. The foundation of the church is not Peter, the original bishop, who passes o his regal authority from pope to pope as in the Roman Church, but neither is it the ability to memorize, assent to, and repackage the “hallowed” confessions of the Protestant Reformation.
“The church is not founded on Peter, just as it is not founded on John the Baptist or Elijah, Luther or Calvin. The Rock is not Peter, but Peter’s testimony. Therefore, while this passage has been interpreted to give the church empirical power and permanence, the underlying lesson is that the church is as resilient or fragile as each of us in our own faith. . . . Jesus’ question to each of us (as it was to those disciples) is, “Who do you say that I am? What is your testimony of me? What is your experience of the living God through my witness and presence?
“This is the rock on which the church is founded and the source of the Christian’s authority. This is what grants us the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to bind and to loose on earth. God relates to the church not as a coercive ruler but as a loving parent who entrusts to a fragile and immature child the power to do right and to do wrong, to be faithful and to drift away.”
So the question posed by today’s Gospel passage is, “How do we, as followers of Jesus, handle our responsibility with the keys to the kingdom?
In chapter 12 of his letter to the Romans, St. Paul reminds us that each and every one of us has a vital role in this movement. Jesus has given each of us a set of keys, and it is our responsibility – indeed, our blessing – to make a difference and to contribute to this Jesus Movement, to make it most fully what Jesus intended for it to be.
For the first 11 chapters of his letter to the Romans, Paul has been laying out his understanding of the theological foundation of the early Jesus Movement. And once again, congregation, I want to remind you not to be scared of that word, “theology.” Remember what theology is: Faith seeking understanding. (Thank you, St. Anselm) So having laid out how we might understand these teachings of Jesus, beginning with Chapter 12 Paul now begins exhorting his audience on the moral implications of that theology.
And Paul does something remarkable here: Just as Jesus, the God-Man, gave the keys to the very mortal Peter, St. Paul tells us that to present our own human bodies in service to God is a living sacrifice, the real type of sacrifice that God seeks from God’s people – not the symbolic sacrifice of birds and goats and other creatures. It is the giving of ourselves that God wants – that is our spiritual worship. I am reminded of the 19th century hymn text written by John G. Whittaker entitled O Brother Man. The opening verse goes like this:
"O brother man, fold to thy heart thy brother;
Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there;
To worship rightly is to love each other,
Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer."
I am also reminded of the Royal School of Church Music prayer that our choirs pray before each service and during each rehearsal: Bless us, O Lord, your servants who minister in your temple. Grant that what we say and sing with our lips, we may believe in our hearts, and what we believe in our hearts, we may show forth in our lives. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Paul adds another interesting point about the giving of ourselves. In verse 3 he writes, “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” At first glance, it might appear that the important part of this is not to think too highly of ourselves – which is always a good self-check to consider. But I think in the church the opposite is more frequently the case – that people think too little of themselves, and assume that what they have to contribute, if anything, is not important or valuable. Paul’s “body of Christ” metaphor – which he of course repeats in the 12th chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians – supports this interpretation: Each and every one of us has something important to contribute, and the body is not complete, and the mission is not complete -- without that offering of time, talent and treasure from each and every member. As Paul writes in verse 5, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.
And so, I close in St. Paul’s opening words of Chapter 12: I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect. AMEN.