Keys

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom…”  - Matthew 16:19

I remember distinctly when I held in my hand, for the first time, a most precious set of keys!  What an incredible feeling of power, elevated status, and sweet freedom came over me when my father placed in my hand “the keys" to his car!  It was as if I had been given wings to fly!  I was 16; it was 1964. 

It was a beautiful car, in mint condition - a black 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 that my dad purchased from the proverbial little old lady who only drove it to church and the grocery store.  It had fancy silver and gold colored chrome; custom wheel covers; a big V-8 engine; four-barrel carburetor; power windows and seats; fancy radio and quality speakers; (get this) a yellow and black leather interior!  It was awesome!  But it wasn't just the car, it was the “keys,” and all that those “keys” represented to teenager in 1964.

In your pocket or handbag you probably have a set of keys.  Each one of those keys represents something; a relationship to somebody, or something, or some level of responsibility!   To a great extent keys represent trust.  I was entrusted with keys to this building last Monday.  Those keys are a symbol of trust

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus entrusted Peter with the “keys” of the kingdom of heaven. The word for “keys” in Greek, κλείς, literally means the keys that lock or unlock.  But similar to my teenage experience with the keys to my father’s car, in the New Testament “keys” are a metaphor for power, authority and responsibility. 

What goes around usually comes around, and I vividly remember when I entrusted my son, David, with the "keys" to my car for the first time.  The experience gave me a greater appreciation of what my dad must have felt when he first gave his keys to me.  As I handed him those keys, an uncomfortable feeling of anxiety washed over me! For beginners, I was acutely aware that my insurance premiums were almost doubling!   I admit I had a few concerns, "Can David handle it without misusing the power, authority and the responsibility that comes with the ‘keys?’" 

In my mind, Christians down through the centuries have not always handled the “keys” of the kingdom very well.  We Christians can be very good at making Jesus look a lot more like us than we look like the Jesus of the gospels.  We often mistake our contrived images of Jesus for the real thing.  Countless times Jesus has been recreated and reshaped by forces of human insecurity and the thirst for power and control.  The temptation is great to recreate Jesus in our image.

When we look at the history of Christianity we see an appalling and dreadful landscape littered with the victims of those who have named Jesus as Lord – but what kind of Lord did they recreate and reshape him to be?  Christians have used Jesus to distort people with guilt, bigotry, intolerance and anger.  In Jesus’ name Christians practiced slavery, defended segregation, and approved lynching.  In Jesus’ name children have been abused, women diminished, homosexuals hated, wars waged, the unrepentant condemned, even tortured and executed, Jews persecuted, doubters excommunicated, and violence used to achieve conversion – all seemingly without care or conscience – often in the name of Jesus.   Christian history is punctuated with distorted images of Jesus – and the wake of injustice left behind.   Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

 A decade ago, when I left the congregation I served in Anchorage, Alaska I received a letter from a member of the congregation.  The letter covered a range of topics reviewing my ministry over those years, and I think the letter was meant to be affirming.  But the individual recounted events that I couldn’t ever remember happening and had me having said things I know I never said.  By the time I finished reading the letter, I was sure the person couldn’t have possibly been talking about me!  

I have to wonder what the Jesus that lived and walked this earth 2000 years ago would think if he were to return today and look around at the images of himself expounded by the various expressions and manifestations of Christianity down through history.  I simply have to wonder.

The main idea behind the “keys” is a conveyance of authority and power from Jesus to the disciples - and finally to us. But what kind of power and authority is it to be?  That’s the question. What kind of power are we, you and I, entrusted with as disciples and followers of Jesus?  What kind of power and authority are we to put to work for the sake of the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus? (In our families, work places, relationships, community and world)

I believe the biblical text gives us clue.  These “keys” that Jesus entrusted to Peter only came after a question and a confession.  “Who do people say that the Son of man is?” asked Jesus?   That was not only Jesus’ question of the disciples, but it was also a red hot question that was being discussed and debated in the early Christian community in the decades immediately after Jesus’ earthly life.  One of the primary places that debate and that discussion took place was in the synagogue.  One of the popular notions of the expected Jewish “messiah” was that this messiah would defeat and destroy Israel’s enemies, specifically the Romans.  So when Peter blurts out, “You are the messiah,” in response to Jesus’ question, it was a technical term loaded with political expectations of the messiah’s expected victory over the Roman occupation.

It is no wonder that Peter, as well as many others in the synagogue community after Jesus, simply could not accept the idea that Jesus was going to Jerusalem to die at the hands of Israel’s enemies.  The messiah was expected to go to Jerusalem all right – but not to die - but to overthrow the Roman oppressors - not forgive them!   “God forbid it, Lord!  This must never happen to you!” said a very disillusioned Peter speaking out of his expectations – expectations that were blinding him to see and entertain anything new – blinding him from seeing and accepting the real Jesus that was standing right there in front of him!    

I dare say we in this place this morning know all about expectations.  You have been living with certain expectations during this interim time.  You have your expectations of me, and I have my expectations of you.  We all know about the power of expectations.  For the most part, expectations are a very good thing for they raise the bar and challenge us to new heights of accomplishment and fulfillment.  But they can also blind us to others if we see others only through the lens of our expectations.  Peter, in this story, functions as a metaphor for that kind of blindness.  He couldn’t see the real Jesus right in front of him because that Jesus was not living up to his expectations of whom and what the messiah should be and do.  What expectations might you have of Jesus that could be obscuring your view of the Jesus of the gospels?        

Matthew tells us that from this time forward Jesus began to explain to his disciples he was headed toward a cross, and so were they if they chose to follow him.  We hear Paul say in Romans, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds…”   As followers of Jesus, the “keys” placed in our hands are the way of the cross.  The way of the cross is a whole different paradoxical kind of power that does not “conform” to the conventional power of this world.  The conventional power of this world is the power of coercion, power exerted from the outside in by a stronger entity over a weaker entity, and is often experienced as oppressive.   The way of the cross, the power of sacrificial love, is a love that gives itself freely away - and gets inside of people - and renews them from the inside out; sets them free; gives them wings to fly to be all they can possibly be.  This is the love that the disciples experienced in Jesus, and in which Jesus mentored them, and still mentors us - the power of sacrificial love – the way of the cross – the keys of the kingdom!

But what happens all too often is that we wrap up Jesus in a garb of our kind of power, and then mistake that Jesus for the real thing.  This is no more evident than when Jesus is employed as a weapon in the political arena.

I remember going to the movie Gandhi for the first time.  I’ll never forget the reaction of the crowd at the end of the movie.  First of all there was a silence, as deep and incisive a silence as I have ever experienced in a crowd.  Second, many people just sat in their seats silently after the closing scene of Gandhi’s cremation fire filling the screen.  In the life of this bandy-legged, bespectacled man with his spinning wheel, bare feet, selfless passion for peace and passionate opposition to every form of violence, we, in that theater, had gotten a glimpse of something – a glimpse of a kind of life - that made every other kind of life seem empty and wanting. 

I believe the disciples and early Christian community experienced that kind of vibrant God presence in Jesus and it set them on fire!  They understood that his life was about unlocking formidable boundaries.  He unlocked boundaries of race and ethnicity.  He unlocked forbidden religious boundaries that separated the clean from the unclean, the righteous from the sinners.  He unlocked any boundary that dehumanized or diminished another human being.  The “keys” with which we are entrusted are these special keys of sacrificial love that always focus on building others up, and hence, they are “keys” that unlock rigid boundaries that devalue human beings. 

The “keys” of the kingdom, the way of the cross unlocks forgiveness of enemies and seeks to build bridges with bitter adversaries.

Jesus unlocked people trapped in the prison of fear and set them free to fulfill their humanity.  The way of the cross is a journey (call, invitation, beckoning) out of fear to take risks for love’s sake in this world.

For Peter and for us, the way of the cross is dying to old ways of thinking and living and being reborn into new ways of thinking and living that are firmly grounded in our mentor Jesus and the sacrificial love that was embodied in his life. 

The way of the cross is to selflessly put to work, for the sake of others, and for the sake of God’s kingdom the unique gifts, talents and skills with which each of us in this room this morning is blessed. 

I will give you the keys to the kingdom…”  These are not merely words spoken to a few disciples of long ago.  This is not ancient history, but rather it’s a promise that has cascaded down through the centuries, and it flows into this place this morning where among us it takes new expression again.  In this fellowship today this story springs to new life and is reenacted all over again, and you and I are entrusted with the “keys” – the “keys” of the kingdom.  They have been placed in our hands – in yours and in mine.  The yet to be answered question is, “What are we going to do with them?”