Page last updated

 

 

Keeper of the Keys
 a sermon based on Matthew 16:13-20
by Rev. Randy L. Quinn

Have you ever paid attention to the kinds of questions people ask?

Ø      Some people ask questions that probe deep into our soul while others ask questions that allow us see into their souls.

Ø      Some people are like lawyers who only ask questions to which they know the answers, as if to test us, while others ask questions that cannot be answered, as if to get our response to what they have been pondering.

Ø      Some people ask questions to confirm their own opinions while others ask questions to explore differing opinions.

If you haven’t paid attention to the kinds of questions people ask, you probably haven’t thought about how you ask questions, either.  I’m one who tends to listen to a conversation and develop theories.  I then use questions to test my own thinking.  Am I understanding what is being said or not?  Typically, my questions can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.”

I’m trying to learn how to ask different kinds of questions, but that tends to be the style I use most often.

I’m trying to learn how to ask different kinds of questions because I have often marveled at the way some people use questions.  They ask questions with a different purpose; they can probe and explore things I never thought to explore.

I have a friend, for instance, who always asks questions in a staccato fashion, one right after the other.  I rarely finish answering one before he is asking the next one.  His questions reveal things that would have been hidden and unknown had they not been asked – and while it is sometimes frightening to realize what is revealed, I am almost always grateful for the insights his questions bring.

Then there are those people I meet who ask innocuous questions, often seemingly unrelated.  After several of those questions, with almost no noticeable change in tone of voice, they ask a question that will reveal something about myself I don’t normally reveal.  It’s as if their earlier questions work to build a sense of trust, and that trust is then employed in ways I’m not expecting.

Some of my teachers used questions to lead us and guide us into new discoveries.  While I know they already knew the outcome, it was clear they wanted us to experience the thrill of discovery.  Other teachers use questions to push us into areas and realms where not even they know the answers.

As I read our text for this week, I wondered about Jesus.  How is he asking these questions?  Does he have a “right answer” in mind or is it simply an exploration of ideas?

Ø      Is he giving his Disciples a final exam, an exam that has right and wrong answers?

Ø      Is he simply taking a poll to determine the success of getting his story out?

Ø      Is he verifying his own understanding of events so far?

Ø      Is he testing the waters to see what needs to happen next?

And how are the Disciples feeling as he asks the questions?  Are they answering nonchalantly over a sandwich or is there sweat beading on their foreheads as if they have been put on the spot?

In her commentary on Shakespeare’s play, King Lear, Linda Bamber reminds us that, for good or for bad, we tend to look for ourselves in a story as a way of understanding the story, as a way of empathizing with the characters.  She opens her comments this way:

When adults show children how to read a map, they say, “Here is your street (or state or nation),” and the habit of finding ourselves on the map persists when we are grown up.  When travelers return with pictures of Cairo or Barcelona, they say, “That’s the hotel we stayed in, there,” as if it explained the picture.  If a work of fiction is a map of its own world, the first question we ask of it is, “Where am I in here?” or “Who is like me?”  This question is unsophisticated but important, because it shapes our most basic responses.  Only when we have answered it do we know who to love and hate and what to hope for[1].

As I read her words, I realize that we respond in the same way with scripture.  We try to “locate ourselves” in the story, including our text for today.

Ø      Am I one of the Disciples who are put on the spot by Jesus?

Ø      Am I one of the people the Disciples know or know about, whose answer they bring to Jesus?

Ø      Am I a bystander who overhears this conversation, but is unaffected by it?

Too many people, in my opinion at least, want to be the bystander.  They want to be a part of what the pundits call the “water cooler” conversations.  Too many people want to join in the gossip about the Disciples – and maybe even about Jesus – rather than be directly affected by the story.

Those of us who claim a relationship with Jesus Christ, however, those of us who want to be included in the church Jesus builds, have no choice but to locate ourselves squarely in the place where the Disciples find themselves.  We cannot read this in any other way.  We read this story as if Jesus is asking the questions of us.

What are our neighbors saying about Jesus and what do we think?  (If we don’t have an answer to the first question, we need to spend more time with our neighbors and if we don’t have an answer to the second question, we need to spend more time with Jesus.)

Those who know, like Peter, that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, can find themselves receiving the same blessing Peter did.  It is a reminder that the church is not going to be perfect; it is made up of human beings like Peter who claim faith one day and deny Jesus the next.

The church is not perfect, nor will it be until it is reconstituted in the next life.  Until then, it is made pure and holy in God’s eyes by God’s grace.

Whenever a pastor comes to a new church, one of the most difficult tasks is to learn – not names of people – but which key is used for which door.  J  When we moved to Bow in 1992, however, I inherited one of the largest collections of church keys that I’ve ever seen.

There were keys to each of the Sunday school classrooms as well as each of the church’s exterior doors.  There were keys to storerooms and closets as well as desks and filing cabinets.  I should have counted them – just so I would know how many there were!

For several months, I took the large key ring and fumbled through the keys until I found the right key for the right door.  Eventually I realized that I was only going to use two of the keys on a regular basis, so I put the rest in a desk drawer.

By the end of my first year there, I suspected that most of the keys in my desk were to doors and locks that were either no longer used or had been replaced.  So I set those keys aside, thinking that if I ever came across a lock I needed to get in, I’d go look for the key there.

Seven years later, I threw away all of the keys I never used.  (The pastor who followed me was probably locked out of lots of places I never wanted to go, but at least there were fewer keys to sort through!)

The image of that huge collection of keys comes to my mind every time I read about Peter being given the keys to the kingdom (Mt. 16:19).  How many keys were there?  And who has them now?

I know it’s only a metaphor, but I still want to know.

I mean, what if he was speaking of the “twelve keys to success” rather than to a set of keys with matching locks?  How many keys was Peter given?  And who has them now?

OK, so maybe I’m being a little facetious.  (But I am asking a different set of questions than I normally do!)

Since there really is no way to answer the question about the keys, I looked at the ways Peter is told he can use these keys to determine if there is any indication about how we might be able to use them today.

Jesus tells Peter that with these keys he can “bind” and “loose” things on earth, and in so doing, they will be “bound” and “loosed” in heaven (Mt. 16:19).

There was a time when I thought that applied to cases like Dennis Rader, the serial murderer known as “BTK”.  I thought it meant that if we were not willing to forgive, then he cannot be forgiven by God.  I thought that when we close the doors to heaven, God cannot open them.  I also know I believed that so long that it still affects my approach to people who have sinned.

And maybe that is the message here.  If so, we who are the keepers of the keys need to be careful about who we lock in and who we lock out.  If we believe grace cannot work in any particular life, we have to begin asking where the line is between those who are capable of experiencing grace and those who are not.  Because our decisions may limit what God is able to do.

Over the years, I have shifted my thinking.  I still believe we have been given the keys to the kingdom and that the church is the keeper of the keys.  When we close our doors or close our hearts or close our minds to people who are outside the walls of our church – when we cannot answer the question of what our neighbors think about Jesus – then we are denying them the opportunity to experience this relationship with Jesus Christ that brings joy into our lives.

What kinds of questions have we been asking of our neighbors?  Do we know what they think about Jesus?  What experiences have they had with the church and how has the church helped them understand the grace of God that we celebrate each week?

If we have not opened our hearts to them, if we have not opened our minds to them, if we have not opened our doors to them, they are not able to experience it.  The key unlocks our hearts and doors and minds, not God’s.

Now, this new understanding I have come to still applies to Dennis Rader, but in a different way.  The question is no longer whether or not we want to lock him out of heaven, but who knew him well enough to recognize that, to rephrase his own words, “darkness prevailed”?  How many of people in the church were afraid to ask probing questions?

I’m trying to learn how to ask different questions.  My hope is that I will unlock my heart so that I may learn to love my neighbor in a way that allows them to experience the love of God[2].  It’s the only way they will ever learn who Jesus really is.

I hope you’ll join me in getting to know our neighbors so that they may get to know Jesus, “the Christ, the son of the living God.”

_____________________________________

[1]  Linda Bamber, “The Woman Reader in King Lear;” an essay included in Signet Classic editions of Shakespeare’s King Lear (New York:  Penguin, 1998), p. 235

[2]  This is an allusion to one of the premises set out by Bishop Scott Jones in his book, The Evangelistic Love of God and Neighbor (Abingdon, 2003).