Sermon for Pentecost 11 Year A 2014 A Confession, the Rock and the Keys to the Kingdom A teacher, a garbage collector, and a lawyer wound up together at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter informed them that in order to get into heaven, they would each have to answer one question. St Peter addressed the teacher and said, What was the name of the ship that crashed into the iceberg? A movie was made about it. The teacher answered quickly, That would be the Titanic. St Peter let him through the gate. St Peter turned to the garbage man and, figuring heaven didn t really need all the odors that this guy would bring with him, decided to make the question a little harder: How many people died on the ship? Fortunately for him, the garbage man had just seen the movie. 1,228, he answered. That s right! You may enter. St Peter turned to the lawyer. Name them. There are lots of jokes and silly stories about Peter and the Pearly Gates all of them at least loosely have their origin in today s gospel story in which Jesus promises to give to the newly named Peter the keys to the kingdom. Now these jokes are not very helpful to a good understanding of this climactic and important exchange between Jesus, his disciples and Peter but they do indirectly point to the importance of keys and who has them. Keys are important to our everyday lives just think about the last time you misplaced your keys or when you locked yourself out of your house or car! Keys are incredibly small but they can open such great power. Most of us carry key chains that hold the keys to our house and, perhaps, our car. Some of you have the keys (and an alarm code!) to the church. Perhaps some of you have the keys to your neighbor s house or the keys to a family member s house. If you think about it, the keys that you have signify ownership, membership or belonging, relationship,... and authority and above all responsibility. We also use the word key as a metaphor for many things in life there are keys to doing our job well, keys to good parenting, keys to effective teaching, keys to being a good Minister of Music (!) keys to meaningful friendships... There are keys to everything, it seems. 1
But what are the keys to the kingdom? When Jesus says to Peter (and when he speaks to Peter, Jesus is always speaking to whole church) "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." I have always thought of this passage as being about forgiveness well at least since I became an adult that is. Yet, a vast majority of people who follow Jesus would say that the rock Jesus promises to build his church on was actually Peter and/or Peter s confession which all the rest is built on... but I can t help but wonder if the foundation that everything is built on is, actually, forgiveness. Taken this way, it s a little disconcerting isn t it? Talk about power, authority and responsibility! The two keys of the kingdom one key to withhold forgiveness and the other key to grant forgiveness taken this way, we understand that as God s people, this forgiveness is central to who we understand ourselves to be as Christians. Forgiveness holds a power as little else does. And it is ours. Ours to receive. Ours to give away. Or not. And this becomes even more heart-stopping if we think about what the kingdom of heaven is. Remember the kingdom of God and of heaven was and is Jesus primary teaching. We have listened to parables of the kingdom and teachings of the kingdom. We have also heard about the miracles of the kingdom. The kingdom is wherever and whenever the love of Christ rules in a person s life. How can the kingdom of Christ exist apart from forgiveness? What does this mean for our daily lives? To grant forgiveness. To withhold forgiveness? Last spring, I was teaching the story of Joseph to the pre-school children of Redeemer s day care center. When we got to the part where Joseph reconciles with his brothers and I asked the children why we forgive, one of the little five year old boys held his hand high in the air and when I spoke his name he said, "Because if we don't forgive, we will always be alone." Apparently, he and his dad had shared this conversation just a few days before. He was angry with a friend who had chosen to sit with someone else at lunchtime. He went home angry and shared this hurt with his dad who told him, "If we don't forgive, we will always be alone." Wow! What a gift to have that understanding so early in life! 2
In these past years there has been a whole lot of research on the power and the importance of forgiveness and on the power of not forgiving. Just take a moment, if you have a computer, and 'Google' forgiveness research: the headings alone will capture the gist of what has been learned. Those who forgive live longer. They have healthier hearts. Other ailments heal more quickly. And these are just the physical effects of forgiving. We already know our ability to forgive has profound effects on our emotional lives and on our relationships with one another. And this does not begin to address how old wounds un-forgiven play out in communities or between nations. And this is why Jesus question Who do you say I am? is not only the question of the day but the question of our lives. What will you stand up for? What s important? When do you say what you need to, want to, have to? Or when are you silent? When do you grant forgiveness? When do you withhold forgiveness? Faced with faith decisions, on what will you stake your faith? How you live your life? There is just too much that we cannot say. That we are unwilling to say. Or we think if we do say, we will incur judgment. Which is why Jesus question is not requesting a mere response of confession. Especially in the wake of the beheading of James Foley, the suicide of Robin Williams and the death of Michael Brown in Fergusson, Missouri. How will we respond? Whom will we forgive? Whom will we withhold forgiveness? How does a five-year-old s wisdom If we don t forgive, we will always be alone apply to these situations, these evils? And yet... Peter, the rock, the one who confessed that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man was also the Son of the Living God. Peter, the rock, had many lessons in forgiveness Certainly in the parables that Jesus told like the one about the man who was forgiven a great debt but who would not forgive the man who was in debt to him. Peter, the rock, who was taught by Jesus that he was called to forgive his neighbor not just seven times but seventy-times seven. Peter, the rock, who was forgiven not only by Jesus, but by his fellow disciples when he denied Jesus. Peter, the rock, who was taught to pray Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And not just Peter, but we, Peter s heirs, have received all this and more as well. Remember I said that Jesus speaks to Peter he speaks to whole church, the one body. 3
Dear friends, please believe me this is not to give you or myself a guilt trip. But the events that surround us in the greater world and even in the minutiae of our daily lives all remind us of the very real demons that want to control us, and that many of us seek to subdue. None of us is immune to these realities. How will you deal with these things? Do you have support structures in place that will help you negotiate what it means when moments of deaths are much more than death itself? What kind of life will we live and how will we face death our own and others? Jesus question is that of extraordinary vulnerability. He s asking us on what we will wager your lives; what has claim of our being. This is no benign question but has everything to do with who his disciples think Jesus is and more importantly, who they think they are. On what will you stake your identity, your life, your future? How do you want to be known? Will we forgive? Will we withhold forgiveness? Whom will we forgive? Whom will we not forgive? If we don t forgive... will we always be alone? If to err is human and to forgive is divine, is true then doesn t that statement make you wonder why Jesus gave the keys to such a one as Peter... and you and I? And yet, it is true that God needs human hands to wield the instruments through which healing is done, and human eyes to look in compassion on the outcast, and a human presence to stand by the lonely, and human brain-power to make deserts fertile and feed the hungry. And human political skills to fight for a just and a humane social order; to be co-creators of God s peace the world is panting for. Isn t it, God s work, our hands? Jesus blesses Peter and the church and proclaims that the Spirit will use human hearts and willsto incarnate God s will and purpose in a given time and a given place even here in this time and in this place! So stop and consider: God s desire to use us and depend upon us invests every human encounter with a remarkable significance. Just as the Word had to become flesh under Pontius Plate in order that the world might be saved, unless the Word becomes flesh in people like us the world will not know that it has been saved. It will not know the things that belong to its peace. 4
This is why all readers of the gospel pass through that confessional moment, personally, and are compelled to declare themselves for one or the other. In every age and place the community of faith must make that declaration in answer to the Living Lord s question Who do you say that I am? "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." We know that to give forgiveness is crucially important. Forgiveness is letting go of sins. It is the releasing of sins. Letting go of our own sins and imperfections and flaws. Letting go of the sins and imperfections of our spouse, our kids, our friends, our neighbors, our fellow church members. The list goes on and on. You cannot live with other sinful and imperfect people harmoniously without the presence and power of forgiveness. And, dear friends, the only kind of people in this world are sinful and imperfect, including yourself and myself, and we cannot live with people peacefully without forgiveness. (If we don t forgive, we will always be alone!) Just as you use the key to your house and car several times a day, so also you need to use this key of forgiveness often, daily, endlessly, infinitely. The second key is more difficult: when do we withhold forgiveness? This is much more difficult for each one of us who know that we are not to be judgmental and that we are to forgiven seventy-times seven... or infinitely or at the very least as we want to be forgiven. At the same time, we hear this teaching to forgive from the heart, there are occasions when it is appropriate to withhold forgiveness... at least for a time. In the gospel of John, Jesus says, If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. I believe that this is an expression of tough love. That is, we and others, need to see the consequences of our sins. We are not to protect someone who sins and does something evil from the consequences of those evil actions and decisions. Too often in life, we are enablers, those people who grant forgiveness, tolerance and acceptance too soon and are unwilling to confront and stop as we are able bad behavior towards us or others. There are many instances where we enable people to live irresponsibly and not face the consequences of their sinful behavior. I believe that this what it means to withhold forgiveness or retain sins with love and humility in seeking the redemption and repentance of the wrongdoer. 5
We know that the Bible connects repentance and forgiveness. Forgiveness without accompanying repentance is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called cheap grace. Nevertheless, to withhold forgiveness requires, as I said earlier, love, compassion and above all deep humility born of the knowledge of our own fallenness and need of forgiveness. Keys. The keys to my house and my car are the two keys I use most in life. The key for my house does not work in the ignition to the car. The key for my car does not work to open the house. Those are two different keys that need to be used differently for different occasions. In the kingdom of God there are two keys. The key of forgiveness. The key of withholding forgiveness. Those keys are not the same but both are important to use daily, prayerfully, and with the knowledge that when we do we are blessed to manifest the kingdom of God and confessing Christ to the world. Go in peace. Remember your keys. Serve the Lord and love your neighbor. 6