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?
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Some people ask questions that probe deep into our soul
while others ask questions that allow us see into their souls.
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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.
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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?
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Is he giving his Disciples a final exam, an exam that has
right and wrong answers?
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Is he simply taking a poll to determine the success of
getting his story out?
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Is he verifying his own understanding of events so far?
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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.
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.
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Am I one of the Disciples who are put on the spot by
Jesus?
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Am I one of the people the Disciples know or know about,
whose answer they bring to Jesus?
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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.
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.”
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