Keys to the
Kingdom, binding and loosing, what does all of that mean? What does it mean that Peter is the rock upon
which Jesus builds his church? What does
any of it have to do with me or with you?
Those are the Questions I’ve wrestled with this week and this morning I
share with you the fruit of that labor.
To better
understand this story we need to understand the larger story within which it is
placed. We know that Jesus has been
going along teaching his disciples, teaching the crowds, and healing a lot of
people. He has done this among both the
Jews and the Gentiles, showing through his example that the Kingdom of God is
for all of God’s creation, not just the elect Jews. This has certainly not made the Religious
leaders happy and as we approach this story we know that the Pharisees are
seeking a way to charge Jesus with an offense and to discredit him and get rid
of him. In chapter 15 they question why
the disciples don’t wash their hands, earlier in this chapter the Pharisees are
asking for a sign from heaven. Jesus
tells them again; as he has before that the only sign they are going to receive
is the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah was
in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, Jesus would be in the
belly of the earth for 3 days and 3 nights.
(See Matthew 12:39) Jesus then warns the disciples about the “yeast of
the Pharisees.” Jesus basically tells
the disciples these guys don’t have it right, don’t let them corrupt you. We should remember that the Pharisees were
the religious leaders of the day. It is
at this point that we pick up our story today.
This story is a turning point for the story that Matthew rights. At this point there is a shift from healings
and miracles to preparing the disciples for his departure. He in essence is changing the guard by giving
the keys to the kingdom.
He begins
this transition by asking the disciples “who are people saying that I am?” What is the word in the streets? Some say Elijah, some say John the Baptist, and
others say Jeremiah or other prophets of old.
There is no dispute among the streets that at the very least Jesus is a
prophet, a messenger for God. That being
established Jesus asks “who do you say I am?”
Peter, who frequently shows up on the scene as a leader is the first to
speak up. “You are The Christ, The Son
of the Living God.” Peter has gotten it,
the disciples have gotten it! The time
has come; Jesus will pass on the Keys of the Kingdom!
In the
tradition of Old Testament Prophets Jesus first Blesses Peter saying “Blessed
are you Simon, Son of Jonah, because no human has shown you this. Rather, my Father who is in heaven has shown
you.” (Matthew 16:17) There is much to learn from that one sentence. First, John identifies Peter’s father as
John. (John 1:42) The two names are very close in Aramaic and
Matthew uses this to his advantage as he develops this story. Jonah was a prophet, the same prophet that
Matthew writes about earlier in the chapter when Jesus tells the Pharisees that
the only sign they will get is the sign of Jonah. The other thing that is significant is that
customarily to call someone the son of a prophet is saying that person is a
prophet in training. Hold onto that for
a moment.
The next
thing that is significant in this blessing of Peter is Jesus saying that Peter
is blessed because he got the identity of Jesus through listening to God, not
from listening to what others were saying.
Humans don’t always get it right, even preachers get it wrong sometimes. While it is good to have teachers and advisors,
we must never solely depend on what other people say. We must look at the evidence for
ourselves. We must listen for the spirit
of God for ourselves. We must study for
ourselves. What evidence do you have
that Jesus is the Christ, The son of the Living God?
This one
verse has set up Peter as a prophet in training, a prophet that can discern the
voice of God. He is a prophet that has
been renamed by Jesus from Simon to Peter, meaning the rock. Jesus says it is upon this rock that he will
build his church. It is to this prophet
that he will give the keys to the kingdom.
What does that mean though?
When I
unlock the door to my house, I am giving myself and others entry into my
house. I’ve been doing that a lot lately
with the remodeling of my house. I was
very leery about having a lockbox at my house that a number of people had the
combination to. The lock box contained
the keys to my kingdom, to the place I find comfort, the place where I go to
heal my wounds, the place where I feed my body and my soul, the place that
contains my treasures, my home. By giving up my key I was entrusting another
person with all of that. It was a pretty
scary thing. Jesus is entrusting Peter
with so much more. He is entrusting him
with the keys of entry to the kingdom.
He can unlock it and allow entry or he can do as the Pharisees do and lock
it tight. They put on so many rules and regulations that persons can’t possibly
fulfill them all and the consequence for not fulfilling the requirements…..you
get locked out. Matthew later writes
that the Pharisees are Hypocrites because they shut people out of the kingdom
of heaven. Here, by giving Peter the
keys to the kingdom, he is changing the guard of religious leadership to Peter
and the disciples. Just what are the
keys of the kingdom?
“Binding
and loosening” are the keys to the kingdom.
What in the world does that mean!
All the scholars agree that Jesus is giving Peter the authority to call
the shots for the followers of Jesus.
This phrase can be tricky though.
“Whatever you bind in heaven will be loosened on earth; whatever you
loosen in heaven shall be bound on earth.
Another way of translating this is “Whatever you bind on earth shall
have been bound in heaven.” This reading
suggests that Peter’s job is to bind in loosen the kingdom way, the way things
are bound and loosened in heaven. It’s
not about who gets in and out. Jesus is
angry with the Pharisees for making entry hard to impossible. So what is it that Peter is to bind and what
is it that he is to loosen? As I studied
the word bind as it is found in scripture, it was used in several ways. It was used when persons were entering a contract;
it was used to mean to tie something or someone up. It was also used to mean taking those things
that are so important for you to remember that you must know them so well that
it is as if they were fastened to your body in some form or fashion. In Deuteronomy we are told that the
commandments can be summed up in this manner:
“Love the Lord your God with All your heart, with all your soul and all
your might, and your neighbor as yourself.”
We are told to bind these to our forehead, to teach them to our
children. Proverbs tells us that loyalty
and faithfulness are virtues we should bind around our necks. Binding is also used to speak of healing and
of unity. Jesus is frequently referred
to as one who binds wounds. Colossians
tells us that love is what binds the body of Christ in perfect unity. I believe these are things that Jesus wants
Peter to bind on earth that has been bound in heaven.
Loosening
can also have a variety of meanings. It
could mean kicking someone out. It could
mean untying something or unfastening something. But listen again to our Old Testament reading
from this morning from Isaiah 58:6 “Is
not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the
cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?” In the Kingdom of God, on earth as it is in
heaven, this is what gets loosened.
So Jesus has passed the keys of the kingdom to Peter
giving him the authority to bind and loose.
What does all of this mean to you and me? Peter was a representative of the
Kingdom. Later in chapter 18 Jesus gives
this same authority to all the disciples. We, the church, are called to carry on the
keys to the kingdom. We are called to
bind and loose. We are called to Love
the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our minds and our
neighbor as ourselves. We are called to
loose the chains of injustice and untie the yoke of oppression. Jesus asked Peter, Who people say that I
am. Peter answered by the evidence he
had seen and by the voice of God that he heard.
I ask you, who do people say Asbury United (insert the name of your own
church) is? Do our neighbors know who we are?
Do our neighbors know the love of Christ because they have seen it in
us? Do those who are oppressed and
treated unjustly in our community know that we are a people who will fight to
loose those chains of injustice and untie those cords of oppression? We have the keys to the kingdom. We’ve been learning for a month and a half
what the kingdom is and what it is not.
Are we going to be like Peter and Paul after him and use those keys to
open the doors and allow entry or are we going to be like the Pharisees,
locking people out of the kingdom? Jesus
built his church on the rock of Peter.
We are that church in this community.
How will we be known? In the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen!
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