We all know that Simon was renamed as Peter the rock providing the foundation on which the Church eventually was built. He’s known as our first Pope followed by a long line of popes with Francis being the one currently sitting in the chair. We’ve had some very nasty and unholy popes, and we have had some great ones – true rocks on which the Church stood and continues to stand.
Peter must have been shaking in his sandals when he heard this responsibility placed upon his shoulders, especially because he didn’t believe he was up to the task. For those of us who frequently lose our car keys, we would have trembled at the thought of being given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. We’d rush out to the local hardware store to make many copies.
What were those keys to the kingdom of heaven, and how do we get one now? Wouldn’t it be nice to have one on our key rings. This story about a lock helps answer these questions.
Once upon a time there was a vault containing gold, diamonds, and gems. A sturdy lock guarded the vault’s door to keep its contents safe and secure.
The mighty crowbar came by and saw the lock as a challenge. The crowbar was a thick and heavy bar of iron. Looking at the lock, he decided he would smash it.
The crowbar struck again and again. Sparks flew, and the noise was deafening. Finally he stopped.
Suddenly the key arrived. He looked at the key, and she was very small. She seemed insignificant and weak.
She asked him, “Were you the one making all that racket?” He answered, “Yes, and I’m going to try it again.”
“No need,” said the key. She slipped into the lock and turned slightly. The crowbar heard a click, and then the lock fell open.
He couldn’t believe it. “How could you open it so easily when I couldn’t do it after all my effort?”
The key told him, “Because I am the one who understands the heart of the lock.”
Jesus said it best when he described his skeleton or master key – the one sure to open anyone’s heart: “For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. A stranger and you welcomed me; naked and you clothed me; ill and you cared for me; in prison and you visited me.” These are the ways in which we turn the keys through actions rather than words.
Another key is the meaning of this Gospel passage: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." This key is forgiveness.
When someone asks for forgiveness, and we don’t forgive, we bind them, we tie them up; we imprison or lock them up in a cold place within our closed hearts. When we forgive, we loosen their binds; they are untied; they are unlocked. Our hearts are opened to set them free.
Since this reading is about our first Pope, Peter, the Rock, I quote one key passage provided by Pope Francis in his 2015 encyclical on the climate change and the environment. It’s fitting because our earth is the rock on which we sit and depend. We are the 3rd Rock from the Sun – coincidentally the name of a popular late 1990s TV sit-com. The earth’s outer solid layer is rock, and all the dirt on which we sit and depend for life is from that rock that weathered over billions of years to become sediment.
According to the Bible, these three vital relationships have been broken, both outwardly and within us. This rupture is sin.
The harmony between the Creator, humanity and creation as a whole was disrupted by our presuming to take the place of God and refusing to acknowledge our creaturely limitations. This in turn distorted our mandate to “have dominion” over the earth, to “till it and keep it.”
He continued, “…Sin is manifest in all its destructive power in wars, the various forms of violence and abuse, the abandonment of the most vulnerable, and attacks on nature.”
Let’s all remember that our heaven on earth can only exist if we heed the Pope’s words, and we care for our common home. That will be the key to our future and our children’s future.
Deacon David Pierce
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