Homily – TWENTY FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME THE KEYS IN A PLACE WITHOUT KEYS 08-23-26

Isaiah 22:19–23; Psalm 138; Romans 11:33–36; Matthew 16:13–20

A man once told me about the first night he spent in jail. He said the strangest thing was not the uniform, the bunk, or even realizing where he was. It was the sound of the door closing behind him. Click. He had heard doors close thousands of times before, but this one sounded different. Then he heard the officer’s keys disappearing down the hallway and thought, that is a terrible sound when somebody else has the keys. Years later he said, “It took me a long time to realize that the worst doors locked in my life were not made of steel.”

That makes today’s Gospel almost humorous. Jesus comes into a place like this talking about keys: “I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.” In here, keys are not exactly a popular personal accessory. You hear them all day, but somebody else carries them. Somebody else decides when a door opens and when it closes. But perhaps that is exactly why this Gospel belongs here. Jesus reminds us that there is more than one kind of prison and more than one kind of freedom. Some people are locked up physically while becoming free inside. Others walk around outside imprisoned by addiction, anger, resentment, greed, or something that happened twenty years ago. You can leave prison and still carry a
prison inside you.

Before Jesus gives Peter the keys, He asks, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Then Jesus entrusts him with the keys. What is remarkable is the man He chooses. Peter will make promises he cannot keep. He will become frightened. He will run away. He will deny three times that he even knows Jesus. Peter was called the Rock, but occasionally he behaved more like loose gravel.

Yet Jesus knew everything Peter would do and still saw someone worth building upon. God sees more in a human being than his worst moment. Some of you carry things heavier than anything locked in your property box: regret, shame, anger, children growing up while you are here, a mother getting older, someone you hurt, someone who hurt you, years you cannot get back. Maybe sometimes you replay the moment everything went wrong and think, If only I could go back. But yesterday is one door for which none of us has a key. Christianity does not pretend the past does not matter. Grace says something much greater: your past matters, but it does not get the final word.

So perhaps the most important question is no longer only, How did I get here? It is, Who am I going to become here? Do not wait for a release date to begin becoming free. Someone else may control when your cell opens, but nobody can force you to hate. Nobody can stop you from praying, telling the truth, asking forgiveness, forgiving someone else, encouraging a
man who is losing hope, or becoming a better father, son, husband, brother, or friend. Those are keys too. And sometimes they open doors more important than the ones made of steel.

For many of you, one day an officer will turn a key and a gate will open. I pray that the man who walks through that gate is not the same man who entered it. And remember the man from the beginning who heard those keys disappearing down the hallway. Eventually he discovered that the worst doors in his life were not made of steel. But neither were the most important ones. Christ had been opening those from the inside. So the next time you hear keys coming down the hallway, remember: someone else may carry the key to your cell, but with God’s grace, you still carry the key to the person you are becoming.

PRAYER

Lord Jesus,
You know the doors we wish we could reopen, the choices we wish we could change, the people we miss, the people we have hurt, and the wounds we carry from what others have done to us.
Give us courage to take responsibility without surrendering to shame, to remember the past without remaining imprisoned by it, to ask forgiveness where we have caused pain, and to forgive where pain has been caused to us.

When we hear doors locking around us, remind us that no lock can keep You out. Open what has become closed within us. Free us from anger, hatred, addiction, fear, and hopelessness. Help us not simply to wait for another day, but to become different men today. And when a door finally opens before us, whether into freedom, a new beginning, or one day into eternity, may the person who walks through it be closer to You and more fully the person You created us to become.
Amen.