Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 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.” Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
Matthew 16:13-20
My sermon from the 13th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (August 23, 2026).
There’s only a handful of days left of summer vacation so I spent a few this week at the beach. The Jersey Shore this time of year is pretty awesome since the water is warm and the boardwalk is full of life. I spent a bunch of hours watching two of my kids get hammered by waves over and over again with big smiles on their faces. When we needed to take a break from our aquatic adventures, we built a sandcastle on the beach. But that endeavor wasn’t exactly easy since my expectations for how the waves would function was disrupted by a recent beach replenishment project. I, based on prior experiences, came up with a plan for our sandcastle extravaganza. We piled together a lot of sand, shaped and formed walls and towers, and dug a large moat we expected would slowly fill with water. Our plan, however, came quickly undone and our moat became a lake devouring the base of the fortress we built. Sandcastles are kind of amazing since they mimic buildings designed to withstand whatever we throw against them. As we dig, pack, and craft, we act as if every cannon, catapult, sea monster, and hurricane would never prevail against our faithful creation. These castles, though, are always temporary and it isn’t long before an unexpected wave or inattentive person strolling along the beach return our fortress to its tiny building blocks. Sandcastles are physical things but they’re mostly an experience lingering in the hearts and souls of those who made them. That experience, rather than the tangible thing we create, is what truly matters. And I wonder if the image of a sandcastle might help us understand a little bit more of what Jesus said to Peter in our reading today from the gospel according to Matthew.
Now the story of Jesus standing near the town of Cesara Phillipi when Peter declared him to be the Messiah is one we hear every year. The city was founded by local leaders as a way to flatter the Roman Empire and a nearby hill was covered in temples devoted to a variety of gods and the Emperor himself. Peter, in the midst of everything Rome represented, proclaimed that it was Jesus who mattered and there were those who imagined Jesus would raise up his own army to push the Roman Empire into the sea. Peter’s words were more than spiritual and I’ve often taken time to describe his confession as the rock the church is built on. Yet in my years as a preacher, I’ve haven’t really talked about the thing which, in Matthew, Jesus gave. The so-called keys and the binding and loosening Jesus describes doesn’t appear anywhere else in Scripture. Mark’s and Luke’s version of this story shifts immediately towards words we’ll hear next week when Peter and Jesus argue about what the Messiah might be. The interlude about a rock, the gates of Hades, and a tool we use to unlock doors is a word that must have mattered to Matthew’s community since he took time to include it. We often treat the gospels as mostly a chronological description of Jesus’ ministry in the world. Yet these words were compiled, edited, and brought together by Christians living two generations after the Resurrection. Jesus’ story was, to them, more than a recent history of God’s activity in the world. These words were also an opportunity to take a moment and reflect on the formation of the church itself. And while some of this activity has passed down to us in the writings of Paul, those attributed to various apostles, and the book of Acts, a lot of the more intimate details about the church remain a mystery. We don’t know, for example, why folks within Matthew’s community chose to be there. And we never hear, specifically, how their neighbors, family members, and friends invited them to discover this God who valued them. The big and small ways they formed them into their community is a history we haven’t heard. And yet we know this work made a difference since we are the descendants of those who heard Matthew’s words for the very first time. I wonder, then, if the keys, this binding, and this loosening, was something more than simply some kind of theological declaration or belief for Matthew’s community. It might have also been some kind of tangible experience that shaped who they knew themselves to be.
But what that experience might be isn’t entirely clear. And these words have been used to define leadership structure within the church as well as an image for what happens when we die. If we’ve ever imagined Peter standing in heaven in front of pearly gates deciding who goes in, and who doesn’t, we can thank this reading for that image. For centuries, the kingdom of heaven has been mostly treated as a location – the place where angels live and where people go when they die. The keys, then, are for that door leading into what we want heaven to be. This way of thinking, though, shifts from noticing the keys to imaging the locks they’re supposed to open. And while we might say this determination belongs only to God, the church has often used the keys to proclaim who belongs and who doesn’t. The keys become a confession or statement of belief or Christian denomination or even a cultural expectation that opens a lock to the fortress of the divine. This, however, isn’t the only possible interpretation of Jesus’ words and I wonder if Matthew’s community saw this kingdom of heaven as something other than a location we’re desperately trying to get into. Jesus, after all, told people during his teachings, healings, and dinner parties that they were – in that moment – experiencing the kingdom of God come near. The kingdom, then, wasn’t only a castle meant to withstand whatever life threw against it. God’s kingdom was also on the move – meeting people in the lives they actually lived. Peter, then, wasn’t given keys designed to open the lock on a door based on the life we’ve lived. These keys were, rather, meant to unlock the opportunity for those on earth to experience a more heavenly kind of life too. That doesn’t mean Jesus was saying that a holy life would be without struggle, pain, or grief. Peter’s own story was full of failures, anxiety, and all kinds of suffering. Loss and joy; laughter and tears; new beginnings and unexpected endings were things Peter – and Matthew’s community – knew all too well. They had experienced the fullness of what life was like and yet, because of Jesus, had also discovered they were part of what God was doing in the world. They, exactly as they are, were, even then, being empowered by God to live out what the kingdom of heaven is all about. The binding and loosening, then, wasn’t about determining who was worth God’s love but rather by seeing how Jesus’ own ministry showed what should be bound and what should be loosen. Those who follow Jesus were called to bind love and welcome, healing and compassion, wholeness and mercy, in all they said and did. Those who Jesus claimed as his own were invited to loosen from themselves the ways wealth, power, and human points of view encourage us to judge one another rather than to include. What we bind and what we loosen should reflect the grace at the heart of the one who has bound us in what God is all about. And while some of this work is meant for us to do on our own, the fullness of what we can become is made real in a community who embody God’s commitment to care and serve. Life is less about building fortresses for God and more about living out our experience of the divine. And while we will often disagree about the details of what it means to bind and loosen, the experience of God others have will always be at its strongest when we show how God’s walls of grace, hope, and love surround them too.
Amen.