From grade school, if not before, I have always understood the image of “the keys to the Kingdom” in a certain way. This year, on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (June 29), another possible interpretation presented itself as I read the gospel of the day – often designated as Peter’s Profession of Faith (Matthew 16:13-19). Let me try to explain.

Jesus and his closest followers are in the extreme north of Palestine, near one of the sources of the Jordan River – Gentile territory – in the area around the city, Caesarea Philippi. Jesus stops and asks his disciples what people are saying about who he is. They respond with a short list of the usual suspects: Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the other old-time prophets, John the Baptist… Then Jesus continues, “and what do you think?”

“Who do you say I am?” This is a critical question that Jesus directs also to us. How do we answer it?

Simon, also called Peter by Jesus, true to his impetuous nature, blurts out: “You are the Messiah, Son of the Living God!” Jesus responds, “This insight you have doesn’t come from human speculation or conjecture, it’s divinely inspired.”  You can picture Simon Peter standing straighter, beaming, nodding his head. He’s just gone to the head of the class. Jesus’ praise is confirmation that Peter deserves his sure and certain place in Jesus’ confidence.

But there’s more in Matthew’s version. This is the only Gospel that has the designation of Peter as the foundation stone for the assembled community that will grow from Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. “You are Peter, and upon this rock (great pun, since Peter and rock are synonymous) I will build up my community. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you tie up will be tied in heaven; whatever you free up, will be free in heaven.” I always thought that this meant that Peter had the power and authority to control access to heaven. Can’t be. That belongs to God alone.

The keys are to the Kingdom, not to heaven. This Kingdom of God is already here, yet still growing snd developing. It is a kingdom of profound and pervasive peace, a Kingdom of Shalom. The binding and loosing, tying and freeing, is the key. It speaks of forgiveness, freely given or withheld. We can enter this Kingdom, we can live at peace, as long as we know, in our heart of hearts, that we are forgiven and that we forgive any and all, including our selves. Not always easy! The keys to God’s Kingdom are mercy, compassion, forgiveness. What we do here, during our lifetime, has enduring effects.

Just a few verses later (Matthew 16:21-23), Jesus will be scolding Peter for his gross lack of understanding of Jesus’ mission and it’s almost certain outcome (suffering, death). Peter, strong and sure one moment, weak, tottering and off track the next. That’s why Rock can also be called Rocky. Here is a very human foundation for a very human enterprise. When the critical hour arrives, Peter, out of fear, denies Jesus. When he realizes what he has done, he has a choice: to go the way of despair – like Judas, or to embrace the unconditional promise of forgiveness and to forgive himself. He chooses to accept forgiveness. Now he is ready to enter the Kingdom of Shalom, and to open the way for others.

How much harm has come from taking this statement from the Gospel of Matthew literally, and out of context! “You must be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). This powerful sentence is part of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, where he has brought together all sorts of sayings of Jesus in an extended teaching on what it means to follow the Way of Jesus. It comes at the end of a very challenging section where Jesus lays out how extreme is the love and commitment he is calling for. We are to love our enemies. Pray for those who mistreat and oppose us. We are to be like Abba-God, who shares abundant goodness with all, good, bad, unjust, just – and with everyone of us who is a mix of all of this.  

Good people strive mightily to be perfect. Many good people give up trying. What’s the use! It’s impossible! We torture ourselves with our efforts to achieve perfection (Jesus told us to!), yet we know, only too well, in our heart of hearts, how imperfect we are. People who misread this line live lives of misery. Is this what Jesus meant? Would God sadistically demand something that, in no way, we can do?

The answer lies in the parallel text from the Gospel of Luke’s Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:36). “You are to be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful. The perfection God invites, and challenges us to pursue, is one of mercy, of love. God does not require or expect that we embody divine perfection. God is happy with us, perfectly imperfect human beings. Jesus is just asking us to become all that we can, embodying Abba-God’s abundant compassion for everyone (including our selves) with the help of God’s abundant grace.

In the very first section of the very first chapter of the Gospel of Mark (where the action never stops!), Jesus comes from up North (Galilee) seeking out John the Baptizer who is preaching along the Jordan River. Jesus is moved to be baptized by John. And then Jesus has some kind of mystical experience that seems to be life-changing for him (and for us!). He senses the heavens being torn open and is aware of the Holy Spirit descending on him – something like a dove hovering over him. Then Jesus hears a voice coming from above that affirms, “You are my beloved son with whom I am very pleased.” 

What could this whole experience possibly mean for him, for his life? How can Jesus sort it all out? Before he can act, or even think it through, Jesus feels himself impelled by the Spirit to go out into the wilderness, to some deserted place where he makes a forty-day retreat. If he is the beloved child of God, what responsibility does he have? If God is well-pleased with him, as he is, what does that free up inside of him? Jesus wrestles with the big temptations that come with this revelation. Will he act as his ego demands? Will he let himself be guided by subtle forces that would have him use his gifts to satisfy himself, or to accomplish “great things”? Will he choose to be led only by that loving voice whispering within? We know that Jesus did not choose the easy path, and, in the end, he experienced the eternal loving embrace of Abba-God.

It would be a major mistake to think that the revelation given to Jesus at the Jordan River was meant for him alone. Every human being is offered the exact same message  – You are my beloved child. I am very pleased with you, as you are, and all that you can become. Sadly, too many of us are denied the possibility to hear this wonderful, beautiful truth. Too many lives are taken up with raw survival, bombarded by horrific lies, subjected to unimaginable abuses. All this noise pollution drowns out the loving affirmation of God. You are my beloved child. I am very well-pleased with you.

For those of us who are able to listen to the whisper of God within, and hear who we are from God’s perspective, what is our response? What is our responsibility? What does this mean for how we choose to live?

There are so many sayings in the Gospel of John that are enigmatic and obscure, yet if you sit silently with them they might reveal some hidden wisdom. Or, they might just remain puzzling. Take John 16:16-20 for example. The setting is Jesus’ Last Supper discourse – Jesus’ long “farewell address” to his closest followers. It speaks of going away, returning, sorrow and joy. As usual, the disciples (like us often) don’t get it. Jesus tries to clarify.

“In a little while you will not see me, and again, a little while and you will see me.” Sounds to me like the ebb and flow of our relationship with Jesus, with God. There are seasons (or more frequently moments) when Jesus seems very real, very near. And there are times when it seems as if Jesus has never been with us. This is the rhythm of consolation and desolation. We can have amazing experiences of peace, closeness, insight – it can feel as if God is holding us in a warm, firm, embrace. We are certain of what we believe. Then, sometimes for no apparent reason, we feel empty, abandoned and full of doubt. Mother Teresa admitted in her private writings, published posthumously, that this was her experience of God for much of her life.

What might our patterns of sorrow and joy teach us (this is not about the period of sadness we feel as we grieve a real loss)? If we are not clinically depressed, or bipolar, whether we feel consoled or desolate, might have something to do with whether we receive each and every moment as gift, or if we have begun to take things for granted. We like to hold on, especially to what feels good to us, and we try to pretend that negative or uncomfortable experiences belong to someone else. The disciples sure wanted to hang on tightly to Jesus. He was their rock, their anchor, their inspiration, their leader. They were afraid that they would be lost without him. Mother Teresa could have told them that it’d be hard, but they would not be lost.

What we cling to, what we say we own, we possess, will not bring us life, health, peace, satisfaction. It fact, this stuff (relationships too) owns us, possesses us. The more we possess, the less  free we are. The question is can we have without possessing. The answer is, if we receive all as pure gift, and we live a continuous psalm of gratitude, yes. This is possible as long as we keep our attention fixed on the Giver who is present as Gift in each and every moment – whether we feel God’s presence or not.

Jesus made it very clear. In order to receive, and to have the gift of the Holy Spirit forever, we need to let go of the familiar, comfortable presence of Jesus as he was hanging out with us during his lifetime. And we need to remember that the Holy Spirit is the very embodiment of gift. 

We humans are embodied spiritual beings. Our bodies are pretty obvious, and at times obnoxious. (Just ask those of us who have had an abundance of birthdays to celebrate!) Our spiritual dimension continually invites us to more: more life, more freedom, more love. Our whole life is an ongoing attempt to bring our bodies and our spiritual selves together in some kind of cooperative alliance to promote our total wellbeing. 

We know, confirmed by scientific advances, that we do better when we take good care of our body: enough rest, exercise, good nutrition.  What about the spiritual dimension of our life? What do we feed our spirit?

Just as with our bodies, if we are not forced into a survival mode, so with our spiritual “life,” we can choose what we take in as nutrition. Do we gorge ourselves on spiritual junk food? Do we try to fill the emptiness within with nourishment that has little, or no, substance? Empty calories that give us the feeling of being full – the illusion of feeling satisfied? With a diet the equivalent of spiritual puffed pork rind crisps, we can become spiritually fat, sluggish, barely responsive to the movements of God in our life. We have filled ourselves with all the right answers, what more could there be?

Of course, we’ve been given the Holy Spirit, and we have been graced with plenty of assets to help us to remain internally mobile, active, attentive – like imagination, curiosity, wonder, an unquenchable thirst to learn and to grow… We deeply desire fullness of life, as much love as we can receive and give, the freedom to choose what is truly good and life-giving for ourselves and for those we share life with. With what might we nurture ourselves for what we truly need?

In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, there are more than 60 verses around the theme, the Bread of Life. Jesus declares that he, himself, is the Bread of Life (verse 48). He goes on to say that his flesh and his blood are the food that we need and want. He gives himself completely that we might have life in abundance (verses 49-58). But how can we eat Jesus’ flesh and drink his blood? It’s all symbolized in the Eucharistic Feast.

It begins with our willingness to receive the gift of Jesus’s love – to take it in, to let it become our very own flesh, – the substance of our lives (transubstantiation?). We make ourselves at home in Jesus’ love, Whenever we enter into any communion of love, whenever we really hear and digest the Word of God, whenever we open ourselves to the mutual intimacy and vulnerability of community, whenever we allow anyone and everyone access, through compassion, to our heart, we are consuming the flesh and blood of Jesus. Isn’t this is the daily bread we ask for in the Lord’s Prayer?