I would like to talk about keys.  See in my hand, a key from my key chain. Keys are so important to our everyday lives… as are key chains. Many of us adults have a key chain. In fact, having a key chain is a sign of becoming an adult.

Doesn’t it frustrate you when you lose your set of keys? Knowing we all have problems losing our keys, most of us have a key hook at home where we hang our sets of keys. If we don’t have that key hook, most of us lose our keys and that is so frustrating when we lose them.

Keys are incredibly small but open such great power. You know that and so do I. I think of Wendy who drives an eighteen wheeler which he sometimes parks in the church parking lot at night during the week. Wendy gets into that eighteen wheeler, turns the ignition, and Wendy moves tons of material just with that little key. Look at this key in my hand. Look how small it is. How much does it weigh? I measured its weight. This key weighs a fraction of an ounce. It is two inches long. But it can move many tons of machinery. This key is a small little bugger but it is important.

Most of us have other keys…..for our office, our building, our school. Most adults have jobs and often there are several keys that are connected with work. Sometimes we carry a master key. A master key will open numerous doors in the building.

I think every adult in this room has at least two crucial keys:  a car key and a house key. These two keys are important to all of us. We have a key to open up our house, condo or apartment and all the joy that we experience once we open that door. We also have a key to our car or cars to open the door into that machine which takes us to all kinds of wonderful places. What if we didn’t have a key to our house, condo or apartment? What a sorry mess we would be in. The key opens the door to pleasure. The same with the car key. What if we didn’t have a key to our car and we were stuck in our garage, carport or driveway. How dull. How confining. But that car key opens not only the door to our car but the doors to so much in life.

We all have these two basic keys for life. One for the house. One for the car. O yes, we have other keys. Often we other numerous other keys and have them on a key chain. But there are two keys which are used most often: for the house and for the car.

Further, we often use the word, “key,” as a metaphor for many things in life. We all know that there are keys to being a good athlete or a good musician. What are the keys to being a good athlete or musician? Well, you know them. Talent, hard work, discipline, enjoyment of the task, experience, learning.

There are important keys to doing your job. You have a set of keys to doing your job well and I have a set of keys to do my job well. The keys to being a good pastor is getting along with a great variety of people, loving God, loving Jesus Christ, loving the Bible, taking care of people in their deepest needs, being a friend to people, being a leader, a preacher, a teacher. I have a set of keys that make my job run more smoothly. You have a set of keys that make your job run more smoothly. What are some of the keys that are important to your job.?

There are also keys to effective parenting. You need to use those keys to effective parenting or life will get really messed up. There are keys to effective and loving marriages. You need to use those keys to marriage or your marriage will get messed up.

There are keys to effective and great friendships. There are keys for everything, so it seems.

It is with this mood and metaphors that we approach the gospel lesson today from the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus talks to us about the keys of the kingdom.

What are the keys of the kingdom? The answer to that question has caused endless debate and interpretation. The word, “keys,” is a plural word. There is more than one key.

We momentarily focus on the word, “kingdom,” and not the word, “keys.” We remember the kingdom of God/heaven was/is Jesus’ primary teaching. We have listened to parables of the kingdom and teachings of the kingdom. We have also head about the miracles of the kingdom. The kingdom is wherever Christ rules in a person, a home, and a nation. The kingdom is wherever and whenever the love of Christ rules in a person’s life.

Within the kingdom, what are these two keys?

”and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” There are two keys of the kingdom: one key is to withhold forgiveness and the second key is to grant forgiveness.

This saying was an Aramaic colloquial phrase. To “loose on earth” meant to declare a person to be released, loosed or absolved. “To bind on earth” meant to declare that a person to be bound to the consequences of his or her sins.

The phrase, “to loose and to bind” was a common Jewish phrase in Jesus’ day. The rabbis of the day had that power to “loose and bind.”  To “loose and to bind” was to allow and forbid, to declare something allowed and to declare something forbidden.

In our daily lives, we all use contemporary colloquialisms, and we grasp the meaning of those colloquialisms such as “go jump in the lake” or “drop dead” or “get lost” or “go fly a kite.” We know that we are not to take these words literally or we would all get wet as we jumped in a lake or we would all die on the spot as we dropped dead or we would go get lost or we would go buy kites and fly them. We intuitively know that these phrases are slang expressions, contemporary colloquialisms, that are not to be taken literally. So it is with this phrase. It was an Aramaic colloquialism to grant forgiveness or withhold forgiveness.

We also recall the similar words of Jesus in John 20:23 when Jesus appeared to the disciples after the resurrection. Jesus said to his disciples, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Traditionally, the phrase, the “office of the keys, ” is interpreted to be the church’s authority to “declare the forgiveness of sins” after confession of sin during the worship service.

The Lutheran Book of Worship expresses these sentiments in the following words which are part of the confession: “As a called and ordained minister of the Church of Christ and by his authority, I therefore declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” This is the office of the keys.

What does this mean for our daily lives? To grant forgiveness. To withhold forgiveness.

We know that to give forgiveness is crucially important. Forgiveness is letting go of sins. It is releasing sins. Letting go of our own sins and imperfections and flaws. Letting go of the sins and imperfections of our spouse, our kids, our friends, our neighbors, our fellow church members. The list goes on and on. You cannot live with other sinful and perfect people harmoniously without the presence and power of forgiveness. The only kind of people in this world are sinful and imperfect, including yourself and myself, and we cannot live with people peacefully without forgiveness. Just as you use the key to your house and car several times a day, so also you need to use this key of forgiveness often, daily, endlessly, infinitely.

The second key is more difficult: when we do withhold forgiveness. This much more difficult for each one of us who know that we are not to be judgmental and that we are to forgiven seventy-times seven or infinitely. At the same time, we hear this teaching that there are occasions when it is appropriate to withhold forgiveness.

John 20:23 says, “If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

I believe that this is an expression of “tough love.” That is, we and others need to see the consequences of our sins. We are not to protect someone who sins and does something stupid from the consequences of those stupid actions and decisions. Too often in life, we “enable” those people, grant forgiveness, tolerance and acceptance too soon. We enable people to continue drinking, throwing tempter tantrums, living at our home free when they have no job and are not out searching for one. The list goes on and on where we enable people to live irresponsibly and not face the consequences of their sinful behavior. I believe that is what it means to “withhold forgiveness” or “retain sins.”

We know that the Bible connects repentance and forgiveness. Forgiveness without accompanying repentance is often “cheap forgiveness.”

Keys. The keys to my house and my car are the two keys I use most in life. The key for my house does not work in the ignition to the car. The key for my car does not work to open the house. Those are two different keys that need to be used differently for different occasions.

In the kingdom of God there are two keys. The key of forgiveness. The key of withholding forgiveness. Those keys are not the same but both are important to use.

Sermon by Rev. Edward Markquart