21st Sunday in Ordinary Time: August 22/23, 2026

Picture it - it’s late 32 AD.  Jesus has passed through Tyre and Sidon, and is now in Caesarea-Philippi: on his way to Jerusalem, where he knows he will die.  And he just wants some good, honest feedback about how things have been going, so he asks his disciples, who are people saying I am??  Or as it is said in Jesus Christ Superstar:   “What’s the buzz? Tell me all about it. . .”

Today’s Gospel comes right on the heels of John the Baptist’s death, the feeding of the five thousand, the apostles seeing Jesus walk on water, and an encounter with a foreign woman who challenges Jesus to expand his ministry beyond the Jews.  Things were getting more serious.  The Jewish authorities, and others, were noticing and showing signs of displeasure. Jesus’ reputation was spreading, crowds were growing, and the disciples were beginning to understand that this wasn’t some kind of interesting side hustle they had fallen into. No, this was a radical, all-in, life-changing collision course that they were on.  And so Jesus just wanted to check in.  What are people saying about me??

And then the twist that maybe the disciples weren’t expecting:  but who do YOU say I am?

And we hear Peter blurting out:  “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.”  From there, Jesus declares Peter is the rock upon which he would build his church, perhaps wanting them to remember his parable about building a house on rock versus sand.  Peter was now the rock.

But Peter being the Rock is not what this homily is about.

And then Jesus made the comment about handing Peter the keys to the kingdom, which people then would have heard differently than we do today.

Back then, kings and kingdoms were commonplace and so they would understand full well exactly what having the “keys to the kingdom” meant.  It was about Jesus granting Peter authority. But authority, who has it and how it is used, is not what this homily is about.  Instead, this homily is about KEYS.  Keys to a kingdom. Keys to THE kingdom, the kingdom of heaven.  The keys, I think, we all possess, and the question is whether we use them or not.

But first, I think Jesus asks us all the same question he asks the disciples:  “who do you say I am?”  And depending on how we answer that question will determine if we are using the right keys, and using them to gain entrance to the right kingdom.  Despite the vivid visual of us someday standing at the gates of heaven and being asked the question in one singular pass-from-one-place-to-another moment in time, I think the actual answer to this question is the sum total of our lives. 

• What did we do with our lives?  

• How did we live our lives?  

• How did we choose to do the things we did and make the decisions we made?

• What were our priorities and our sacrifices?

• Did we use the right keys to open the right kingdom?

• Did we live as though Jesus truly is the Christ, the son of the living God?  And then, most importantly:  is there any evidence?

• What would the evidence look like?  

I’d say it looks like this in our lives:  We trusted.  We held Christ close in our best times and in our worst times and that allowed us to use the keys of hope and confidence.  We walked through sometimes confused, sometimes threatened, sometimes furious popular culture with our heads held high because we knew that Jesus, the one we are bound to, had our backs.  We led with love.  When we ourselves were confused, threatened, furious, we decided to just use the key of love. We used the key of care toward the least, the saddest, the most judged, the ones with no voice and without much chance. We used the key of light, glowing like a restless flame fighting its way out from under a bushel basket to let others see that we’re just simply like the rest. We used the keys given to us in the Beatitudes which allowed us to open doors in our lives and opened the door of hope for others:  The keys of mercy, meekness, peace and perseverance, and calm in the face of persecution or misunderstanding.

Is there any evidence in the whole of our lives that we used other keys given to us in St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians, that allowed us to open doors in our lives and open up hope in the lives of others, the keys of:  compassion, humility, gentleness, and patience?  Did we use the right keys to open the right kingdom for ourselves and for those around us?  And maybe most important:  did we use the keys generously out of a sense of abundance, or did we ration them out of a sense of scarcity?? Because in that moment, when Jesus looks into our eyes and asks:  “But who do you say that I am?”  wouldn’t it be great to be able to answer exactly as Peter did, but not just with our words, but with our lives. . . Yes Lord, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!