Collect for the Fourth Sunday in Lent
Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give me this bread, that he may live in me, and I in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
How Do We Use our Keys? (Matthew 16:13-16:28)
The Cathedral Church of All Saints in Milwaukee is built on the corpse of a dead church. Mt. Olivet Congregational Church in Milwaukee was a faith community that was outgrowing its space in the 1860s. They decided to build a new church. The building process brought out so much dissention in the congregation that they disbanded and never moved into the building. The Mt. Olivet congregation sold the building to us. It was consecrating in 1873 and has been in use since then.
When Jesus gave Peter the keys to the kingdom, he did not also supply a perpetual maintenance contract. That is our task. We have the keys, and we also have the task to keep the church in good order. And while we are called to be good stewards of the resources that God has entrusted us with, keeping the church in good order has very little to do with the roof, the furnace or the lawn.
When Jesus entrusted the keys to the kingdom to Peter, his intention was that Peter’s mission would be the proper tending and feeding of the flock. Our Book of Common Prayer clearly summarizes this mission on page 855. “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.”
The Book of Common Prayer also gives detailed instruction on how to accomplish this mission on pp. 304-5. The Baptismal Covenant clearly articulates the core doctrine of the Church and clear instructions on how to live the Christian life—how to make sure the flock is adequately fed and tended.
We profess to be a church that is apostolic. That means we are to continue in the apostle’s teaching and that we, like Peter, are inheritors of the keys. What we do with those keys is up to us. We can mount them on the mantle and show them off like an exhibit in a museum. Or we can use those keys to unlock the grace and power of God to work wonders in a world that so sorely needs them. We can also use those keys to lock up ignorance and bigotry of every kind.
If we use the keys properly we can be unbelievably power agents for change in the world. If we do not use them properly, eventually some other church might build on our corpse. The choice is up to us.
The Very Rev. Kevin Carroll
Dean
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