(For the audio version of this post, please visit https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Mass-Blog-for-the-21st-Sunday-in-Ordinary-Time-2026.mp3)
When a child gives a parent the key chain they made in art class, mom or dad might call it cute. After all, this gift has no intrinsic value—a few cents worth of raw materials and a few minutes of class time at most. It doesn’t begin to repay what the parent gives their child in terms of room, board and security. But to any parent, such a handmade gift is priceless for its primary component: Love.
This is a good way to understand what Paul means in Sunday’s second reading when he asks, “Who has given the Lord anything that he may be repaid? For from him and through him and for him are all things.” (Romans 11:33-36)
Love is the only thing a child can give a parent that the parent can’t get anywhere else. It’s what makes that cheap keychain so substantial. It’s made with a love unencumbered by ulterior motives. That’s what makes it strong enough to hold the key to God’s Kingdom, and it’s mentioned in Sunday’s other readings by Isaiah the prophet and Matthew the apostle.
Isaiah tells how God our Father stripped the key to His Kingdom from the disgraced Shebna and entrusted it to Eliakim—an innocent with none of Shebna’s selfish intentions. With the Father’s key in Eliakim’s hands,
“When he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open,” Isaiah quotes the Father. “I will fix him like a peg in a sure spot, to be a place of honor for his family.” (Isaiah 22:19-23)
Yet two verses later, outside Sunday’s excerpt, God shows an understanding that the function of key-keeper often proves too great a burden for any home-made containment system we might craft for Him in this 8th grade shop class called life.
“The peg fixed in a firm place shall give way, break off and fall, and the weight that hung on it shall be done away with,” our understanding Father concludes through Isaiah. (Isaiah 22:25)
Centuries later, the weight of God’s heavy key would be entrusted to Peter, another weak peg, but one fortified by the child-like faith that God will turn our weakness into strength, as Paul would later teach the Corinthians while acknowledging his own powerlessness:
“My grace is sufficient for you,” God taught Paul, “for power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul continues, “I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.” (2Corinthians 12:9)
Just as that power dwelt in Peter, whose hand-crafted chain was made sufficient to hold the weighty Kingdom Key via the answer he gave to his Master’s security question: “Who do you say that I am?”
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus said to him in reply, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church. … I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 16:13-20)
Our simple acknowledgement of what God means to us is the gift God wants from all his children. It’s cheap by this world’s value system, but it forms a chain sturdy enough to guarantee it won’t lose the key to our Father’s front door. In fact, ours is the only chain ever designed to hang on a key.
–Tom Andel
The paradox of Christian love is that it is both the simplest gift we can give God and perhaps the hardest. We cannot repay God for what we have received, because, as Paul reminds us, everything already comes from Him. Our prayers, sacrifices and good works do not put God in our debt. They are our response to His grace. What God ultimately desires is not payment but caritas: a freely given love that says, in effect, “Father, all I have is already yours, and I give myself back to you.” That sounds childishly simple. Yet becoming childlike enough to love without keeping score may be one of the hardest things faith asks of us.
The most expensive gift we could have ever received from God is our free will. Our challenge is acknowledging that what’s free to us came at a price we could never afford to repay The best we can do is spend it for the good of others.
What a beautiful reminder of how simple Gods ask of us is! Thank you for this beautiful message Tom!
Thank you for your example of how to return God’s investment in us, Mike.
As Christ gave Peter the keys to the Kingdom, He gives the same to us through his church and his very self. Loving Jesus and all our brothers and sisters no matter the circumstance is our gateway to heaven. Easier said than done, but doable as followers of Christ.
Paradoxically, that chain of love is growing longer and stronger in some of this world’s poorest regions as missionaries continue spreading God’s good news like Peter and Paul did. Though Christianity has declined in some of our more “developed” regions, it’s sure to rebound as younger generations realize our pop culture’s conventional wisdom has been starving them of the real thing.
Dear Tom and contributors,
Thank you for your timely
discussion of love .
A song of love is a sad song
hi Lilly hi Lilly hi lo
From the 50s musical Lili with Leslie Caron. Loved her in American in Paris with Gene Kelly too. The music from both films was inspired. Such masterpieces don’t need religious themes to celebrate how beautiful a creation humanity can be.