(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