Unlocking Doors
Rev. Richard H. Thompson, December 13, 2009

"O, come, Key of David, come, and open wide our heavenly home; make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery. Rejoice! rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!"

My first day as pastor here at WPC included a walking tour of every building. I was shown where the light switches were, how to turn on the heaters, open the mini-blinds in the Sunday School rooms, turn off the alarm in the office and which doors to unlock. Then the person showing me around handed me the keys. "Here you go," I think he said. "It's all yours." And as the keys landed in the palm of my hand I remember feeling a vague sense of dread. Because keys make you the "key person", don't they? The go-to person. "Hey, I need to get into the kitchen to set up the coffee." "No problem. Go find the pastor. He's got the keys to everything." Keys represent authorization. They represent responsibility.

I had a friend who was a pastor who liked to keep his keys on one of those retractable key chains which he hung on his belt, I guess for quick access. He sort of jangled when he walked into a room.

Take out your keys for a minute and look at them. Look at each one and think about what each key represents. Think about what was involved in getting that key. Look at your car key for example. To have this key took becoming a certain age, getting a driver's license, paying insurance, making auto payments, paying the upkeep and gas. All of that represented by this little piece of metal and plastic. How about a house or apartment key? Wow. Think about what you had to sign to get that key! How about the key to an office or work place? Maybe you carry a neighbor's key on your key chain. Think about the trust that key represents. What does it imply if someone doesn't have any keys? My first answer would be "freedom!" The vast majority of us have keys, though. That makes most of us "key people", doesn't it?

We teach our children how to become key people. How to carry responsibility, and the privileges that go along with it. It's what we have said we will do this morning when we made vows to help these families raise their children in the Christian faith. God has in mind for them to become key people just as he does us.

So, there's a very practical sense about keys. When you have the key, you have the way to open things, to get things done. That title, "Key of David" comes from little known passage in Isaiah we just heard. The immediate context refers to a manager in the king's house. A "majordomo" named Eliakim is given the responsibility and authority to be a "father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah." In other words, he's placed in charge of daily operations, figuring out schedules, getting pot holes filled, working out budgets, seeing to the water supply, getting the trash picked up. He's also supposed to check in on folks to see how everything is working. He hears their complaints. He sorts out conflicts. He's hands on. One commentary said he's like a Chicago warden boss- he knows how to get the lights on in your house and your telephone to work. He has the key to getting things done.

Keys get other kinds of things done too. We have an expression. We say, "Well, that's key!" By this we mean, something is insightful, it helps "unlock" a conundrum, like finding the first corner piece to the jigsaw puzzle that's splayed out all over the card table. It's like a formula, or an equation, or color, or a key spice, a technique or "key move" that helps to explain what before we could not understand. We're looking for these kinds of keys all the time, aren't we? Maybe it's the key to successful business especially nowadays, or to understanding the tax code (one of our Bethlehem Experience tax collectors is a retired tax attorney. Before he went out to sit in the chair last Saturday he took me aside and said, "You want to know the key to the tax code?" "Sure", I said. "It's this: everything is taxable unless you can prove it's exempt." Now you know! Maybe we're looking for the key to the game of golf (One infomercial had that key. The guy put his hands together like this and said, "Here's the ball, here's the club, all the rest is bureaucracy.") Maybe it's the key to romance we're looking for or a good marriage, or parenting, or a souffle.

We're also looking for keys to unlock ourselves, aren't we? To finding ways to understand what's going on with us. How to break a habit, how not to have thoughts we don't want to have, or emotions we don't like, or insecurities and fears that trap us, or regrets and resentments we can't seem to turn loose of. Maybe it's how to have hope again, or to have the strength again, or how to face an enemy, or just get up in the morning and put both feet on the floor, to be able to pray again, believe again, love again, give again.

We are all looking for keys to these things. Because there's a lot to get done, isn't there? Out there. And also "in here".

We look for a key because most of the time we don't like the feeling of being locked in. We're looking for freedom from so many things. But let's be honest: we also fear what might happen if certain doors really get unlocked. So we're torn. Some things need to remain hidden. Ironically we look for keys, but at the same time we also look for locks- to keep some things safe, "secure", inaccessible and unexamined. We have locks for just about anything: for windows, doors, bikes, cars, computers. We encrypt, we encode, we "firewall", we password protect. I can order my phone to self-destruct by satellite from anywhere in the world! Some things we want to keep securely under our control. Because God knows what might happen if the door to that hidden place were to be opened!

This image, "Key of David" first used by Isaiah about seven hundred years before Jesus' birth found its way into the New Testament as a way to describe the Messiah. So in the last book of our Bibles, a messenger of God announces to an embattled, discouraged, confused little gathering of Christians,

"These are the words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens."

That He's the one who unlocks things, figures out things, gets things moving, working. He gets things done. There's a very practical sense about this. It's like every time the Messiah takes a step, you can hear a jangle. Jesus heals. He teaches. He puts people together and gives them work to go out and do. He pushes some, pulls others. He gives them skill, and strong hearts and good minds. He gives them his promise to always be with them, always. Jesus puts the corner piece in the center of the table. "Here's the key," He says. "It's this. I am the key."

He shows us how to do hard things like love enemies, beginning with ourselves because so often you and I are our own worst enemies, aren't we? He's the key to how to forgive, which means to be able to open our hands, to release old hurt so that we can be free. He's the key to how we can pray with confidence, how to give, how to live, how to trust him to go into locked tight places in us and open them to his healing, his grace and truth.

But how does this happen? How does Jesus become "key"? One day Jesus explained in the simplest of terms to his friend Peter. He said, "Deny yourself", (not reject yourself), "and come, take this key, and follow me..." The key that opens everything. That lets in light and a fresh breeze. That opens up to a surprising new life full of people and places we'd otherwise never see.

Sounds simple enough. doesn't it?

Some months ago I shared about an old combination lock I had for which I had managed to lose the combination. How useless is that? Here's the sequel: a kind member of the church asked if he could take my useless lock to his locksmith to open it. About a week later he brought it back. He told me the locksmith couldn't get it open by fiddling with the tumblers. He couldn't find the combination on line either. But what he could do was give me a key that fits in the little slot in the back of the lock. I really hand't noticed that little slot before. The "master key" fits right in there. You turn it, and the lock clicks open.

It's a good image. It's futile trying to figure out the combination by ourselves. There must be thousands if not millions of possibilities for how three numbers fall together. It's like believing I can solve my problems by winning the lottery! But still we keep trying to do the numbers. Work out the combination. It reminds me of me in college trying to make my own life's purpose by becoming an "environmentalist". I was going to make that my life's meaning. It was concrete, worthwhile, even somewhat popular. But then it became clear to me that my program for me was heading nowhere. I couldn't figure this out by myself. I was just spinning the dial. There are all sorts of versions of this. Of people I know here and elsewhere who finally come to the same conclusion I did, that they don't have the combination either. It might take suffering a huge loss, or a reversal, or an illness, or getting older, a relationship ends. It might take a quiet moment doing some real, good thinking, to realize we don't have the combination.

It seems to me we are all like that old lock of mine. On one side is a dial with all those numbers for which we've lost the combination. We can't open this. Not by our will power, or our intelligence, our money, our good looks, or our politics, or nationality, or personality type, not government, not business. But on the other side there is a place for a key that fits perfectly, that opens us with just a turn.

A key in the shape of a cross.

The question is are we going to let him in?

In that same chapter in the book of Revelation, the messenger spoke to another church as well. This one was different in that the people were self-assured. They were rich, confident. Business was good. It's its own kind of trap, isn't it? "We're fine. We've figured oiut the combination on our own. Who needs a key?"

Listen to what the angel says to this church:

"I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. For you say, 'I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.' You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me." (Revelation 3:15-20)

It occurs to me that some locks are on the outside of the door. Some of them are on the inside. By God's grace, at great personal cost, by use of a key in the shape of a cross, that lock on the outside of the door has been opened. The key man is here, the one who gets things done. His name is Emmanuel. God right here with us. So maybe it's time to pull back the bolt, undo the chain, turn the knob, and open the door.

Would you pray with me?...

"O, come, Key of David, come, and open wide our heavenly home; make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery... " In your dear love and grace and mercy and wisdom, dear God, please make it so, in every heart. In Jesus Christ. Amen. Questions for Reflection.