SCRIPTURE READINGS
Twentieth Sunday, August 23, 2026  

Biblical Readings Online Here 
(Year A in the three-year cycle of readings) 

This Sunday’s readings are about leaders delegated to guide God’s people. In the first reading from Isaiah, the palace steward Shebna is demoted by King Hezekiah, and in Matthew’s Gospel, Peter is given the keys of the kingdom of heaven.  

Isaiah announces punishment for Shebna, “over the king’s household,” who advanced his career by building an ostentatious tomb for himself. King Hezekiah transferred to Eliakim Shebna’s robe, sash, and ceremonial key.  

In Matthew, Peter’s confession joins the two titles Messiah and Son of God. “Son of God” acknowledges Jesus’s true nature and intimate bond with the Father. Jesus declares that Peter’s confession did not come from Peter alone, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” He then tells Peter: “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  

Peter is given three roles: (1) he is the rock foundation of the church as the body of believers, expressed by the wordplay on Peter’s Aramaic name Cephas, “rock”; (2) he is holder of the keys to the kingdom heaven, enjoying delegated authority over God’s household, like Shebna’s “key” in the first reading ; (3) he is able to bind and loose, the authority to interpret the teaching confident of divine ratification.  

Though Matthew 16:13-20 has been intensely debated since the sixteenth-century Reformation, most Protestant commentators today concede that “rock” refers to Peter personally not just to his faith, and that Peter is singled out for a unique role. Debate today circles around whether Peter’s role was unrepeatable, whether others may later succeed to that “office.” To the Catholic exegete Brendan Byrne, Peter’s role is permanent: “The papacy is the only body that has historically laid claim to the Petrine office and many Christians outside the Roman communion feel the need, especially in any increasingly globalized world, for a visible, personal focus of Christian unity and guarantor of the tradition.” The Church is founded upon “God-given knowledge of Christ, a knowledge it is the Church’s supreme privilege to treasure and communicate to the world in every age.” (Lifting the Burden, 132).

Richard Clifford, S.J., has taught biblical studies for 55 years, most recently at the Clough School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College, and has written many scholarly and popular books and articles.