21A20.   Isaiah 22:19-23.   Shebna’s position was like that of a steward, who because the king could not tend to everything was the second in command.  The Lord obviously did not feel that Shebna was living up to his responsibilities and so appointed Eliakim to take his place.  The Lord said, “I will place the key of the House of David on Eliakim’s shoulder. Now he was the new overseer or steward, and not Shebna.  The Church places this reading here in anticipation to the fact that Jesus would assign Peter to be as a steward to God the King and no longer to the Jewish religious authorities.  Since Jesus would no longer be in this world as someone who would be seen or heard as he was when he was here in the flesh, he saw the need to establish a steward or overseer in his place.  Someone who could be seen and heard as another person of this world, Peter the first in the line of succession of the popes, Jesus’ supervisors or managers of the Church, as one visibly tending to work that Jesus had done while he was visibly present in this world.

Matthew 16:13-20.  Jesus questions his disciples, as to how people saw him and then as to how they saw him.  “Simon Peter said in reply, ‘You are the Christ, Son of the living God.’ Jesus said to him in reply, ‘Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah.  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.’”  Then Jesus made Peter the steward or pope, the first of the popes till Jesus comes the second time at the end of this world and brings all that is his to heaven.  Jesus then says to Peter and so to his successors, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  The measure of that ‘whatever’ is what Jesus had just said to Peter.  In effect what Jesus is saying is not what ‘flesh and blood’ reveals to you but what my heavenly Father reveals is what you bound or loose on earth.  The Church is bound to the Will of God and that Will alone.  This can never be otherwise.   The human “flesh and blood” of this earth must be bound to whatever “my heavenly Father” reveals to you.  The head is Jesus and his body, the Church obeys him.  Even though Jesus appoints visible stewards and overseers, Jesus, though not visible, is still here as the one and only Lord and Ruler of his people.  The stewards are never the king but only servants of the king.  As example to us Jesus went to the mountain to pray and then brought back his Father’s Will to the Church he was establishing.  God supports the ‘master of the palace’ or good steward only as that steward represents his king and does not go out on his own apart from God, who is the king.

Romans 11:33-36.  “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!”  Only those who listen to his wisdom and not to what is only ‘flesh and blood’ can bring God into the life of the faithful.