"The Way of the Cross" - Pentecost 14A

 "The Way of the Cross"

Saint Matthew 16:21-28

Back in the early 1950's when “baby boomers” were being born, the suburbs were expanding, and churches we full even on a Labour Day weekend there was a preacher in New York who was about to become famous worldwide for a book called The Power of Positive Thinking.

His name was Norman Vincent Peale and he was the Senior Minister of the Marble Collegiate Church.  Peale was a favourite of the former president but was despised by my preaching professor Dr. Ernest T. Campbell, who was the Senior Minister of the Riverside Church also in New York.

In addition to their theological differences, which were mammoth, Dr. Campbell always disliked that Peale always made himself the hero of his own sermons.  In an almost perfect impersonation of Peale, Dr. Cambell would belt out in Peale’s voice.

“I saw a man about to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and I stopped my car and went over to him.  I said, ‘You know son, you don’t have to end it all ‘God loves you and has a plan for your life.’ And instead of leaping that man took a leap of faith and fell into my arms.” Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Peale would continue, “And that man is a leader of a top Fortune five hundred company today.”

Outside of the implausibility of such stories Dr. Campbell was amazed at the number of times wonderful, life-changing moments like this happened in Peale’s lifetime, saying. “If everything happened to Norman Vincent Peale that he says happened to him, Dr. Campbell observed, “he would be 312 years old.”

In the interest of full disclosure, and I am sure much to my late preaching professor’s chagrin, that when I visit New York or if I lived there, Marble Collegiate would be my church of choice.  The music is outstanding and their current Senior Minister, Dr. Michael Bos preaches sound, biblically based, relevant, sermons.

Peale was a forerunner to Robert Schuller’s Possibility Thinking and Joel Osteen’s preaching in at his mega-church in Houston.  Brent Orwell, writing on the mostly political website, The Bulwark, summed up this “positive thinking” theology.

Norman Vincent Peale, {and his ilk} recommend visualizing success, drowning out negative thinking, and minimizing obstacles.  The purpose of these psychological and spiritual practices is to free individuals from self-doubt and feelings of inferiority and help them to become the people God truly intends them to be happy, wealthy, popular, and professionally successful.

Peale was exceptional for cutting the flock some spiritual slack, encouraging them to look for the sunny side and conquer their inferiority complexes. In his world, you can have the economic gains minus the guilt, which seems perfectly suited to the American sensibility. {In Peale’s day the} public {had} access to few effective mental health treatments—lithium had just come onto the market as a mood stabilizer in 1948—and weighed down by the demands of extroverted Americanism, The Power of Positive Thinking must have been a like a tonic, or perhaps a gin and tonic, something to soothe the wired, weary, worried soul.1

 No matter how rosy a picture some paint the events of almost every day tell us that there is a cross in there somewhere.  

We can’t wish it away, we can’t hope it away, we can’t even push it away with all of our might. We know this when even the long-standing counterclaim that “Every day in every way things are getting better and better” doesn’t always seem to ring true anymore. 

Yet, in light of all the evidence to the contrary we still are slow to embrace the cross as central symbol of our faith.  But don’t feel bad. Even the great Saint Peter wasn’t so excited by the prospect when it finally dawned on him that Jesus was serious about this cross business.

In last week’s gospel Peter was being praised for confessing Christ. 

“Who do you say I am?” Jesus asked.  Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church...”2

As Father David Schlaffer observed of this moment in a commentary.

In Matthew’s telling, Peter goes from being blessed for divinely granted insight to being berated as Satan; from bring designated as a foundation stone to being depicted as a stumbling stone. Jesus seems to take him on a hairpin turn at breakneck speed. Peter might be pardoned for saying: “I never saw this coming!”3.

And poor Peter gets no small amount of flack for his response.  

Jesus has just told his followers that this whole enterprise just might get him killed and who among us would want to hear a friend talk like that?  Peter doesn’t for Jesus means too much to him.

Some even believe that Peter’s response was more of a prayer.  “God forbid, Lord!”4 “Nothing like this must happen to you!”5

And we can understand Peter’s response if we remember that “in the time when Jesus and Peter lived, there was absolutely nothing religious about the cross in the first place. “

Rather, there was only one purpose for a cross in the time of the Roman empire: the purpose of execution. The cross was both the symbol and the means of political and military punishment for dissidents and criminals. It was Rome’s version of the electric chair. In Jesus’ day, the cross had no veneer of redemption, no hint of life, and absolutely no connection with the divine. It was an instrument of suffering and death for those hung upon it, as well as an instrument of fear and intimidation for everyone else.6

“In the Roman world, if you picked up your cross, you were on death row, you were walking that green mile toward your execution.”7 

 This is not the stuff of positive, possibility thinking.  This is not “look on the bright side of life.”  This is not ““accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and don’t mess with mister in between.” That’s the stuff of song lyrics and not a messages of Jesus.

Jesus is calling his followers to “‘deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow’ – to lose their lives in order to save them – coupled with the warning that one can gain the whole world and lose one’s own life.”8

Cross-bearing is for “losers” in societies like ours. The “winners” are those who know how to master the game of life and have the goods to prove it. One of those goods might even be a gilded cross hanging around the neck to be displayed to admirers at church services! Winners might explain that the cross represents something that Jesus did for them. The text explains that cross-bearing is what disciples are called to do in Jesus’ name. 

Those who have imprisoned themselves in service to oneself have their own reward. Those who have carried crosses of compassionate service to others have not only gained a meaningful life, but have also caught a glimpse of God’s eternal realm.9

 Some people might say along with a famous, now infamous man, that they could listen to Peale and his kind “all day” and “be disappointed when it was over.”10

For the rest of us who preach the cross, some of our listeners are glad it’s over. That’s because it is hard to underst and what Dr. Thomas G. Long once pointed out

Cross bearers forfeit the game of power before the first inning: they are never selected “Most Likely to Succeed.” Cross bearers are dropouts in the school of self-promotion. They do not pick up their crosses as means for personal fulfilment, career advancement, or self-expression: rather, they ‘deny themselves” and pick up their crosses, like their Lord, because of the needs of other people.11

 So on this warm summer morning let’s embrace the real positive message of the Gospel and use our hearts, our love, and our intelligence to work together to show the rest of the world how humans are supposed to treat each other.  

Inspired by the love of Christ let us embrace the real possibilities of the gospel affirming by our walk and witness that Christ is the one under whose reign, not the economy,  not our wealth, not our poverty, not our security, not our status, Christ is the one under whose power we live. 

Christ alone is the one to whom we belong. 

And that means we matter, regardless of what other kinds of things you are told based on our gender, or our race, or our sexual orientation, or the amount we have in the bank. 

When we take up our cross we do so as a sign of your protest against those voices that offer less and embrace the possibility that following Jesus with resilience, strength of character, and courage that we can be proclaim the real the truth of the Gospel that has come from the one who showed us how to serve and live the way of the cross, Jesus Christ our Lord.

_______________

1.  Brent Orrell, “The Power of Positive Thinking: Too Much and Never Enough,” The Bulwark, August 26, 2020, https://www.thebulwark.com/the-power-of-positive-thinking-too-much-and-never-enough/.

2.     St. Matthew 16:16–17. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

3.  David J. Schlafer, “Matthew 16:21-28. Connecting the Reading with Scripture,” essay, in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, vol. 3, Year A (Louisville, KY: Westminister/John Knox Press, 2020), 276–78.

4. St. Matthew 16:22. (CEB) [CEB=Common English Bible]

5. St.  Matthew 16:22-23. (PHILLIPS) [PHILLIPS=J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English [London, ENG: HarperCollins, 2000]]

6.     Shannon J. Kershner, “‘Take up Your Cross, the Savior Said...,’” A Fourth Church Sermon , August 31, 2014, https://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2014/083114_8am_930am.html.

7. James  C. Howell, “What can we say September 3? 14th after Pentecost” James Howell’s Weekly Preaching Notions, January 1, 2023, https://jameshowellsweeklypreachingnotions.blogspot.com/.

8.    Schlafer, loc. cit.

9.    Richard Ward, “Commentary on Matthew 16:21-28,” Working Preacher , July 25, 2023, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-22/commentary-on-matthew-1621-28-6.

10.    Orrell, loc. cit.

"Walking with Jesus" - Pentecost 13A

"Walking With Jesus"

Romans 12:1–8

Saint Matthew 16:13-20

Long ages ago when I was in seminary, before the Old Testament was old and the New Testament was really new, whenever I would get stressed or have to think something over I would take a walk on what we affectionately called “the landfill.”

Because the seminary was at Northwestern University this was a landfill only in the most technical sense of the word.  It was reclaimed lakefront property, to be sure, but it had well-manicured lawns, lighted pathways, the lake on the east, and a pond in the centre. 

The best part was that when one strolled on the path closest to the lake one was afforded some magnificent views.  On a clear day, looking south one could see the skyline of downtown Chicago.  Looking north there was the magnificent and peaceful Bahi Temple, gleaming in the daylight hours or glowing bright white when lit up against the night sky.  When one looked west you could see all of the campus buildings along with the seminary, whose Gothic Revival architecture did not make it look like an office building but a place where monks in long robes would roam the grounds in a posture of prayer.  Looks can be deceiving.

When I went for a walk by myself the landfill was a place of solitude.  When my roommates came with me, it was not.  It was then that the same issues we carried with us in class were discussed, in usual seminary student fashion, ad infinitum.  Seminary could be a place where one didn’t just think about things but turned them over and over again in one’s head until the matter was almost pureed.  

Sometimes, we even got to the heart of the matter which is exactly what Jesus was doing with his disciples as they walked along.  

Regular church goers may have sighed and said to themselves: “Oh my, this old saw again.  Jesus asks a question. The disciples get it kind of correct until Peter pipes up with the right answer and then there are smiles and handshakes all around. However, unlike those landfill gab sessions that didn’t amount to much Jesus was getting onto something important.

They weren’t walking not on a beautiful college campus but near Caesarea Philippi which was a trade route, a centre of polytheistic religions and, more importantly, a place whose very name betrayed its true allegiance – to Cesar, the emperor and to Philip, one of Herod’s sons.  Caesarea.  Philippi. It is in the midst of this centre of commerce, culture, and political power that Jesus asks his important question.

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”1

He’s taking a poll.  It’s not quite as sophisticated as a CBS News/Marist Poll because he is only dealing with a word of mouth, “what have you heard on the street,” survey but the results are pretty good.  

Anybody who got responses like this would be very satisfied.

John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, who recently lost his life at the hands of Herod but whose message and movement continued.

Elijah, the hope of divine activity for Israel’s sake.

One of the prophets who delivered the word with creative power.

But Jesus presses further because his question is an important one.

“Who do you say that I am?”—hangs in the air at the intersection of economic trade, religion, and the power of the Empire. It is a question not simply about Jesus’ identity, as if getting the titles right would earn somebody an “A” on a messianic quiz. It is a question about allegiance.

In what or in whom will the followers of Jesus place their trust? Will it be in the privileges deriving from access to opportunity and wealth? In the worship of a prevailing culture’s latest idols? In allegiance to the dominant power of earthly rulers?2

 Peter’s answer is that they are going to put their trust in him.  “You’re the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”3

Those words have been our rallying cry down through the centuries.  In Jesus, we have found the one whose teachings are true and the one who we can trust. 

As one scholar reminds us: 

Confessing Jesus is not a puzzle to be solved by the power of the intellect.  It is a gift, pure and simple.  As a gift {it is} an awesome responsibility to live into.  Furthermore, knowing the proper titles for Jesus is not the same as understanding and embracing the way of being in the world that his identity demands.4

 Our identity is as one who walks with Jesus with all of us playing our part.  Every one of us! As Saint Paul reminds us, that not only changes our view of the world but of each other.

If your gift is that of serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, do a good job of teaching. If you are a preacher, see to it that your sermons are strong and helpful. {Trust me. I’m trying! I’m trying!} If God has given you money, be generous in helping others with it. If God has given you administrative ability and put you in charge of the work of others, take the responsibility seriously. Those who offer comfort to the sorrowing should do so with Christian cheer.5

 And then the Saint goes on: “Love from the centre of who you are, don’t fake it.”6

When others are happy, be happy with them. If they are sad, share their sorrow. Work happily together. Don’t try to act big. Don’t try to get into the good graces of important people, but enjoy the company of ordinary folks. And don’t think you know it all!7

  Remember that we are all trying our best to walk with Jesus together.  That means everybody has a part to play.

I heard Dr. Otis Moss III, say in a sermon once this very thing. All of us have a part to play:

“Whether Anglican or Asian, whether agnostic or Presbyterian, Pentecostal or Baptist, atheist or Jew, Jew or gentile, Muslim or midwestern, Methodist or country, Brethren or Buddhist, country or ghetto, urban or suburban, Lutheran or Latino, whether you are queer or Quaker, Ph.D or no D, jail or Yale, whether you graduated cum laude or “'thank you, Lord'”8 we are all in this, walking together.

May I be so bold to suggest that we will have no better example of how our walk begins and continues as all of us, parents and children of our church and  school, join me in greeting Zoe Awande as we gather around the baptismal font as she begins her walk with Jesus.

That’s the beauty of baby baptisms, Zoe can’t walk she may even squawk but as she begins her journey, we gather around her as a sign to her and a reminder to ourselves that she and we do not walk alone.  That there are others who have embraced Jesus as Messiah, who are trying to live like him, and who are willing to be there for us when we stumble and fall, or even can’t put one foot in front of another, to remind us that we are not alone but that we are on this walk together.

Some come with me, walk with me, back to the font where we began our life in Christ and then to the Lord’s table where we gain strength for this walk so that together we can go out into the world were that walk continues with each other and with him whom we have confessed to be Jesus Christ our Lord.

_____________

1.    St. Matthew 16:13. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

2.    Lance J. Pape, “Matthew 16:13-20. Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading with the Word,” essay, in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, ed. Thomas G Long, vol. 3, Year A (Louisville, KY: Westminister/John Knox Press, 2020), 260–61.

3.  St. Matthew 16:16. (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE=Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The New Testament Palms and Proverbs [Colorado Springs,, CO: NavPress, 1998]]

4. Lance J. Pape, loc. cit.

5. Romans 12:7-8. (TLB)  [TLB=The Living Bible. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1972]

6. Romans 12:9. (MESSAGE)

7. Romans 12:15–16. (TLB)

8. Otis Moss, III, “Nothing to Lose.” Sermon preached at the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, October 24, 

 

"Dogging Jesus" - Pentecost 12A

"Dogging Jesus"

Saint Matthew 15:10-28

“Dogging Jesus”

Prayer

Jesus, Lord of all our days, give us the faith to walk beyond our artificial boundaries, that we may be surprised by the outrageous grace that comes to us in unlikely people and places to change our lives and make them better.  Amen

Introduction

Everybody I know has their good days and bad days.  Everybody, that is, except me. I am doctor positive, sister Mary Sunshine, all day, everyday.  If you don’t believe me, just ask Lowell.  On second thought, don’t ask Lowell.

There are countless articles from esteemed publications like The New York Times, to Forbes Magazine, to even The Harvard Business Review explaining the reasons why occasionally people who have to deal with us come away saying, “Well! They certainly got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

Usually, we can point to the reason that set us on our journey to become the winner of the dreaded Oscar the Grouch award.  

It may have been a cross word between you and your spouse.  It may be road construction and the unusually slow traffic it causes.  It may be the abject stupidity of your fellow drivers.  

Some bad days can start the moment you turn on your television sets.  

The news of wildfires destroying a beloved main street of  Lahaina' and leaving it in ruins with countless numbers of people lost and thousands of lives ruined.  The further news of the evacuations Yellowknife, the capital of the Canada’s Northwest territories by yet another wildfire.  And, of all things, a tropical storm heading for Southern California with heavy rains and flooding expected causing one of my friends in Palm Springs to write on his Facebook page: “It’s odd to live in the desert and be preparing for the remnants of a hurricane.”

Some days it all just adds up and gets to you.

Just ask Kenneth Henderson Jones a pilot for United Airlines who was waiting in line to leave the parking lot at Denver International Airport. 

There were six cars ahead of him at all three of the exit gates none of which were responding to employee passes and letting any cars through.  Jones told the deputies who arrested him that he “‘was just trying to get rid of issues for everyone waiting.’”

He could have found a more subtle way than {And you know I am not making this up because you’ve probably seen it on the news or the newsfeed on your computer!} going back to his car, taking out a full sized ax {Something I always carry in my car!} swinging it mightily “at the downed parking arm ... 23 times until he knocked {it} off its base.”

When asked about his bad day temper tantrum the authorities report that it seemed to them “He just hit his breaking point.”1

Bad days, breaking points, we all have them and much to our discomfort this day so, apparently, did Jesus.  

Today’s gospel should have come with a warning because this is not the kind and compassionate Jesus we fell in love with a couple of Sundays ago when he was feeding thousands of people.  In today’s Gospel Jesus just doesn’t seem to be himself to the point that we might be tempted to ask of the central character, “Who are you and what have you done with my Jesus?”

We can understand how it began.  It’s that reoccurring conflict between Jesus and the learned ones. This time they are debating dietary laws.  Here he is simply pointing out to those who say religion prescribed what foods you could and could not eat that their view was so narrow that it was blinding them to the needs of others.  While they worried about diet and washed hands, they forgot that “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”2  Explaining later to his disciples: “Eating or not eating certain foods, washing or not washing your hands—that’s neither here nor there.”3

Matthew never tells us why Jesus led his disciples outside of Jewish Galilee.  Perhaps it was to get away from the kind of religious debates that can cause one to have a very bad day. Unfortunately, uncomfortably, it looks like Jesus was bringing his bad day with him.

Away from the safety of home, not to mention the purity laws that keep life clean and godly, he is vulnerable to trouble. Enter, as if on cue, “a Canaanite woman from that vicinity.” As a Canaanite she is the archetypal other, more beyond-the-pale even than the Samaritans we see Jesus deal with ... in the other Gospels. As a Canaanite and a woman, moreover, she is meant to be kept at least two arms’ distance from this pious Jewish man.

To add irritation to potential injury, the woman is a screamer.4

The word Matthew uses to describe her voice is “like the sound of a raven.”5 

Is it any wonder that the disciples wanted to send her away? There is nothing like a screeching outsider from a despised people to make for a very bad day.

We will miss the truly radical nature of this encounter  if we forget to notice where it takes place.  Tyre and Sidon were in Lebanon - the very place where the conflicts continue to this very day.   The bad blood between these two people goes all the way back to Jesus’ day and extends to our own.  The woman and Jesus were adversaries.

So the disciples want to send her away empty handed.

While I have never been anything more than a  dog-parent, I can only imagine how much more the feeling of anguish and helplessness parents get when their child is in trouble.  Parents have to be at wits end when they have tried everything and nothing has worked.  That is where this screaming woman is when she, desperate for help, drops to her knees in front of Jesus and begs him for his assistance.  And what does our sweet, gentle, Jesus say in response?

“It is not right, you know,” Jesus replied, “to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”6

Mike drop.  Ouch.

“It is not good to take the children’s food and throw it to the little dogs.”

Bad day or no bad day Jesus is leaving us in shock!

We’ve heard what he said, and this is not the Jesus we know or even want to know.  This is Jesus who is almost unrecognizable making us profoundly uncomfortable.

Nobody we know, or even know,  would ever call another human being a dog.  

Nobody we know, or even know, would ignore the pleas of a parent on behalf of a child.  

Nobody we know, or even know, would exclude a whole people because of their country of origin.  

Nobody we know, or even know, would act like that.

Those words are unacceptable out of anyone’s mouth and coming from the lips of Jesus they come like a slap on the side of the head.  These words leave our ears ringing.

No small amount of brain power and ink has been spent trying to explain them away.  

Some have suggested that it was simple exhaustion on Jesus part that made him so surly.  

Others have suggested that when Jesus called her child a dog, he really meant a puppy.  You know, a cute, little, adorable puppy who wakes you up seventeen times during the night to be let outside only to sniff around the yard for forty minutes trying to find just the right spot.  Oh yes, puppy makes everything better.  

One commentator even suggested that while he said this, he winked at her letting her know that he was joking.  Right!  Just having a few laughs with a woman with a very sick child. Not buying that one.

I stand second to none in my love for puppies and dogs but to refer to another person as a dog, unless they play for the baseball team in Rosemont, is to dehumanize them.

So, what are we to do with this passage?  What are we to do with Jesus talking like this? 

With no other scholars I can find backing me up here is what I think.  If Jesus and the Canaanite woman ever offered a critique of our society this would be it.

Remember who Jesus was.  He was a rabbi, a respected man in the community, whom people looked up to now calling another person a low-life.

And think about her!  Who is she?  She is not only a woman who by law was forbidden to talk to a man in public who was not her husband.  Not only a woman but a woman from a country that many considered inferior full of “rapists, drug dealers and other bad hombres” for whom barriers needed to be constructed to keep them out.

Around these two stands a crowd.  While some in that crowd may have been surprised at Jesus calling the woman and her child dogs perhaps others were nodding their heads in agreement. 

“You tell her Jesus!” they might have been smiling and saying to themselves.  “This woman has no business bothering you!  You give her what for!”  As we look closer to agreeing faces and nodding heads, we see the worse in us and in our society.

And it is the woman who calls all of us to account when she shoots back at Jesus angrily: “Yes, Lord, I know, but even the dogs live on the scraps that fall from their master’s table!”7

She has Jesus, and all the rest of us, in a very tough spot because we have to answer a very difficult question: “Is the Gospel for everybody or is it only for a select few?” 

In this strong, tough woman Jesus has met his match.  He had sparred with some of the brightest and best minds of his day and now is bested by someone who, in a single sentence has reminded him and us all that if the Gospel isn’t meant for everybody than is it really isn’t for anybody? 

His very own words, “it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles” have come back to convict him and us. She has him.  She has us. She has bested him. She has bested us.

Jesus’ Gospel had better be for everybody otherwise it isn’t for anybody.

The message of the Gospel had better be that Jesus does not just love, you and me, here in our Sunday best. 

Jesus’ Gospel is for those people out there in the world who are drinking coffee at home or at Starbucks. 

Jesus’ Gospel is for those people who have gone for a jog or to the gym this morning.  

Jesus’ Gospel is for those people who are sleeping in or torturing themselves by watching one of those Sunday morning news programs with their “Sabbath gasbags.”  

Jesus’ Gospel is for those people who have decided that roasting on North Avenue Beach watching the Air and Water show is a far more worthwhile way to spend their Sunday than roasting here at church.

Jesus Gospel is for everybody and everybody equally.  There is not a sumptuous feast of Christ’s love for some and table scraps for others.  We don’t have to sit up and beg for his love.  We don’t even have to screech at the top of our lungs in order to receive it.  

Jesus gospel is for everyone fully, completely, unreservedly.

All of the secular literature that I read this week about turning bad days into good days agree that the one thing we can do to change things is to do something nice for another person.

We often think only that Jesus did something nice for this woman by healing her daughter.  But I’ll leave you with this radical thought.  She did something nice for him, too.

Shannon Kershner, who I was proud to have for a time as my pastor, said once that she believed “this encounter helped Jesus understand even more deeply that until the lives of the least of the people matter, no life actually does.”8

That was the unnamed woman’s gift to Jesus and my guess is they both went away with their bad day turned into a very good day.  The woman, with her daughter healed and Jesus, in absolute admiration for the one who snapped him back to his message and mission finally smiling at her and saying, “‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’”9

________________

1. Brian Maass, “United Airlines Pilot Charged in Bizarre AX Attack,” CBS News, August 18, 2023, https://www.aol.com/united-airlines-pilot-charged-bizarre-000000174.html.

2. St. Matthew 15:11. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

3. St. Matthew 15:16-20. (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE=Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The New Testament Palms and Proverbs [Colorado Springs,, CO: NavPress, 1998]]

4.   Peter S Hawkins, “Dogging Jesus: Matthew 15:21-28,” The Christian Century, August 9, 2005, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2005-08/dogging-jesus?code=6V57B9bFRkUhRctXc8Ow&utm_source=Christian%2BCentury%2BNewsletter&utm_campaign=1df295cc4b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_SCP_2023-08-14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-31c915c0b7-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D. 

5.   Brian Stoffregen, “Matthew 15.(10-20) 21-28 Proper 15 - Year a,” Matthew 15.(10-20) 21-28, Crossmarks Christian Resources. Accessed August 18, 2023, http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt15x10.htm.

6.    St. Matthew 15:26. (PHILLIPS) [PHILLIPS=J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English [London, ENG: HarperCollins, 2000]]

7. St. Matthew 15:27. (PHILLIPS)

8. Shannon Kershner, “Fully Human and Fully God.” Sermon preached at The Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago. August 20, 2017.

9. St. Matthew 15:28. (NRSV)