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Who do you say that I am? This may be where the evangelicals are on the right track. We as Anglicans never seem to ask that question. We tend to hide behind the concept of faith as a private and personal decision which is no one else’s business. Yet, at some point the question needs to be asked and that is what Jesus is doing.

I can understand Jesus and why he answers the way he does. It is clearer in the Mark version of the passage, Mark 7:24-30. Jesus enters a house there and did not want anyone to know he was there. He was trying to get away and take some time off from the lost children of Israel.

One way of looking at the Gospel today is: walking on water and the storms of life. Is this Peter’s impulsiveness, rushing ahead without fully thinking about this? Have each of us done this at some point in our lives…

Herbert O’Driscoll reminds us of the similarities between the reading in Genesis and in Matthew today. That both Jacob and Jesus head off to be alone to pray. Jacob goes off alone to prepare himself for an unavoidable encounter with his brother, Esau, from whom he stole his birthright. Jesus takes time alone to mourn after hearing of John the Baptist’s death.

Jesus compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a treasure in the field and a pearl. To get the treasure and the pearl means to sell everything first to buy the treasure and the pearl.

The Wheat represents the Children of the Kingdom and the Weeds are the Children of the evil one. Is it always so simple? Is it always so black and white? Just like last week, and the parable of the sower, are we always on the good ground or are we sometimes on the path, rocky ground or have thorns around us?

Last week I told the story: There was a young priest who concluded his sermon by telling a story and sitting down. And there was a comment that maybe there was more to this story. And I thought after that maybe some explanation is needed…

Two stories come to mind when I think of those who refuse to listen to John the Baptist and Jesus …… There was a young priest who concluded his sermon by telling a story and sitting down. The organist and choir director came up to him a while later and said that a choir member complained that if he had known the priest was not going to explain the story, he would have listened closer the first time.

When Jesus talks about giving a cup of water to one of the little ones it is obviously about hospitality and giving to those who are weak and in need, but I think it is more than that. In 1Corinthians 12:12-26 Paul talks about us all being part of the same body.