Summer Sundays are laid back at Holy Cross and so we engaged in a dialogue sermon. The Gospel reading from (Matthew 14:21-28) about Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman begged the question inspired by Marcus Borg, “Why did the author of the Gospel According to Matthew write this story the way he did and what can we learn from it?” 

Our readings also included:

Hebrew Scriptures:  Isaiah 56:1, 6-8

Contemporary Reading: from Dorothee Soelle  Quoted from Matthew Fox’s book “Christian Mystics”, New World Library, 2011

“If Jesus of Nazareth was the poor man from Galilee who was tortured to death, then Christ is that which cannot be destroyed, which came into the world with him and lives through us in him. When I say Christ, I always think also of Francis of Assisi and Hildegard of Bingen and Martin Luther King, Jr. and of Ita Ford, the American nun who was murdered in El Salvador – as well as all resistance fighters who are sitting in prison today. Christ is a name which for me expresses solidarity, hence suffering with, struggling with. Christ is the mysterious power which was in Jesus and which continues on and sometimes makes us into “fools in Christ,” who without hope of success and without any objective, share life with others.”

Listen to the dialogue sermon here: