Jesus gives instructions for ministering to those persisting in error. Here’s the CliffsNotes version: If all else fails, “treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.”

In other words? Don’t give up. Tell him the truth. Wash, rinse and repeat.

Technically speaking, I’m a Gentile. I’ve done those mail-in DNA tests, and none of my ancestors were Jewish. So whoever told my family about the God of Abraham, it wasn’t Moses, and it probably wasn’t Jesus himself, unless he spent some time in northwestern Europe that the Gospels fail to mention.

Do you know what it is like to be thrilled by the power of Christian faith one moment and then utterly fail in it the next? I do. That is Peter in today's Gospel. After last week's bold confession, he now hears Jesus speak of suffering and death, and something in him recoils. He takes Jesus aside and tries to correct him. Jesus responds with the shocking rebuke, "Get behind me, Satan."

The first time I stood inside St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, its majesty overwhelmed me. The sheer beauty of Michelangelo's dome seemed to lift my soul right out of my body. Later, I joined the Scavi tour that winds below the basilica, down into the ancient pagan cemetery where Peter was buried. There, in the dim light and narrow passageways, I found myself looking at the bones of a murdered Jewish fisherman, his feet cut off so his crucified body could be taken down more easily.

Does God ignore or act a bit rough with you? Jesus crosses the border into the pagan region of Tyre and Sidon, the territory long outside the covenant. There, a Canaanite woman calls out, "Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David." At first, he is silent. Then he rebuffs her. "It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs." But the Church Fathers saw this not as an insult but as an initiation. Christ draws out of her heart a deeper faith.

As a young, newly ordained priest, I admired a senior priest who was gifted, beloved, and had changed countless lives. But soon I learned that he had fallen in catastrophic and destructive ways. The painful juxtaposition of good and evil was complex to process. How could someone so seemingly good also be so broken and deceptive? It forced me to confront a sobering truth: leadership in the Church is no guarantee against weakness or sin.

In his song, "Lose Yourself," the artist Eminem raps, "the mood all changed."

We all know that moment when the mood changes, when life turns from lighthearted to deadly serious. That happens in today's Gospel. Jesus has just heard that John the Baptist, his cousin, forerunner, and friend, has been murdered. As Matthew tells us, "When Jesus heard of it, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself." Until now, he had been teaching in parables and healing quietly. But John's death signals a new phase. The shadow of the Cross begins to fall. Evil shows its teeth.