Have you watched The Odyssey yet? What did you think? We can talk about that later, but now I’d like to focus on Argos, Odysseus’s dog.

Argos is one of the heroes of the story because of his great and touching loyalty. The Odyssey is one of the oldest stories on record from the cultures that interacted with the communities we find in the Bible. It was written down almost 3,000 years ago, and that tells us that dogs have been a part of the human story for a long, long time.

I am guessing that you each person here has thoughts and feelings about dogs. You might love them all, like I do. You might be afraid of them. You might be allergic to them. You might find them really annoying. But few people tend to be totally neutral about these creatures who have interacted in different ways with humans for thousands of years.

In today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel, we hear Jesus introduce dogs into a conversation in a way that feels very uncomfortable for those of us who love Jesus.