Jesus went to Tyre. Up on the Mediterranean coast. Far from the opposition in Jerusalem.

When you go to places your opponents won’t go, sometimes you can find safety.

But he couldn’t find anonymity. There was always the reputation of who he was. Stories about a wise teacher who healed people spread pretty quickly.

But beyond the reputation, Jesus was who he was.  I’m guessing that there was a presence. He may not have been anything particular to look at. Isaiah writes that “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. (Isaiah 53:2)” But I’m guessing that wen he talked, when he listened, when he looked, you knew that you were been listened to or looked at. 

When he got to Tyre, he tried to be anonymous, but it didn’t work. 

A woman came. Greek speaking, Gentile, possible Canaanite. As in, from the people who survived the occupation of the land by the Israelites. She has a daughter. The daughter is possessed by an evil spirit. 

Not anyone that would feel free to start a conversation with a Jewish rabbi.

But there was something about Jesus that made her willing to start a conversation with him. And pursue a conversation with him. And respond with thoughtful insight when he says that she shouldn’t be eligible for help. 

In our sometimes worry about being good enough to pray, there may be value in just starting and persisting in a conversation that doesn’t worry about what he’ll think of us. Because Jesus may be as willing to talk back and forth with us as he was with her.

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