Today’s story is challenging and difficult to understand

It turns everything we think we know about Jesus on its head
- it involves a foreigner in a different region of the map
• the setting for the life of Jesus is mostly in Israel
◦ he passes through Samaria, and briefly sets foot in Gadara
◦ but in this story he goes north – the one and only time
• it is most likely that Jesus wanted to get away from the crowds
◦ to be someplace where he and his crew could rest
He “went away from there and withdrew”
In Mark's telling of this story, we read, “And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know” (7:24 )
◦ the last think Jesus needed during this break was one of the locals coming to him with a consuming need
- And behold – ta da! – the "behold" indicates a shift in the point of view