scum

Luke 5

27 Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector's booth.

"Follow me and be my disciple," Jesus said to him.

28 So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.

  29 Later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor.

Many of Levi's fellow tax collectors and other guests also ate with them.

30 But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus' disciples,

"Why do you eat and drink with such scum?"

  31 Jesus answered them,

"Healthy people don't need a doctor—sick people do.

32 I have come to call not those who think they are righteous,

but those who know they are sinners and need to repent."

As I've said before in these blogs, there's 2 questions here for us...

Do we want to be around people described as notorious sinners in other accounts of this banquet at Levi's house? Or are we too afraid of what our uber-holy friends might think?

Do people the world looks upon as “scum” want to be around us? Is there a quality of the love we show them so strong & guileless that they feel comfortable being around us.

1 more question: where would any of us be if the people who influenced us to follow Jesus had decided they didn't want to hang out with scum like us?

Think about it...