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 notorious sinners 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.”
********
Jesus clearly WANTED to be with people his culture & society considered awful & despicable.
And there was obviously something about Jesus that made these "notorious sinners" WANTED to be with Him.
Which begs the question - do we, as followers of Jesus & supposedly filled with His love, WANT to hang out with the "notorious sinners" of our time?
And is there truly so much of Jesus' love & personality resident in our souls that the "scum" of this earth WANT to hang with us?