who we hangin' with?

Luke 14

1Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach.

2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people...

...even eating with them!

Considering how wildly sinful the general population of people were back when Luke these verses,

I just wonder what a person had to be & do to be a “notorious sinner”?

I find it interesting that the social & religious outcasts of the time came on their own volition to see Jesus & hear Him teach.

And not only did they come to hear Him teach, they would invite Him to their homes (I assume) or to the local eatery or tavern to eat a meal.

This was in a day & time when “holy people” didn't eat with “sinners” - they believed it “defiled” them.

The question for me when reading these verses is how many of us hang out with non-believers?

Or are we too worried about being thinking we've “become one of them”?

Iow, are we more worried about what our Christian friends & authenticators think about us rather than trying to reach out to people in need of a connection with Jesus?

Of course, we also need to think about the fact that they were drawn to Jesus & were willing to put up with the negative behavior of the people around Him when they showed up.

Do people want to be around us?

Do they find a quality of love & connection coming from us that is so unique that they want to be around it more & check it out?

Nowadays it seems that we who follow Jesus are more defined by how & about what we judge people.

We are judging them, not loving them.

Hmm... I don't think Jesus ever said that people we know we belong to Him because we judged people & made value judgements about what they could or could not do, & whether that they were all going slam to hell.

I believe He said they would know we were His followers by the quality of our love for one another.

It's all about love, folks – the quality of our love for others.