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."



Do you hang out with "scum"?

Why, or why not?

Perhaps the bigger question would be does "scum" want to hang out with you?

Why, or why not?

Which is more important to you - what people who aren't connected to God feel & think when they are around you - or what your prissy & precious Christian friends think?

And where would you, or I, be if the people who influenced us to follow Jesus had decided to not hang around "scum" when we were "scum"?