notorious

Mark 2

13 Then Jesus went out to the lake shore again and taught the crowds that were coming to him. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him.

15 Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other notorious sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) 16 But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?”

17 When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

So, Jesus was the sort of person that "notorious" sinners chose to be around?

Notorious sinners back then would have be socially ostracized as well as mocked & bullied by more "holy" Jews.

But these notorious sinners were willing to put up with ill treatment to be around Jesus.

Hmmmmmmm...

Who are the "notorious" sinners today for us prissy & precious white evangelicals?

Is there anything about the quality of our life as a follower of Jesus that in any way causes them to want to hang around us?

And where would any of us be if the people who influenced each of us to follow Jesus had projected an unwillingness to hang with us when we were "notorious"?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...