notorious

 Luke 15 

1 Tax 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!

3 So Jesus told them this story: 4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6 When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

Back in this time period tax collectors & "notorious" sinners were treated pretty badly by most Jewish folks.

So these "sinners" knew they'd be treated badly by their fellow Jews if they showed up to see Jesus.

But they still showed up.

And they even asked him to eat with them!

That was a BIG taboo - because eating with someone was a pretty big social connection - & if you ate with really bad sinners you might be declared defiled, which would make you socially unacceptable, too.

But Jesus had something about Him that signaled He connected with these "notorious" sinners. They wanted to be around him.

Which begs the question: as followers of Jesus, trying to live as He lived, shouldn't we also be people who connect with the "notorious" sinners of our day to the point that they want to be around us?