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!

I've always found these two verses intriguing.

Tax collectors who were Jews were considered "collaborators" with the Romans.

 They are viewed as worse than the scum of the earth. 

Many of them were very wealthy, 

overcharging their fellow Jews with higher than necessary taxes. 

They were often reviled, 

attacked, 

& sometimes killed by their fellow Jews. 

They were social pariahs 

& outcasts, 

& were considered "unclean" 

& would "defile" anyone who associated with them.

I've always wondered what was considered a "notorious" sinner back then. 

I'm sure we all could come up with a healthy list of possibilities.

But notorious sinners would suffer the same treatment by their fellow Jews as was rendered on tax collectors.

They were reviled, ostracized, attacked, outcast, unclean, & defiling.

NO ONE would want to have anything to do with them.

And anyone who did would be considered as despicable as the notorious sinners.

I find it curious that these social pariahs WANTED to be around Jesus.

They obviously felt welcome by Him.

And evidently whatever He said or did was of interest to them.

I'm sure Jesus' disciples, being the knuckleheads they were, demonstrated the same reluctance & revulsion toward notorious sinners as other Jews did. 

But obviously Jesus managed to make them keep a lid on that.

And I've always found it interesting that Jesus must have clearly made it a point to make these notorious sinners feel welcome.

It's not surprising, given the fact that Jesus is God.

It's just interesting that Jesus exhibited such a quality of love that caused these notorious sinner feel draw to be around Him.

Of course, you know the obvious life lesson I'm gonna draw...

If we claim to be followers of Jesus, is there a similar quality of our love of other people that would include & encompass connecting with "notorious sinners" of our day & time?

I can't imagine what would be considered a "notorious sinner" these days!

We don't talk about sin much anymore.

Sin is not  an "in".

We've managed to explain away a lot of what was considered notorious back then.

And we have come to the point where so much of life is viewed as having "no absolutes", which leaves us with a strong "anything goes" mind set.

Never the less...

We all know there's plenty of notorious sinners still around, no matter our thinking or societal norms.

Are you & I so in tune with Jesus & His loving ways that: 

(1.) we WANT to be around "notorious sinners", 

(2) we don't care one little bit what our prissy, self-righteous friends & influencers think about our associating with such people, 

& (3.) that there is SUCH a quality of Jesus' love inside us that notorious sinner WANT to be around us.

Something to think about...