Friend of sinners

"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'"  Luke 7:34



"Friend of sinners."  What a title.  It wasn't one Jesus asked for or sought, but because of the way he interacted with people the religious leaders gave him this label.  It was a slam, derogatory, a put down.  

I think Jesus smiled when he heard it.  It's the very reason he came...to be friend to sinners.  To touch the untouchable.  To love the unloved.  He did that, he does it still.  

Friend of sinners....just the thought of this name spoken in derision makes me wish I could have seen Jesus in action, encountering the dirty, the lost, the disenfranchised, the "sinners" as they were called.  He loved them!  He hung out with them and they enjoyed his company.  The "sinners" actually liked hanging out with Jesus!  

It means he didn't condemn them.  He didn't look down on them.  He was God in flesh and he loved the "sinners" of his world.   It gives me great comfort because I'm one of them.  I'm one of the broken, the hurting, the struggling ones that religious people of Jesus day would have called "sinner".  

To think that Jesus not only loves me but that he actually likes "hanging out with me", being my friend and companion is just more than I can absorb.  

"Friend of sinners" was meant to be a slam, but I'm glad the religious leaders understood what Jesus was about, what he cared about.  I'm glad they could see that in his life.  It gives me great hope as I approach him knowing that if he was their friend he will be mine as well.

The question that then comes to me is this, Am I a friend to what the world around me would call "sinner"?  Although the term sinner is almost obsolete in our culture the idea is still there.  Would those who consider themselves broken, rejected and lost think of me as a friend?  Would they be comfortable around me?  Would they see the love of Christ in me?

I pray that as Jesus was ridiculed for his friendship with "sinners" I might be seen the same way...loving the rejected, spending time with the broken, listening to the "sinners" of our world.  What a high praise it would be to be called a "friend of sinners".