Friend of Tax Collectors and Sinners

The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'

Luke 7:34*

We have a very small home church. On a very good Sunday it can push 25 in attendance but sometimes it isn't even half of that. We do, however, have a lot of outreach. We had printed up 10,000 gospel tracts with our name and address on them and went to places the un-churched go. One man got a tract handed to him in a fast food restaurant and ended up visiting us. It wasn't at all what he expected, so after the service he tried to tactfully say why he didn't expect to come back. “No offense,” he said, “but you people definitely give the impression that you’re a lot bigger than you really are.”

The comment was his way of saying that we were too small to meet his needs. Although not exactly an insult, it was meant to be a reality check for us, showing us that we missed the mark. No offense was taken because we considered it a great compliment. We were doing things that even big established churches weren't doing.

The enemies of Christ really thought they put Him down by showing to the world who His friends were – the low class and the deadbeats. Wow! How neat is that! The King of kings can even be my friend!

The night Judas had betrayed the Master, Christ said to His traitorous disciple, “Friend, why have you come?” (Matthew 26:50). Judas had de-friended his Lord but Jesus remained the friend of sinners.

                   His is love, ‘tis love unbounded,
                             Without measure, without end;
                             Human thought is here confounded,
                             'Tis too vast to comprehend!
                             Praise the Savior! Praise the Savior!
                             Magnify the sinner's Friend!

                                                Thomas Kelly 1769-1854

*See also Matthew 11:19