R.W. Glenn said:
Something happened the other day that really concerned me. Someone criticized my choice of friends. And that someone was a professing Christian who questioned why I would be friends with a woman who has incorporated crude language into her Twitter handle.
I couldn't help but think of the accusations of the Pharisees that Jesus sums up in Luke 7:34: "The Son of Man has come eating and drinking; and you say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man, and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners!’" Far be it from me to make myself analogous to Jesus! Even the thought of it is preposterous. I am the "sinner" that Jesus is friends with. But this doesn't mean the analogy doesn't obtain for the criticism I received.
I wonder how many of us Christians - people serious about the gospel and the Bible and living a life of love - I wonder how many of us have been accused of being a glutton, a drunkard, and a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners?! I think that we're more often accused of being self-righteous, smug, superior, sticklers for the letter of the law than we ever are of being a friend of sinners. What's more, I wonder how many of us spend enough time with people even to develop genuine friendships with those who aren't yet Christians.
I am so glad that Jesus is the friend of sinners. You should be, too. Glad that Jesus is the friend of sinners. Glad that Jesus could be accused of gluttony and drunkenness for spending so much time with those sinners…because if Jesus were only the friend of people like him, we'd all be on our way to hell. And may your gladness in Jesus' friendship with sinners cause you to be the genuine friend of the sinners all around you.
