The band Casting Crowns has a great song called Jesus, Friend of Sinners.  A part of it goes like this:
 

Jesus friend of sinners the one who's writing in the sand
Make the righteous turn away and the stones fall from their hands
Help us to remember we are all the least of thieves
Let the memory of Your mercy bring your people to their knees

Nobody knows what we're for only what we're against when we
judge the wounded
What if we put down our signs crossed over the lines and love like
You did

Oh Jesus friend of sinners
Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers
Let our hearts be led by mercy
Help us reach with open hearts and open doors
Oh Jesus friend of sinners break our hearts for what breaks yours

You love every lost cause; you reach for the outcast
For the leper and the lame; they're the reason that You came
Lord I was that lost cause and I was the outcast
But you died for sinners just like me a grateful leper at Your feet

Our scripture this week comes from Mark 2:13-17.  In this passage we read these words from Jesus: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Jesus says these words in response to the Pharisees, the righteous, who were reacting to Jesus eating with a group of tax collectors and sinners.  Imagine their surprise when they hear Jesus say that He, the Son of God, did not come for them, for the righteous, for those who have it all together, but instead he came for the sinner, the lost cause, the outcast. 

Today we sing songs that include the words “Jesus friend of Sinner” with gratefulness and thanksgiving.  But when Jesus was called “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” in Matthew 11:19 it wasn’t intended as a positive comment.  The righteous were upset that Jesus befriended sinners. These actions of Jesus proved, to them, that Jesus was not ‘holy enough’ to be the Son of God.  They could not understand why he would call an evil despicable man like Levi, the tax collector, to follow him.  In their minds Jesus should be grateful to them and spend his time with them, the righteous, because they upheld the law. 

But that is not what Jesus was about.  God looked at this world and saw brokenness, hatred, and sin so God sent His Son into that dirty, sin-filled world to save all sinners.  In God’s eyes, no one is beyond his redemption.  Not even the Pharisees, all they have to do is open their eyes and see that their good works are not what God requires of them.  God desires to bring the righteous into His redeeming grace; all they have to do is open their eyes to see that they too are sinners. 

In His mercy, Jesus became a friend of sinners, He saw a world that was sick, that needed His healing.  May we live each day in hope knowing that Jesus died, and lives for us, sinners—in need of His healing.