Jesus ate with Tax Collecters Luke 5:27-32

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him,and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Jesus went to a tax collectors convention. And He ate with, in other words spent some quality time with some of the most despised people in Israel. It would be like eating with a bunch of politicians and then having your picture taken with them and posting the pictures to Facebook for lots of people to see.

On this President’s day you might not be able to call up a politician and go out to lunch with him or her, but you can pray for them. Take the day off from complaining about them or commenting on their failure to fix problems. Take them to God in prayer. It’s just the kind of thing Jesus would do.