Who hasn’t said or been told, “Don’t fall in with a bad crowd.” The concern is that the bad crowd will rub off on you, that by hanging out with people who do bad things, you’ll inevitably be tempted to do bad things yourself. Bad rubs off.

A lot of Christians believe that a very important function of Christianity is to establish purity codes, to get you pure and keep you pure. To that end, a lot of people think that a very important function of Christianity is to tell you not to associate with impure people. After all, bad rubs off.

And these folks have some pretty persuasive biblical passages on their side. We say Morning Prayer in the Parlor every Tuesday and Thursday morning, and as part of that, we read a good bit from the Psalms. Listen to what the first verse of the first Psalm has to say about this theme of keeping oneself separate from, unsullied by, unclean, wicked people: “Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful!” There are lots of passages in the Bible that encourage you not to get too close to bad people.

In Jesus’ time, that was certainly the expectation of a good Jew, and especially of a good Rabbi. They should, after all, set an example. Well, Jesus has had a very busy day; I mean a really busy day, so let’s see how he’s done.

But first, I’d like you to think about how much Americans love the Internal Revenue Service. Now, imagine that we had lost the Cold War, been conquered by the Soviet Union, and the IRS was run out of Moscow and imposed crippling taxes. Think about how happy we’d be to pay our taxes then. Now imagine that these taxes are collected in your neighborhood by an American who bought the tax franchise at an auction. The deal was, the tax collector had to give a set amount to the Soviets, but could keep anything he collected above that amount as a commission. So, of course, all the tax collectors collected way more than they had to send in, and all were very wealthy. Try to imagine how people would feel about those tax collectors.

Jesus encounters a man named Matthew. Bad crowd. He’s one of those tax collectors, only it’s not for the Soviets; it’s for the Romans. This man is hated with a white-hot passion. Members of his profession have been declared ritually unclean, and Jewish law forbids him from entering the Temple. They don’t want his bad to rub off on them. So what does Jesus do? Asks Matthew to follow him, and then has dinner at Matthew’s house to meet all his tax collector friends.

When the Pharisees find out about it, they are, of course, appalled. “Why does he do this?” they ask the disciples. Jesus says, “I go to the people who need me.” Then he quotes the prophet Hosea, “Learn what this means,” he says, “I desire mercy [the Hebrew is hesed — “mercy,” “loving kindness,” “steadfast love”]. I desire hesed, not sacrifice.” He’s saying, “If you don’t really love people, all your fancy worship doesn’t mean a thing.”

Jesus didn’t hang out with sinners to save them. He didn’t come with a patronizing tone saying that they needed to be saved and he would save them. He hung out with them because he loved them. That’s a big distinction. And they could tell the difference, and so he saved them. “By the way,” he said to the Pharisees, “I can’t work with people who don’t know they’re sinners.” Isn’t it interesting that Jesus couldn’t work with the “good” people who knew they were “good.” He headed for the sinners every time.

Well, that should have been enough for one day, but it’s not. This is one very busy day, and just then, a leader of the synagogue (now, keep in mind that the leaders of the synagogue are after Jesus’ hide), so just then, a potential enemy comes up and asks Jesus to touch his dying daughter and heal her. Ah, a chance to get back at these people, or at least to negotiate better terms. “I’ll heal her if you lay off me.” But no, without hesitation, without negotiation, Jesus gets up to go.

But on this very busy day, he’s interrupted — this time by someone who should not have even been near him, a woman with a flow of blood. Bleeding women are ritually unclean, and she’s been bleeding for twelve years. Twelve years of isolation. She’s not supposed to be around men, much less to touch one. But she broke the rules, snuck up on Jesus, and touched his cloak. Jesus felt it, had compassion, broke the rules, and healed her.

And then, on this very, very busy day, he finally got to the home of the leader of the synagogue. The girl was already dead, and when Jesus said she wasn’t, they laughed at him. He went into her room alone, took her hand, and she got up.

What an amazing day. And I thought I’d had some busy days lately! What an amazing, busy day, spent almost entirely with the “wrong” people, with “bad” people, flying in the face of the Scriptures, running the risk that their bad would wear off on him.

It’s an old debate in Christianity, this business of how separate we are to keep ourselves, how careful we are to be to uphold purity codes and not associate with the “wrong” people, with sinners. When you get to heaven, you might want to talk to Jesus about it. I doubt it will be a very fulfilling conversation, though. I imagine that Jesus will say something like this: “You know, I’d love to talk with you about that, I really would, but I just can’t right now. You see, I’m still really busy.”

And you know what? If you really know yourself, I mean really, the way God knows you, you’ll be glad Jesus is still really busy loving sinners.