Do you have a box on your head?

Matthew 9:10-13Later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew's house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters came and joined them.

When the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus' followers. "What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and riffraff?

Jesus, overhearing, shot back, "Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: 'I'm after mercy, not religion.' I'm here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders."

The Pharisees thought they knew how Jesus should behave; who Jesus should be seen with or who He should eat with. And it just dawned on me, they thought they had a copyright on God and knew how Jesus and His followers should behave and who they should be seen with.Nope, Jesus didn't like hanging out with the Pharisees. Pharisees are boring. Can you imagine having to eat with them? With their glassy, self-righteous stares. Sitting there, looking down their noses... with those little boxes* on their heads ( I did a Google search for 'Pharisees little boxes they wore on their heads' and I found the following:

"This word from the Greek signifies a preservative. These phylacteries were little boxes, or rolls of parchments, wherein were written certain words of the law. These boxes or rolls, containing their four leaves of parchment on which their texts were written, they wore upon their foreheads, and upon their wrist of their left arm...").

Who would want to spend time with these people? Much less, eternity. Jesus knew who to come for... the lost, the broken, the interesting.

Jesus would much rather hang around an authentic sinner than a fake saint, any day.