Incarnational Question

Yes I know its Cat Tuesday but I decided to go with a little meat today since my last (and somewhat controversial) Cat Tuesday seems to have caused this blog to have grinded to a halt.

I’m getting tired of people who insist that Jesus only hung out with the worst of society. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not implying that we should be proactive and intentional about engaging in personal evangelism with the world around us. The other day on the radio Erika heard guy say something like, “Well you know Jesus hung out in the bars.” Do I know that? I think that this is a fairly common assumption held to by the likes of none other than Bono (quoted, I think, in The Shaping of Things to Come):

“If Jesus were on earth you’d find him in a gay bar in San Francisco. He’d be working with people suffering from AIDS. These people are the new lepers. If you want to find out where Jesus would be hanging out it’ll always be with the lepers.”

I know I’ve got to be careful here and I don’t mean to step on any toes but how do we know this to be true? We’ve been studying Mark this year in big church and in our Wednesday night Bible Studies. Just thinking back over my time in Mark this year I see Jesus spending a lot of time teaching in synagogues, traveling around the edge of the sea and trying to spend quality alone time with the disciples even while being constantly interrupted by (and feeling compassion for) the masses. I’m not going to suggest that Jesus never hung out with sinners. Apart from the obvious fact that everyone Jesus ever hung out with was a sinner we do find Him having dinner at Matthew’s house. But I don’t find anything here to suggest that if someone makes one of these general statements about how Jesus spent His time that I necessarily have to nod sagely.

Am I off base here? Any thoughts?