Jesus spent a lot of his time hanging around undesirable folks, not with "good" people like us. I mean here in today's gospel lesson we have the story of his calling Matthew, the tax collector (Matthew 9:9). Of course, most of us have our hang-ups with taxes. But in the eastern part of the Roman Empire in Jesus' day tax collectors were notorious for overcharging the taxed, often with harassment, and keeping the difference between what was actually owed and what was collected, for themselves. In short, they were regarded by many who lived in the Roman Empire as robbers, as crooks. Another problem was that such tax collectors violated Jewish tradition, because not only did they defile themselves in dealing with Gentiles, but also because they were actually employed by Gentiles like the Roman…