And as he sat at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were sitting with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." Mark 2:15–17 (RSV)
Rudyard Kipling's poem 'If' begins with: If you can keep your head while others are losing theirs and blaming it on you...' The poem goes on to extol the virtues listed after every 'if' in the poem.
Someone modified the line to read: 'If you can keep your head while others are losing theirs, perhaps you don't fully understand the situation.'
Kipling's poem was about the courage of an individual's convictions. The waggish paraphrase pokes at those who think they know but don't.
The scribes of the Pharisees thought they understood who was righteous before God and who was not. They 'knew' with whom one could break bread and who you could not. Jesus breaking bread with tax collectors and sinners, in their minds, was not the action of a righteous person.
The scribes could see the tax collectors and sinners as unrighteous. What they either could not or would not see, that they were little better. Jesus knew what St. Paul would later affirm in Romans, 'there is no one righteous, no not one.'
Jesus comes to give the healing only He could bring. He came for those who were sick unto death with sin. The tax collectors and sinners did not deceive themselves. They were sick with sin and needed Jesus.
The scribes saw them rightly as sinners; only they could not see themselves as any different. They did not understand their situation. They were in as much if the not greater danger of being lost to God. Jesus longed for them to see this truth about themselves as well.