Wilmot First Presbyterian Church

Scripture: Luke 2:7

Innkeeper

Have you ever seen a Nativity scene with an innkeeper? I know the company Fontanini makes one for their Nativity, he even has a name; Thaddeus.

Hospitality is a big business.  Hotels in bigger cities are expensive, but motels and hotels in smaller communities are not inexpensive either.  For good reason, the number of options in smaller communities is quite limited, and when there is an event that brings large numbers of travelers to town those rooms are at a premium.  Bethlehem was a small town and while not far from Bethlehem by today’s standards (less than 10 miles), it was a distance you didn’t want to commute on foot and so the census rush would have been an opportunity for hospitality vendors in Bethlehem.   Hospitality as a cultural responsibility was taken very seriously in ancient Israel and the entire Levant (or Middle East as we would say today.) Travelers were to be sheltered and cared for, but proprietors of small town businesses also need to take advantage of opportunity when it presents itself.  The Roman census smelled like honest cash business if you were an innkeeper.

One would be under a false impression, however, if you picture the inn as a facility with actual rooms, and doors, and beds… (and bedspreads you don’t want to touch – well, maybe some things haven’t changed).  Historians tell us the “inn” was much more like a small campground with a courtyard surrounded by four big wall to keep out robbers.  If you were rich there was a covered structure on the second floor to sleep on above the chaos though not the smells.  The accommodation for everyone else was a common area in the courtyard with the animals nearby in their pens.  Picture sleeping in a roofless barn with 30 strangers… “Rest well!”

“No vacancy” didn’t mean every room was booked, it meant every single spot you could rest upon was taken up by packs, or animals or other weary travelers.  One of the lasting impressions of our trip to Spain to walk the Camino De Santiago is expressed in my wife’s quip, “everyone snores in the same language”.  The “inn” for Mary and Joseph would be a loud, smelly, cramped scene but the din of the inn also meant relative safety compared with the open outdoors after dark.

For many years I assumed the worst about this innkeeper.  Perhaps others have as well?  I have yet to see a Nativity Scene with the innkeeper, but even the cows and sheep make the scene.  On the surface it looks like when a man and his very pregnant wife (“great with child” per the KJV) arrive at his door, they are initially turned away until he has the brainstorm to charge for the privilege of sleeping in a cave where he keeps his own animals.  Upon further review (as they say in the NFL broadcasts) I have come to see things in a different light however, and I believe I have falsely presumed the worst regarding this innkeeper’s hospitality.  He was, after all, under no obligation to offer housing at all, but the cave with his animals and their manger was probably in actuality the most private and spacious thing he could offer.

The innkeeper wasn’t aware of it, but God Almighty was pursuing him, literally knocking on his door.  And what God Almighty needed was not a palace, nor the innkeeper’s bed, nor any spic and span living space.  God needed only what the innkeeper was able to offer at that time.  His part in the Christmas story is that he offered what he could.  Like the shepherds and their tale, like the Magi and their worship and wealth, the innkeeper makes his offering too.  Amid all the other events and characters of the Christmas story, this is really the point of the innkeeper’s tale: God does not ask of us what we can not provide, but only what we can.  Sometimes we may be tempted to think we have little or nothing to offer, but God sees differently and graciously receives what we can offer.

Prayer: Gracious God, You deserve so much more than we can bring, but You are so willing to accept what we can offer.  Thank you for seeing more in us than we see in ourselves, receive the offering of what we have.  AMEN

Activity:  Look at one of your Nativity Scenes and see if you can find an innkeeper figure to consider adding.  He belongs there too.