The Innkeeper

             In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while^[a] Quirinius was governor of Syria.)  And everyone went to their own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. (Luke 2:1-7)

Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward. (Mark 9:41)

Someone once objected to this passage from Luke, saying that the Romans didn’t make people go to ancestral villages to be counted in a census. He was probably correct, the Romans didn’t do a census this way, but the Jews did. Joseph and Mary left Nazareth and went to Bethlehem. Isn’t it amazing and amusing how God orchestrates the fulfillment of prophecy. The Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem. And it happened for reasons no one would have predicted.

Another interesting point for me is the level of historicity involved. This event is set in the time of Caesar Augustus and Quirinius. It is also located in Nazareth and Bethlehem. These are the sorts of “boring” details one omits in mere mythology: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”

The next bone of contention in this passage is the nasty “innkeeper” who wouldn’t provide a guestroom to the couple. The sort of inns we think of either didn’t exist or would not have been within Joseph and Mary’s financial means. The place they stayed was probably with relatives, and the guest room would have been closer to a barracks than to an en-suite hotel room. Had they stayed in the guestroom, Mary would have had to go through labor and give birth with anyone and everyone looking on or listening in. Any privacy they would have had would have been makeshift at best.

The cave/stable kept them out of the weather and out of the public eye. The innkeeper did what he could with what he had, where he was, then. And he’s suffered the judgment of countless people who have looked down their noses because he and his home didn’t measure up to their standards. He more deserves a place in our nativity scenes than the wisemen, who didn’t show up for more than a year.

In the verse in Mark above, Jesus made it clear that He doesn’t require a major production to consider us worthy of reward. And this leads me to a brief rabbit trail. Someone posted something about the greatest compliment one could give a woman had to do with her ability to intimidate weak men. People have been objecting to my “misogynistic” suggestion that a greater compliment would speak of her giving good hugs, saying kind and inspiring things, giving good gifts, spending time with others, or otherwise helping them. Those are broad and simple examples from The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Why didn’t I say anything about her intelligence, or her world-class accomplishments? I’ve pointed out that demanding that women be the elite in order to consider them worthy of a compliment excludes 99% of the women in the world. Doing what you can with what you have, where you are, now, should be enough for any of us…

How quickly we turn into the innkeeper as depicted in popular culture, “No room for you!” To put it in a manner a little more modern, “No soup for you!”  If you aren’t in competition for the top spots in our esteem, you get nothing. See the connection? We are the innkeeper. We can either be like the one that welcomed Joseph and Mary and did what he could, or we can be like  the stereotype.