12-19-13 The Innkeeper

4 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. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 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 2:4-7) 

Below is a soliloquy written by Rev. John Benson Sloan in the early 1960s on the Innkeeper and revised by Dr. j. Ben Sloan in 2003. Rev. Sloan was Dr. Sloan's father's second cousin and was the last Synod of South Carolina executive. 

Christmas Eve – “The Innkeeper” Dialogue by John Benson Sloan revised by J. Ben Sloan 2003

Johanna:  [with a disgusting look on her face] Look at this place!  What kind of an inn is this?  Where is the fire—I’m cold?! 

[Ben stands up]

Johanna: “Is there  no other inn in this place?  By the hair on my head, if the day were not so far spent, I would press on to Jerusalem even now.”

Ben [holding up a hand and bowing slightly]- “The inn is not so poor, O person of great mercies.  Many great and honorable people have rested here and strange things have happened here.  Had these walls had eyes that they could see and mouths that they could speak they could tell many tales that would hold people from their beds”

Johanna: “I believe it- tales of idleness and robbery.”

Ben: “Not so, my lord, not so; but tales of things which will make this old world a better place, because of things which happened in this inn.  And the end of the tale is not yet.”

Johanna: “And would you keep me here outside until you have told it all?  Come and take my horse and prepare me a meal.  Then while you wait upon me, you shall tell me the rest of this story.” [Johanna sits down]

It was in the days when the census was taken by Caesar Augustus.  The roads were crowded with people going to their own cities and the inn was full of folk.  Those were days when innkeepers grew rich as fast as grass grows after the former rains in the springtime of the year.  And that day there had come to the inn a great man of Rome—but  I forget his name—Marcus something or another, with his servants and his horses, his guards and his scribes and they filled the place.  The inn was no longer my own.  They called me here and called me there as though they had bought me for hte price of a pair of shoes in the market.  Had I had a score of arms and a dozen pairs of legs I could not have done a tithe of the things they commanded me to do.”

            And all the time, more and still more travelers were coming and asking that they might abide here for the night.  What could I do but send them on to the next inn, even though I knew that the inn there would be full as mine own inn was.  I could have filled my lap with the silver I turned from my door that night.  Yet, there was one who came whom I would not have turned away for all the silver of the world, and until my feet go down the valley of the shadow I shall sorrow, night and day, that he did not have the best room in the inn.  But I was a poor man and busy and how should I know?

            They were poor folk, a man who might have been a carpenter or a potter, a man of middle age.  So much I noticed and that he had his wife with him, sitting doubled upon a donkey.  I had no time to spend with them, for a dozen Roman voices called me hither and thither and I told them I had no room for them or for anyone else who might come.  But the man laid a strong hand upon my arm and drew me back and told me that hsi wife was ill and not able to travel further.  His plea made me angry, and I told him that many folk, who were ill and tired, would, that night have to sleep beneath the stars.  Can I make more rooms arise by striking my staff upon the ground?  I asked him.

            It is strange, I grow old, and old men forget, but all that was said and done that night is as clear before me as though it happened yesterday.

            I bade him come to the gateway, that he might see for himself.  There was no room for as much as a goat to lie down.  But something made me turn around and I looked into the face of the young woman on the donkey, and something about her made me remember my Rhoda who had died in childbirth years before.  And for her sake and for the sake of something written on the woman’s face, I bade them come to a little cave below the hill that we sometimes used as a stable.   It was a poor place, but it was better far than the cold ground with only the stars above for a roof.  If only I had known I would have given them the best room in the inn.  But they were poor folk and how was I to know?  [BEGIN “AWAY IN A MANGER”]

            I brought some candles and put them in a niche in the wall and brought a couple of bundles of straw on which she could lie down and because the night was so chilly, hung an old tent cloth before the mouth of the cave.  They were poor folk and I know not why I did what I did for them.  Darkness fell and no more travelers came, and at last even the Romans ceased their drinking and their gaming and fell asleep. And before the night was old, the man Joseph, came to tell me that her child was born.  I went out with him to see that all was well, bringing some water and rags.  And even as we went, the whole sky from one far corner to the other was filled with light; light that moved and shone like the waving of angels wings and there was the distant sound of music, such music as I had never yet heard.  Even then, as we watched the light fade out, we didn’t think it had anything to do with the baby who had been born in the stable cave.

[BEGIN WHILE SHEPHERDS WATCHED THEIR SHEEP BY NIGHT]

            All that had passed disturbed me so that I could not sleep, and soon a great knocking called me to the gate and I saw Caleb the shepherd and a few other shepherds standing there in the lantern light.  Before I could ask them what they needed, they asked me concerning the child and told a tale that the light we had seen in the sky was a multitude of angels, and the music we heard was their singing—telling them of a baby who would be the Savior- the long awaited messiah.  They also said the angels told them they would find the baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger.

            I took them to the stable and knelt even as they did and bowed my head before the baby who lay asleep in his mother’s arms. 

            They went elsewhere to live here in this town for awhile.  I am an old man, my eyes are dim, my days are few, I shall not live to see it, but you, traveler, whose days shall be many in the land, you shall see the day when the word shall be fulfilled and that child shall be the Savior of the world.

            And it may be, that men will come to this inn and kneel in the stable where I knelt for the sake of the child who was born there.  But if I had known—yet how was I to know? –I was a poor man and they were poor folk, and there were his honor Marcus something or another and the rest. 

            The hour grows late and you have journeyed far and I know you want to rest. 

Prayer: Lord, there is room in my heart for you.  Help me to be hospitable to the needy this Christmas.