Relative Hospitality

Relative Hospitality
(a brief Lectionary reflection at Advent by Steve Orr)

When I was young, vacations usually went something like this. We kids would be awakened sometime in the night or very early morning (all I can recall is that it was dark and I was sleepy). Our parents would herd us into (or perhaps carry us to) the back of the station wagon where we would find a pallet of blankets nestled in among the luggage. Once we hit those blankets, that's the last we knew until well past sunup.

Depending on how our family was doing with money at the time, and just as often on my dad's mood, we might or might not stop to eat at a roadside diner. It was quite common for them to have packed several bologna sandwiches, potato salad, and Jello into Tupperware containers (lids carefully placed and burped to ensure freshness) so we would not have to stop for meals.

We might be headed to Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, or Michigan; we might stop to see things along the way or Dad might be so focused we would have to beg him to make bathroom stops; but one thing was certain: there was always a relative at the other end of our journey.

We stayed with family. That was our way. There might be a guest room for the adults; but even if not, there were always places for us to stay (maybe a foldout couch or a trundle bed, maybe in a den or basement-cum-family room), even if only on the ever-handy pallet of blankets on the floor. There was always room for visitors. I was a married man before I took a family vacation that did not involve staying with relatives at some point in the vacation.

For most of us, it is still the same, today. We call it hospitality, but with family it is almost a given. Family tends to take care of family. When they're in town, they stay with us.

So, with the foregoing in mind, I have to wonder: why were Joseph and Mary looking for an inn? Why weren't they staying with family? We have this mental picture of the two of them: Mary astride a donkey, Joseph holding the rope, both looking forlorn as the Innkeeper informs them there is no room (perhaps due to the influx of people in town to register for the Emperor's census).

That picture is unlikely.

First, Bethlehem is only five miles outside Jerusalem. It's a long walk, but it is unlikely there was a need in Bethlehem for what we think of as an "inn." While there were open-air enclosures along the major trade routes where travelers could stop for the night, don't think "Inn of the Prancing Pony"; more like "biker bar." Not the kind of place a respectable Jewish man would take his pregnant fiancé for the night.

No, the word we usually translate as "inn" is better translated as "guest room," something every Jewish home had (even the poorest of one-room homes had a partitioned area where guests could bed down for the night).

The other matter is the fact that scripture says, "While they were there, the time came for her baby to be born." It's not that they showed up in Bethlehem only to be shuttled to a nearby barn just in time for Jesus to be born. They were already in town, probably staying with some of Joseph's relatives, but they were not welcome into one of the family guest rooms (unmarried? pregnant? perceived to be adulterous? ... you fill in the reason).

But someone finally decides that even though the couple has, apparently, broken some pretty serious Jewish laws, such a pregnant girl can't be forced to stay out in the open. So, taking pity, they put the couple in the cave with the animals. It's protected from the weather, and, perhaps just as importantly, from the prying eyes of the neighbors.

It's not a pretty story, but it is much more consistent with having the unsavory shepherds (those low men) show up to be the human heralds of the Messiah. Low key, low station, low people. A fitting birth scenario for the kind of king who would someday ride into the capital city on the back of a donkey rather than a warhorse and then usher in a new kingdom by ignobly dying on a cross.

#####################################

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 18, 2011)
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Luke 1:46b-55 or Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26
Romans 16:25-27
Luke 1:26-38