The Good Samaritan...and the Inn Keeper
Luke 10:25-37
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
25 An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus.[a] “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27 He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
29 But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
One of the readings for this week’s lectionary is Luke 10:25-37, commonly called The Parable of the Good Samaritan. I have read this parable a thousand times and have heard countless of sermons on it. But, recently, as I was reading this passage, something new caught my eye. So much of the attention of the parable is spent on those who walked away from the wounded man, or on the Samaritan. But what about the innkeeper?
Can you imagine, if you were the manager of a hotel, and someone comes in with a severely wounded person, cares for them, and then stops by the front desk and says, by the way, “can you take care of this person? Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a few days and repay you for whatever money spent.” The innkeeper is often ignored in this story and treated as irrelevant by many preachers. But the reality is that the innkeeper matters. The innkeeper is essentially given a responsibility they didn’t ask for.
The story, of course, doesn’t mention whether or not the innkeeper accepted. I think it’s implied they did. But imagine, not only have you been handed an extra responsibility you didn’t ask for, but you don’t even get any of the credit. Perhaps this was expected of innkeepers back then. The notion of hospitality was probably very important to many of Jesus’s listeners.
So many of us like to pretend that we are the good Samaritan. That if we see someone hurting that we will swoop in and save the day. Those of us who are a bit more honest with ourselves, acknowledge that many times we are the priest and the Levite. We walk away when we see suffering. But I want to posit, that oftentimes, we are also the innkeeper.
We don’t always have the opportunity to casually walk away from suffering, sometimes those who are hurting are thrust into our laps and we aren’t asked if we are to care for them. We are just told, to do it. I’m sure the innkeeper, could have protested and said no. But unlike the priest and the Levite, whose uncompassionate response wasn’t noted by anyone, the innkeeper’s refusal would have been more public. And who knows what the consequences would have been? Especially if hospitality was an expected social norm to be upheld.
In a similar way, I’m sure there have been times when all of us have been told we needed to take action and care for those hurting. In fact, as the US slips more and more into a theocratic state, all of us are going to be placed in the innkeeper's position. We won’t have the opportunity to quietly pretend that we didn’t notice oppression and violence. We aren’t going to be able to quietly slip away like the priest and Levite. We are going to be told: this is what you need to do. Of course, we can still say no. But that no will have very public consequences.
There is pain and suffering all around us. It’s great if we can act like the good Samaritan. But if not, know that we will all be the innkeeper. And we will be publicly called to account for how we react to the pain and suffering around us. We aren’t necessarily going to get the praise and accolades that as readers we often give the good Samaritan. But the innkeepers implied “yes” was just as important as the Samaritan’s initial actions of compassion and care.