First Monday weekend in Canton is an interesting experience. For those of you who have been, you know what I am talking about. There are acres and acres of booths both in pavilions and open air that are filled with people selling anything imaginable, and probably a few things beyond our imaginations.
People there sell everything from new and used furniture to pictures to sunglasses and cookie cutters to things for the kitchen and things for the lawn. There are other vendors that sell things that at least to me look like your average run of the mill junk. And, what is more, there are people there buying it.
In many ways everything in Canton revolves around First Monday weekend. Even though Canton?s population is considerably less than that of Crockett, the Walmart store there is the size of the one in Palestine, because of First Monday weekend. They are the smallest city anywhere in the country to have two permanent police stations, or at least so they claim. There is one on the First Monday grounds. Even the church is effected. First Methodist Canton and the smaller Methodist churches around the town are the only Methodist churches I have ever known of that have communion on the second Sunday of the month instead of the first, too many members are out working First Monday weekend.
Some months are better at First Monday than others. As long as it isn?t raining March, April, May, October, and November are the best months. It isn?t too hot or too cold. On those months people come out of the woodwork. You can forget driving past the grounds. Take the long way to get to Interstate 20, it will be faster. As you try to go the First Monday grounds or even to the bank or Walmart, there is hardly enough room to move.
And, you can forget trying to get a motel room. During those five busy months of the year there is not a motel room to be found anywhere in town. The price of a motel room literally doubles on those busiest weekends. Cindy?s dad once told us that one of his employees wanted to go to First Monday and stay overnight. He had a choice. He could get a room in Dallas or in Tyler. That was as close as he could get. If you don?t make your reservations about a year in advance you could easily hear those Biblical words, "No room at the inn."
We always had a place to stay in Canton. We lived there. If some moment of insanity (those who have lived in Canton don?t have the affection for it that many others do) was to wash over me and I decided to go back for a First Monday weekend I know we would have no problem. We still have enough friends there that we would have a place to stay while we went shopping.
Still, Cindy and I do have some knowledge of what it is like to find no room at the inn. The Navy transferred me from the Naval Training Center in Orlando to a ship homeported in Norfolk. We left Orlando following graduation, about 10:00 on a Friday morning and drove all day and night to get to Norfolk. We got there about 5:00 A.M. We were tired and wanted to find a place where we could get some sleep. We found out that we got there in time for the Oyster Bowl, a football game that I had not heard of before or since. There was not a hotel or motel room anywhere in Norfolk. Finally we found a room in Virginia Beach and we dropped exhausted and ready to sleep.
When we went to Annual Conference this year we found something a bit different. I made our hotel reservations for Monday through Wednesday nights. A month or so later Cindy told me she wanted to get in on Sunday night. I called the Adam?s Mark and tried to change our reservations. I was told there was no room at the inn, at least not at that price. The rate was sold out. They could, however, find some room at double the price.
Sometimes there just isn?t any room at any price. Be it Canton on First Monday weekend or the weekend of the Oyster Bowl in Norfolk Virginia or the many other events that go on in cities all over the world. Hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts and inns get filled to capacity and there is just no more room.
Perhaps that is how things were for Mary and Joseph as the approached the Bethlehem Inn. That is what the Scriptures say. Or perhaps it was more like my experience with the Adam?s Mark, there wasn?t a room available at a price Joseph could afford to pay, as many commentators seem to think.
If you really stop and think about it, regardless of the circumstance, I think it is easy to see the innkeeper?s side of the story. Who was this man coming in asking for a room? As I see the story I see Joseph, a poor carpenter, tired, dirty, clothes a bit ragged, coming in and asking the innkeeper for a room. This was a busy time. It was the innkeeper?s First Monday or Oyster Bowl weekend. For everyone else in Roman Empire the need to travel to another city to be counted and taxed might have been more than an inconvenience but for someone like an innkeeper it would be a dream come true. It would have been a packed house every night. He would have made big money during that time. Besides, how was he to know that this rag-tag carpenter and this woman he supposed to be the carpenter?s wife were soon to be the parents of the Messiah? If he had known he might have treated them differently.
I know that some of you probably think I have gone totally nuts. Christmas in July? How crazy is that? We decided on that theme for our Bible School this year because too much of the time kids get wrapped up in Santa Claus and all the glitz and glitter of the season. All too often the focus for them is on all of the other reasons for Christmas than the birth of Jesus. After that decision was made I got to thinking that if it was true for our children it is just as true for the rest of us. The secular world has taken the days between Thanksgiving and December 25 and robbed them of all their spiritual meaning. Christmas is now a season of buy! buy! buy! It is a time that is one party after another. Then rushing here and there in an effort to visit everyone who needs a visit or we think needs a visit. This week was a wonderful time to slow down and look at the Christ of Christmas without any of the distractions of the world around us. We don?t have to think about shopping, turkey dinners, and Santa Claus. It isn?t that any of those things are bad, they just don?t tell us of real Christmas. As true as any of this has been for the kids this week, it is just as true for all of us today.
As I have thought about this text over the Christmas seasons of my ministry I have never personally given much thought to the innkeeper. All of the things that I have said could be true along with many more. He could have literally been full, no vacancy. It could have been that no matter who walked to the door of the inn in Bethlehem they would have been turned away.
He might have found room for someone he thought was important and Mary and Joseph just didn?t fit the bill. At best their clothes would have been dusty and dirty after traveling on foot and on a donkey down the dusty roads of the Middle East during the Biblical era. It was a 90-mile trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem. They must have looked tired and dirty. In addition to being dirty, dusty, and tired, because Mary and Joseph were working class folks, their clothes may have appeared worn and torn. It probably would have seemed obvious to the innkeeper that these were not people of any real importance.
At busy times, hotels will often raise their rates. It might have been that Mary and Joseph couldn?t afford any available rooms. The rate might have been sold out.
One other possibility exists in my mind. The innkeeper might have taken one look at Mary and realized that she was about to have the baby and he didn?t want the mess in his inn. Joseph may have told him that his wife was about to deliver. The innkeeper then just decided to tell Joseph that there was no room.
Whatever the case, we know there was no room in the inn for Mary and Joseph and the new baby soon to be born. As a result, the only place left to go was a stable. A great child born to humble parents in a lowly stable that came to save the world.
What I find most amazing for the innkeeper is that God?s grace still worked, even for him. In spite of the fact that this man had turned the Christ child away, God?s grace would still be available even for him. All he had to do was to make room in the inn of his heart. He could turn Jesus away at the inn before he was born. But, the Messiah must have a place in his heart.
The same is true for us. We can push him away. We can say that there is no room in our life for Jesus again and again. But the good news is, it is never too late, as long as we have breath, to accept the grace that God offers to us. It is never too late to move some things out and move other things around to make room for the Christ child in the inn of our hearts. That is what grace is all about. That is what the Gospel is all about. When we move past our selfishness, when we move passed our pride and personal ambition and we make room for Christ in our lives and give him the place of honor he deserves God?s grace will give us the forgiveness we need and place meaning in our lives.
What do we have to do to make room for the Christ child in the inn of our hearts? First accept him. Once we have done that, we have to look at the way that we treat the people around us. After all, Jesus said not only to love the Lord your God, but also love your neighbor as yourself. Sometimes some folks may be hard to love, and that is OK. Even when we find it hard to love them, we still must treat them with respect and love. They too are children of God.
We need to remember and take seriously Jesus? words in Matthew 25, "For as you have done it to one of the least of these, members of my kingdom, you have done it to me." What we do to our brothers and sisters in Christ, what we do to our neighbors has a direct impact on our relationship with Jesus Christ.
On the night of that first Christmas so many years ago, for whatever the reason, there wasn?t any room in the inn. Perhaps it was the busy time making the inn all filled up, perhaps the innkeeper didn?t want what he saw as riffraff dirtying his hotel. Perhaps he didn?t want a baby born there. Whatever the case may be, there was no place in the inn for the Christ to be born.
The question for us today is, is there any room? Is there room in our cluttered lives, in our hearts for the Christ child? Will we open our hearts and move out so much of what we don?t need to make room for the Messiah that we do need? The question never was "will Christ be born?" The question was where would Christ be born? The question for us today is, "is there any room?"
