The Innkeeper

"And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back." (Luke 10:35)

There is a fourth man in the story, and almost no one notices him. The innkeeper. He does not find the beaten man. He does not bandage him or lift him onto an animal or walk beside him down the road. He was not on the Jericho road at all. He was where he always is, running an inn. And a Samaritan shows up at his door with a stranger who is half dead, hands him money, and asks him to take care of the man. And he says yes.

That is a ministry, a real one. There is a whole category of people in the kingdom of God who are never going to be the Samaritan, who will never be the one who finds the body on the road, and who are absolutely essential, because the Samaritan had to get back on the road and someone had to stay with the man. Some of you are not called to go. Some of you are called to have a room.

Do not despise the quieter assignment. Not everyone is sent out to the ditch; some are stationed at the inn, and the rescue is not complete without them. The one who keeps the guest room ready, who takes in the person someone else carried, who does the long unglamorous work of care after the dramatic moment has passed, is doing kingdom work as surely as the one on the road. Ask which you are, and then be that fully, without envying the other.