From the Archives: "Welcoming the Sojourner"
Each month, our blog features articles from the archives of Liturgy. Our goal is to share the wisdom from decades past so that we might celebrate the work and insights of these excellent ministers and scholars.
David N. Mosser
In 1990, Liturgy published an article by David N. Mosser, entitled “Welcoming the Sojourner.” Beginning with his own sojourn to teach at a seminary in Liberia in 1980, David Mosse, who grew up in the U.S., found himself strange to the language and culture in this new place as well as being new to teaching. He helps the reader imagine ourselves into a similar situation of discomfort. This exercise is meant to put those of us who are situated in a stable and familiar place into the shoes of immigrants, migrants, refugees, and others who find themselves in our communities because they needed to venture into the unknown.
Given the contemporary movement of peoples all over the world in search of a place to live and thrive––or even just to survive––we are blessed by Mosser’s reminder of the Bible’s repeated exhortation to care for the sojourner. We are called to make “community with the forgotten” not only to supply necessities for life but to befriend the stranger in Jesus’ name.
Selected Quotes from
“Welcoming the Sojourner”
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“In the Hebrew Bible and in the gospels and epistles, one theme that competes for frequent attention is that of the ‘sojouner.’ From the time Abraham was called to be a sojourner as part of God’s covenant with the chosen people, the idea of sojourning had a special place in God’s plan.”
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“Protecting the justice due to a sojourner is a prominent biblical theme. Jesus also uses this idea in parabolic teaching and stories (see Luke 19:25-27 and Luke 17:11-19). Repeatedly, the
protection of the sojourner, the widow, the orphan and the poor is lifted up for special attention.”
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“The church must open its arms and welcome the sojourners. We may not feel trained for the task, but we live in God’s love, and God‘s promise is always with us. That promise we take to the sojourner in our midst. When the church can graciously receive the stranger in its midst, it will truly be the church of God’s mission to the world.”
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When this essay was published, David N. Mosser was the pastor of First United Methodist Church, Georgetown, Texas. Today he is senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Arlington, Texas, and an adjunct homiletics professor at Perkinds School of Theology. His PhD is from the University of Texas in Austin, and he has published several books.
If you would like access to this article, please follow this link:
David N. Mosser, “Welcoming the Sojourner,” Liturgy 9, no. 2 (1990): 67–70, https://doi.org/10.1080/04580639009409988