We Are All Sojourners

I was a naïve twenty-six years old when the army sent our family to Germany. Over thirty years later, three things about the half-hour drive from the Stuttgart airport to our apartment are still vivid in my memory. I was unspeakably relieved to be with my husband again after six months in separate countries. I was mind-numbingly exhausted after twenty-four hours of airplanes and airports with three children ages five and under. And not only were the surroundings unfamiliar, but I thought the smell was going to make me sick before we could get home.

Yes, the smell. German gasoline exhaust has a different smell from American. We went as quickly as possible from airport to city traffic, through village after village before we reached our small burg. I remember trying to focus on the scenery, but thinking, I won’t be able to live with this for three years!

Life looked more manageable once I had recovered from jet lag. But that smell was just the first thing in a long process of getting used to living in a foreign country. Everything—everything—was different. As a blend-into-the-woodwork introvert, one of the most difficult adjustments was knowing that I couldn’t step out of our apartment without the neighbors noticing. I’m not one who pays a lot of (OK, any) attention to dressing stylishly, but I soon realized that, to my neighbors, I must look like—well, a foreigner.

People stared because I had three children with me wherever I went. Most Germans had no more than two. Particularly after I started babysitting another little boy, strangers would stop me to ask, “Are all these yours?” I understood what they were asking but didn’t know how to explain. One old woman started yelling at me because, you know, if someone doesn’t speak your language, raising your voice will obviously clear things up.

There were many things I learned to love about life in Germany but, knowing the time was limited, I never came to the point of thinking, This is home. I didn’t mind gawking like a tourist wherever we went, because I was one. I was in the country for an extended visit, but with no intention of becoming a German citizen. I was a sojourner.

A sojourner is a person who leaves his home country to live in a foreign land, but who isn’t a citizen of that land. The Book of Ruth is the story of a sojourning family. Naomi, her husband, and their two sons sojourned in Moab because of a famine in the land of Judah, their home. We aren’t told how long Naomi was in Moab, but her husband and sons all died there. When Naomi heard that the famine was over in Judah, she decided to go home. Knowing what it was like to be a foreigner in Moab, she urged her two Moabite daughters-in-law to stay in their homeland and hope for new husbands and better days.

One daughter-in-law, Ruth, refused to leave Naomi, and Ruth became a sojourner. You can bet when they got back to Bethlehem, the villagers were talking before the two women were inside the city limits. I imagine every eye following Ruth as she walked to the fields each morning to gather food. She was probably the subject of gossip around the town well for weeks or months. I wonder if the Bethlehemites made fun of her accent. Did the women stare at her because her clothes were different? Ruth did the right thing anyway.

In Jesus’ last prayer for his disciples, he says, “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” (John 17:14-16 ESV).

Do you hear this? Jesus isn’t worried that his disciples will suffer a little embarrassment because they speak differently or dress oddly. He isn’t praying that they won’t be uncomfortable when people stare at them. It’s a life-and-death matter. The world hates them because they no longer belong to the world.

Peter addresses his first letter to the elect exiles, or strangers, of the dispersion. These are sojourners, people who have been scattered about in foreign countries because of persecution.

He instructs those who call on God as Father to conduct t hemselves with fear throughout the time of their exile. Do you call on God as Father? You have been ransomed from the futile ways of the world with the precious blood of the spotless lamb, Jesus Christ. This is where your allegiance lies. Everything else will pass away.

Are you willing to live in the world while keeping the perspective that your inheritance is in heaven, not here? It’s an inheritance incomparably superior to the moth-eaten property you might have had if you hadn’t been called to a better country.

We live in a society built on sand and dreamy wishes for the world to be other than it is. Now we’re watching it crumble. As the ransomed of Christ, are you willing to walk through this world as a conspicuous foreigner?

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” (1 Pet. 2:11-12 ESV)

Through the gift of a faithful mother and grandmother, Diane Pendergraft grew up knowing Jesus as a friend. Married for nearly two-thirds of her life, there has been time for several seasons, from homeschooling to owning a coffee shop. She has three grown children and nine grandchildren. An element of this season is writing about literature and life at Plumfield and Paideia.