The Bible and the Sojourner
The Danger of Outsourced Compassion
so·journ·er
/ˈsō-ˌjər-nər/ noun
- One who resides temporarily in a place; a traveler, stranger, or foreigner dwelling for a time among others.
- (Biblical) A non-native living among the people of Israel, often dependent on their hospitality, protection, and justice (cf. Leviticus 19:33–34; Deuteronomy 10:18–19).
See also: alien, foreigner, stranger, immigrant, neighbor.
I've noticed an ironic trend of late. Some of the same voices who would typically insist that we keep the Bible far away from all political discussions, are suddenly quoting the Old Testament commands about care for the sojourner (from the book of Leviticus, no less).
It’s an interesting reversal, and it shows how easy it is for all of us to reach for Scripture as a talking point, and to leverage it into a political discussion, rather than as a personal call to obedience.
When we make everything about policy, it becomes easy to measure our compassion, or even our obedience to God by the positions we hold, or the posts we share. If we care about the poor, we vote one way. If we care about border security, we vote another.
But there’s a severe danger in thinking this way. It can become a form of outsourced compassion. We trick ourselves into believing that we fulfill our moral obligations by having the right political opinions and talking about them loudly enough.
We shift the moral responsibility for helping others from ourselves to “the system.” We convince ourselves that if the right laws get passed — or the wrong ones get blocked — then we’ve done our part.
Now the Bible certainly doesn’t ignore governments, laws, or leaders. But over and over, the emphasis is on something far more personal:
You.
Not: Which politician will solve this? What law will end this? What program is going to make it better?
Rather:
How will you treat the sojourner who crosses your path? What will you do when you see someone in need?
...And Who is My Neighbor?
On one occasion Jesus was approached and quizzed by an expert in Torah. "What is the greatest command in all the Law?"
If you've been around church at all, you know his answer: Love God, and Love your Neighbor as yourself.
To which the expert replied, "... and who is my neighbor?"
What a question.
The command of God is to love. The so-called expert's reply is not seeking more people to love; it is seeking fewer. It is seeking limits to love. How far does this... obligation... go? Jesus just told him clearly that he ought to love his neighbor, and the Law-expert got out a zoning map like he's trying to figure out which city councilman represents his district.
But if you've read this passage, you know Jesus won't play that game. He uses a potent story to flip the question, "Who qualifies as my neighbor?" to "To whom will I be a neighbor?"
The Story Jesus Told
You can read the story in Luke 10:25-37.
A man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho when robbers attacked him. They stripped him, beat him, and left him half-dead by the road.
A priest came along. He saw the man — and passed by on the other side.
A Levite came next. Same thing: he saw, and passed by.
Then came a Samaritan — the very sort of person the Law-expert would have written off. He saw the man, and instead of crossing the road, he crossed the line. He bandaged his wounds, put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and paid for his care.
“Which of these three,” Jesus asked, “proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”
The answer was unavoidable: “The one who showed him mercy.”
And Jesus said, “You go, and do likewise.”
The Neighbor You Don't Expect
To get the weight of this, you have to know a little about Samaritans and Jews in Jesus’ day. They weren’t just distant neighbors — they were bitter enemies, divided by centuries of political, ethnic, and religious hostility. Jews saw Samaritans as half-breeds who corrupted the worship of God. Samaritans saw Jews as arrogant and unfaithful.
So when Jesus made a Samaritan the hero of the story, it wasn’t a “feel-good diversity” moment. It was a gut-punch. He was saying, your neighbor might be the person you’d least like to help, or receive help from.
If Jesus were telling the parable today, He might not change a single detail, except perhaps the nationalities involved. No matter what century it is, no matter what corner of the planet, we humans seem to be unable to shed our ethnic and racial divisions.
Alternatively, we might be reading in 2025 about the Good Politician. Or in some circles, the Good Drag Queen, or the Good Vagrant might be the punch. Perhaps the Good Socialist, the Good MAGA, or — dare I say — even the Good Evangelical. The point is, every audience has a “them” they don’t expect to be the hero.
And whatever context Jesus might use, I’m confident the same question would land with just as much force.
It’s not: “So, how do you feel about those people?” — as if the goal were merely to confront your biases. Get you to say hi to the people who are different from you.
It’s not: “What’s the system’s job — why won’t Rome fix this?” — as if the answer were to pass a law, call your senator, go block traffic, or post a fiery rant online.
It’s this: “Will you do mercy?”
Micah 6:8 comes to mind. It's a good verse. You should look it up. Pay attention to the verbs.
The command is personal, not theoretical. The point isn’t for you to admire the Samaritan’s compassion, or debate whether you’ve been generally nice to your neighbors. The point is for you — right where you are — to see the need in front of you and “go and do likewise.”
What the Bible Actually Emphasizes
When the Bible talks about the poor, the vulnerable, or the sojourner, it almost never sounds like our modern political debates. The questions we tend to ask — What laws should be passed? What programs should be funded? — are simply not the questions Scripture is most concerned with.
Instead, the emphasis is relentlessly personal and communal: What will you do when someone in need crosses your path? How will God’s people treat the outsider in their midst?
The Bible doesn't offer abstract political theories. Commands about mercy and welcoming and justice were given to ordinary people, meant to shape how they lived in real life, and how their community functioned.
From Genesis to Revelation, the pattern is the same: God’s people are to reflect His compassion in concrete, personal ways. You don’t need a majority vote or a signed bill to love your neighbor.
The question of who happens to be in office, or what laws are being passed, is — with all due respect — entirely irrelevant to the posture and actions of those who follow Christ. Our obedience isn’t on hold until the political winds are favorable.
What This Doesn’t Mean
Don't misunderstand: saying the Bible’s focus is on your responsibility does not mean government has no role in matters of poverty, immigration, or justice whatsoever.
Scripture recognizes that leaders and systems matter. The prophets often called out kings, judges, and rulers for corrupt laws or oppressive policies (see e.g. Amos, Micah, and Isaiah). In the New Testament, Romans 13 affirms that governing authorities are established by God to promote good and restrain evil. Good laws can protect the vulnerable; bad laws can harm them.
So yes — Christians can and should care about policy. We can vote, advocate, and work for just systems. But here’s the danger: it’s far easier to be passionate about a policy platform than it is to invest time and energy with a person.
If our faith only shows up in the voting booth, we’re missing most of the Christian life. If our compassion is measured by the hashtags we use, or the articles we share, or the rants we unleash, we’ve traded obedience for opinion.
Government has its responsibilities. But the command to love your neighbor — to welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, clothe the naked — was given to you and me, not outsourced to a program or committee.
The Real Spiritual Danger: Moral Displacement
When Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, it started with a man asking, “And who is my neighbor?” That’s a question about definitions. It’s a way of drawing boundaries. It’s a way of avoiding responsibility.
We have our own version of that question today: “What’s the right policy on immigration?” or “What should Congress do about homelessness?” Those aren’t bad questions — but they can become dangerous ones.
Why?
Because they allow us to talk about compassion without actually practicing it.
This is what we might call moral displacement — pushing the weight of our moral responsibility away from ourselves and onto someone or something else, usually the government.
- It feels righteous to post about injustice.
- It feels bold to debate policy from a keyboard.
- It feels safe to care in theory but keep our distance in reality.
- Or even to write an article about it all, like I’m doing right now.
And that way, when the economy tanks, injustice happens, or communities crumble, I’m free from personal responsibility. It’s all Trump’s fault, or Gavin Newsom’s fault, or Joe Biden’s fault, or capitalism’s fault, or George Soros’s fault — depending on what side you’re on.
But make no mistake: whoever you’re naming, whichever side of the proverbial aisle you choose to blame — it’s all the same move; the same deflection.
Meanwhile, the very people God has placed in our path — the neighbor, the sojourner, the widow, the orphan, — remain strangers to us.
My friends: you can have the “right” view on immigration and still be cold-hearted to the immigrant across the street. You can support every homelessness initiative your city proposes and still never sit down with a homeless person to hear their story.
The kingdom of God is not built on the right opinions about the right policies. It’s built on people who take Jesus seriously when He says, “You go and do likewise.”
A Better Way: Seeing Through the Eyes of Christ
Jesus knew what it meant to be on the margins. He was born into poverty, to an unmarried teenager, wrapped in cloth, and laid in an animal’s feeding trough. He spent His earliest years as a refugee in Egypt, carried by parents who were fleeing very real political violence.
As an adult, He was called a “friend of tax collectors and sinners” — not because He approved of their sin (another message for another time), but because He refused to keep His distance from the people who needed Him most.
And yet, notice what Jesus did not do. He didn’t spend His ministry trying to reform Rome’s immigration system. He didn’t run a political campaign to improve welfare distribution in Galilee. His mission was deeper — to change hearts so profoundly that His followers would live as salt and light in every nation, under every form of government.
If we follow Him, we will see people the way He saw them:
- The leper is not a statistic; he’s a man longing to be seen and touched.
- The Samaritan woman is not an ethnic or religious problem; she’s a soul thirsty for living water.
- The hungry crowd is not a budget crisis; they’re sheep without a shepherd.
When we see through the eyes of Christ, the question shifts. It’s no longer, “What should the policy be?” but “What does love, the fulfillment of the law, require of me right here, right now?”
That’s the way of the kingdom — not ignoring laws or leaders, but refusing to wait for them to "get it right" before obeying the call to love. Because the moment we start waiting for a vote before we act, we’ve already stopped following Jesus.
And ultimately, the answer isn’t to rage against the system, nor is it to pin our hopes on it. Systems can restrain evil or promote good for a time, but they can’t change hearts. Only Jesus can do that. The most loving thing we can do for the sojourner, the poor, or the hurting is not just to meet their immediate needs, but to introduce them to the One who loved them unto death.
Conclusion: Kingdom First, Politics Second
The world will keep debating policies. It will keep drawing lines, choosing sides, and framing compassion as a political issue. But the Church has a different mandate. We are called to live as citizens of a kingdom that cannot be shaken — a kingdom where the King knows every name, draws near to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
That doesn’t mean we ignore government. It means we refuse to wait on it. Our call to love, to welcome, to serve, and to give comes from a higher authority. And His commands are not dependent on majority votes or signed bills.
So let’s put the kingdom first. Let politics have its proper place, but never let it take the place of obedience. Let’s be known not merely for the positions we hold, but for the people we love. With action.
Because one day, the questions won’t be about what party we supported, or what legislation we applauded, or how loudly we argued about compassion online. The question will be:
“I was hungry — did you feed me? I was a stranger — did you welcome me?”
May we live in such a way that our answer, by His grace, will be yes.
