“Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship” (John 4:20).
The morning sun casts a soft, golden light over Akasia, but it does little to soften the edges of the world. I sit on my porch, the familiar sounds of a Pretoria morning filling the air—the distant hum of traffic on the N1, the scent of rain on the dry earth. Yet, beneath this surface of daily life, a deeper current runs, a silent hum of a different frequency. It is the sound of a longing heart, a universal ache the Tswana people might call ‘legae’—a yearning for a home that is more than a place.
This, I have come to understand, is the exile’s longing. It is the core melody of the human story, a tune played in every culture, every heart, and every page of Scripture .
The Garden’s Echo: When We First Felt the Distance
Imagine, if you will, the first home. Not a brick-and-mortar house in Akasia, but a garden. A place where the air itself thrummed with the presence of God. Adam and Eve walked in unbroken fellowship, their identities secure in their Creator. There was no need to long for home because they were utterly at home.
Then, the fracture. The rebellion. With a taste of forbidden fruit came a bitter aftertaste—alienation. God’s judgment was not a petty punishment but the tragic consequence of their choice: exile . They were driven from the garden, eastward, away from the source of life . This was not merely a physical relocation; it was a spiritual reality. The intimate connection was severed, and the human heart has been homesick ever since. This primal exile is the foundational fracture behind every fractured identity and every cultural and personal displacement we experience .
This ancient story finds a stark parallel in our own South African story. We are a nation of exiles. We have known the deep memory of a heritage marred by the brutal displacement of apartheid, a system that, tragically, some even attempted to justify with a distorted reading of Scripture . We have crafted idols from our pain—worshipping a lost, romanticised past or a bitter, defining narrative of victimhood. Like the Samaritan woman at the well, we point to our mountain—be it a political ideology, a cultural tradition, or a personal grievance—and say, “This is where true worship happens. This is the source of my identity” .
The Babylonian Lie and the Way of the Exile
Fast forward in the biblical drama. Israel, God’s people, re-enacts Adam’s story. Brought into a Promised Land, a new Eden, they repeatedly choose independence over intimacy. The result? A literal exile to Babylon . And here we find a profound truth for our modern South African context, caught between the allure of Western materialism and the pull of ancestral traditions.
Babylon, the place of exile, is not just a geographical location; it is a philosophical and spiritual system. It is the place where people “chase power to make a name for themselves” . Does that not sound familiar? Is it not the driving force of our modern world, from the ambitions of Sandton to the political manoeuvring in our own cities? Babylon seduces us with the promise of significance through self-aggrandisement. It tells the exile: “Make yourself at home here. Find your meaning in our economy, your identity in our status symbols.”
But God, through the prophet Jeremiah, sent a startling message to the exiles: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce… Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jeremiah 29:5-7). This is the way of the exile. It is a call to faithful presence, not full assimilation. We are to be in Akasia, in South Africa, but not of its Babylonian value system . We are to be like Daniel, who served the Babylonian king with excellence but refused to bow to his golden image.
This is where we must engage in some clear-headed, biblical philosophy. A common objection arises: “Is this not a call to quietism? Should we not fight for justice and reclaim what was lost?” The prophetic response is that true liberation does not come from seizing Babylon’s weapons but from embracing the way of the cross. The argument can be formulated thus:
1. Major Premise: Ultimate victory belongs to God, who works through the foolishness of the cross, not the wisdom of power (1 Corinthians 1:25).
2. Minor Premise: The way of the cross is the path of sacrificial love, service, and prayer for one’s enemies, as modelled by Jesus.
3. Conclusion: Therefore, the most powerful and truly transformative action an exile can take is to live a life of faithful integrity and loving service within the fallen system, witnessing to a different Kingdom.
This is not a passive acceptance of evil; it is an active warfare waged with spiritual weapons (2 Corinthians 10:4). It is to confront the syncretism that says our hope lies in political saviours or economic solutions alone.
The Man at the Well: Meeting Our Longing in Christ
This brings us back to the well in Sychar. A woman, a multi-time exile—a Samaritan despised by Jews, a woman wounded by men—comes to draw water at noon, avoiding the crowds . And there, tired from his journey, sits Jesus . He meets her not in the temple in Jerusalem, nor on her mountain in Samaria, but at the point of her daily need.
He does not erase her story. He redeems it. He confronts her broken past not to condemn her but to offer her a different source of identity. “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,” he says, “but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).
Here is the answer to the exile’s longing. Jesus is the true temple, the true Jerusalem, the true home . On the cross, he entered the ultimate exile. He cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). He was cast out from the presence of the Father, bearing the full weight of our alienation, so that we could be brought home . His resurrection is the promise and the power of our restoration.
True worship, then, is what he tells the woman: worship “in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). It is not confined to a mountain—be it the mountain of our racial heritage, our political tribe, or our personal pain. It is a worship that flows from a heart reconciled to God through Christ, a heart in which the Spirit of God now dwells. We become living temples, and home becomes a Person, not a place .
Sojourners in Akasia: A Call to Faithful Presence
So, what does this mean for us today, as we navigate the complexities of South Africa in 2024? It means we acknowledge our exile. We feel the ache of a world not yet made right—the frustration with load-shedding, the anger at corruption, the grief of persistent inequality. We do not numb this ache with Babylon’s offerings. We acknowledge it as a signpost pointing us home.
We are to be sojourners and exiles, as Peter says (1 Peter 2:11). We live faithfully in our Akasia neighbourhoods. We pay our taxes, we plant our gardens, we serve our communities, we pray for our leaders. We do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8). But our ultimate hope is not in a better South Africa; it is in the new heavens and the new earth, the New Jerusalem that God will bring down .
Let us, therefore, live with a holy dissonance. Let the exile’s longing within us be a compass always pointing to Christ. He is the well of living water. He is the way home. Our stories of displacement and stolen identity are not erased; they are redeemed, woven into the grander narrative of God’s mission to bring all exiles home.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, you met the Samaritan woman in the truth of her story and offered yourself as the answer to her deepest thirst. Meet us at our well today. Heal the wounds of our heritage—both personal and national. Redeal our stories. Free us from idolatrous attachment to our mountains of memory and pain. May we, as exiles and sojourners in this land, worship you in spirit and in truth, finding our ultimate identity and our eternal home in you alone. Amen.
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