Exile Status

Dear St Andrew’s,

It is football World Cup time. It is also State of Origin time. Together, these two great sporting contests confront me with a surprisingly difficult question: who am I supposed to support?

I have lived in Australia for seventeen years. I am an Australian citizen and carry an Australian passport. Yet I was born and raised in England and also carry a British passport. When England play, something deep within me still stirs. Perhaps it is patriotism. Perhaps it is nostalgia. Perhaps it is simply the accumulated disappointment of a lifetime spent waiting for England to win another major tournament.

Australia is now my home, but I do not feel entirely Australian. England is the country of my birth, but after so many years away, I no longer feel entirely at home there either. I belong to both countries—and not quite completely to either.

State of Origin makes matters even more confusing. I live in New South Wales, so presumably I should support the Blues. But I do not literally have an Australian state of origin. I have a county of origin: Essex. Sadly, Essex is yet to field a team against Queensland.

This mild sporting identity crisis has helped me appreciate something the New Testament says about every Christian. The apostle Peter addresses his readers as “exiles scattered” throughout the Roman world and later calls them “foreigners and exiles” (1 Peter 1:1; 2:11). Some may have been displaced geographically. But Peter is describing something deeper than their postal addresses. Through faith in Jesus, they have been given a new identity, a new allegiance and a new home.

Christians live within earthly nations, societies and cultures. We may love them, serve them and feel a deep attachment to them. Yet no earthly nation can be our ultimate home.

Paul makes the same point to the Christians in Philippi. Philippi was a Roman colony whose inhabitants were proud of their Roman identity. But Paul reminds the church that “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). Their defining citizenship was not Roman but heavenly, because their true King was not Caesar but Jesus.

That does not mean Christians withdraw from the world or treat earthly life as unimportant. Peter urges exiles to “live such good lives among the pagans” that others might see their good deeds and glorify God (1 Peter 2:12). Heavenly citizenship should make us better earthly citizens: more generous neighbours, more faithful workers, more compassionate friends and more willing servants of the communities in which God has placed us.

But it does mean that we should sometimes expect to feel out of place. The values of Jesus will not always match the values of the culture around us. Our convictions, priorities and hopes may make us seem strange. At times, Christians can experience the uncomfortable sense that we belong here—and yet do not fully belong here.

For an immigrant, that feeling can be especially familiar. I know something of what it is to love two countries while feeling completely at home in neither. Yet the gospel tells me that my deepest identity is not determined by the passport I carry, the nation in which I was born, or the sporting team I support. I belong to Jesus. My truest home is the renewed creation over which he will reign.

One day, people “from every nation, tribe, people and language” will stand together before his throne (Revelation 7:9). Our national identities will not be erased, but they will no longer divide us. We will be completely at home—with Christ and with one another.

Until then, I will embrace my slightly complicated exile status.

Go the Blues! Go the Socceroos!

Unless, of course, they are playing the Three Lions 🙂

Many blessings,

James