Cities, 4 – God’s unit of transformation

Returning to the concept of cities – I had previously mentioned how cities are often depicted as centers of human sinfulness. However, God’s plan for the future unvaryingly refers to a future urban way of life. So, how do we go from point A to B? It’s a daunting task.

The big cities of the world have deep-seated and complicated issues. Throughout the two-thirds world cities are bursting at the seams as the rural poor move into urban areas. Cities can’t keep up with this population explosion, and as a result sanitation, corruption, unemployment, and the basic collapse of infrastructure create a vicious cycle of poverty and oppression, like as it’s seen in Lagos, Nigeria.

How can a place like Lagos be transformed and renewed? There are so many overlapping issues – sanitation, economics, politics, etc. – that there is no ‘silver bullet’ to transform a city.

Nevertheless, that kind of transformation is presented throughout the Bible.

· God calls Jonah to preach to the entire city of Nineveh – a place described as a great & very important city (3:2-3), but it also was well-known for its wickedness (1:2). Ultimately, once Jonah actually delivers the message, the entire city repents: “The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.” (3:5).

· Nehemiah, a cupbearer to the king of Persia, laments and mourns Jerusalem. He risks death (one doesn’t want to show sadness in front of the Persian king) in order to ask, “Send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it.” (Neh 2:5). He builds the wall, beginning the process of rebuilding and reinhabiting the city, cleaning out the old signs of corruption and idolatry (apparently his story is an excellent model for community developers).

· After the Resurrection, Jesus appears to his followers and gives him the command to spread the word of the resurrection. And, he tells them “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Jesus doesn’t mention particular people to witness to but instead the entire city – a giant task for a small group of followers.

· Throughout his travels Paul desires to visit and spread the good news to Rome, the then-center of the world (Acts 23:11, Acts 19:21). A center for pagan idolatry, imperial might, and brutal violence, Rome was the axis mundi of all civilization. A church was established there, and many years later, it becomes the center of Catholicism.

A city is a complex combination of relationships – economic, familial, social, legal, etc. A city tends to have a kind of culture within itself: San Francisco has a different vibe, a different spirit, than Cleveland or Detroit. Viewing the work of God as the renewal and transformation of different cities means that the Kingdom of God applies to all of these different areas.

Sadly, the typical, modern (American) view of salvation doesn’t quite fit with this kind of transformation. Over-individualizing salvation and the work of God means that we rarely consider what God may be doing in urban places. In this view, cities are unredeemable and should be avoided. Very rarely do people think they could meet God in the city, let alone hope that God will be able to transform them from the inside out.

But God wants to transform more than a collection of individuals – he wants the entire city to be renewed, and I think that means improving and transforming its economics, government, infrastructure, community, and more. The book of Jonah ends with: “Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (3:11).

Perhaps the million dollar question is how followers of Jesus must understand God’s vision for our great cities and how we must be obedient to his calling and action. After all, the great cities of the world are much bigger today.

Thoughts on Suffering

One of the things I love about blogs is that I can say anything I want and not have anyone challenge me on it. In times like this I feel like a big hypocrite – I can speak of big ideas without actually letting these ideas change my life. This is one of those times.

In our culture, we spend a lot of our energy and time trying to avoid all forms suffering. We attempt to insulate ourselves from any potential threats & challenges that may bring us pain and discomfort. This insulation – a form of walling ourselves in order to sterilize ourselves from the ugliness and misery of the world – is an attempt to control our existence. Ultimately, this attitude can lead to 1) a deep-seated fear for all forms of suffering (which includes fleeing from the suffering of others), and 2) a general feeling of numbness and isolation that makes our lives seem shallow and insignificant.

This fear of suffering drives much of our behavior. Parents can be overprotective of their children, insulating them from all pain & discomfort. Our suburban-commute lifestyles protect us from the violence and danger of the inner-city. Even in our basic relationships with people we are scared of delving into painful but important issues – we stay at a superficial, even awkward, level where the issue is always right below the surface but will never be addressed.

Within this fear and numbness we have the inability to see the world as it truly is. In our small worlds of exclusion and isolation we fail to recognize the suffering of the rest of the world. And it’s not a lack of compassion that causes this divide but instead the inability to see and understand the reality of our world because we’ve minimized and avoided suffering.

Ultimately, this fear of suffering drives us farther away from God. This week we celebrate and remember the Passion (or suffering) of Jesus on the Cross, but we fail to make the connection his example has for our lives: we don’t recognize how central suffering was to the life of Jesus. He was the “suffering servant,” whose wounds would bring healing (Isaiah 53). He repeatedly told his disciples he must suffer (Mt 16:21, Lk 24:26), and ultimately his suffering brings us life.

“Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Lk 9:23)

In our suffering we are closer to the heart of God (Php 3:10). God heard the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt (Ex. 3:7), of the poor & oppressed thought Israel the Prophets spend pages and pages describing how God defends their cause, like in Jer 22:16), and in the lives of the Apostles who suffered for the message of Christ, at one moment “rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.” (Acts 5:41). In other moments, suffering is almost seen as a blessing that God gives his followers. Philippians 1:29-30 mentions that in the same way the blessing of belief in God is a gift to humanity, so is the gift of suffering.

This kind of suffering is not simple masochism. Suffering in and of itself is evil and unjust. As Christians, we should strive to reduce the pain and discomfort of others. For ourselves, however, this kind of suffering brings us closer to god. And the mystery of this suffering is that it is only through the resurrection of Jesus that this suffering has ultimate meaning.

Paul says:
“If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith… And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.” (1 Corinthians 15:13-14, 17-19)

Death is a horrible evil, but death must occur so that new life can begin. And that’s the great mystery of Easter – that in suffering and pain is hope, joy and fullness in new relationship with Christ.

cities, 3 – the good

Even thought it so often contains condemnations, denunciations and stark histories of human failure, God’s story in Bible is nevertheless a story of hope. God has a vision of the future, and most often, the images of God’s future plans for the world occur in the context of cities. 

Much of this comes from the old Jerusalem, the city that held the temple, the one site that God chose to inhabit.  During those glory days, the temple gave the Israelites access to God, and people knew they could communicate with God through access to the temple. 

But, these ‘salad days’ didn’t last.  Perhaps having God so close made them take the Presence too lightly.  No matter the reason, the Bible stories are clear: they choose idols and the religious practices of their neighbors, rejecting their own history and traditions (Jer 3 is especially poignant).

Even so, the passages that speak of the heavenly end of the “great big story of life” consistently mention that the reality God will bring to the world will take place in a city.  Revelation 21 describes most clearly what this reality is like:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (vv.1-4)

The city has those classical descriptions of Paradise, complete with streets of gold (as seen in Rev 21:18-21).  But, the passage doesn’t linger on those material realities, but instead emphasizes that the Presence of God is most central to this city.

“I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.” (vv. 22-26)

The picture of this city comes from the previous time when God’s temple in Jerusalem provided access and communication with God.  This new vision moves past the limitations of the past one, because in this city God is much more “present” in the very fiber of the city.  The basic nature of this city is the new closeness and intimacy of God and His people.

Ultimately and most importantly, the fundamental identity of this city is based on God.

      ”And the name of the city from that time on will be:
The LORD is There .” (Eze 48:35)

That’s the reality that God is working for.  Like so many others have said, the story of God begins in a garden and ends in a city.  Even though cities often contain sinfulness, darkness and alienation, this won’t always be the case.

God apparently values the idea of “a city” very much.  So, what does that mean for followers of Jesus who are called to participate in his Kingdom now?  The reality of the Kingdom now is almost a ‘coming attractions’ of the future glory we see in Rev. 21, and followers of Christ are called to live out the future reality here in our present, bringing redemption and transformation to an entire society.

So, to get from sites of evil to good, God seeks their transformation.  Throughout the Bible, this vision is ambitious and idealistic.  I’ll look at that next.

Cities, 2 – hotbeds of sinfulness

So how does the Bible present cities? Much of the time it presents them as hotbeds of sinfulness. Let’s investigate.

• The very first city mentioned in the Bible falls in this category. Cain has just murdered Abel and receives the statement, “You will be a restless wanderer on the earth” (Gen. 4:12). From there, Cain moves on:

“So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch.”

So, instead of living out the life of a restless wanderer, Cain builds himself in a city. In effect, the city is founded upon disobedience to God’s will. Even more, it’s possible that he names the city after his son Enoch – his own creation – as a statement of his personal pride and arrogance. Disobedience, sin, and arrogance are the defining aspects of the Bible’s first city.

From this starting point, it only seems to get worse and worse.

• The next city mentioned is in Genesis 11, Babel, is another testament to human pride and perhaps imperialism, according to certain interpretations (Babel and Babylon are the same Hebrew word).
• After that are Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18-19). In contrast to individualistic notion of sin that is so common today, there is a corporate sense of judgment on both cities. If Abraham could find just a few righteous people, the entire city would be saved (even if the 99% majority was rotten to the core).
• Throughout the conquest of the Holy Land, city-states are conquered and burned to the ground as a means of purification of the land (Deut. 3:6, also the curse that the town of Jericho never be rebuilt in Jos 6:26).
• When the people of Jerusalem forget God, the city is cursed and destroyed and the people are sent into exile (Jer 16:7-9). For many years the city lies in ruins and its people are in exile in Babylon.

Each of these elements indicates that whenever a people became too sinful, their city is destroyed and its people are scattered. Later, when Canaan becomes a vassal state of several empires, their capital cities become examples of ultimate sinfulness:

• The capital of the Assyrian Empire is Nineveh (Is 37:37), and the book of Jonah describes it as a wicked place that deserves punishment (Jon 1:1).
• Babylon, the seat of the Babylonian Empire, becomes the epitome of wickedness, and is cursed to destruction (Jer. 50-51)

Babylon was a gold cup in the LORD’s hand;
she made the whole earth drunk.
The nations drank her wine;
therefore they have now gone mad.

Babylon will suddenly fall and be broken.
Wail over her!
Get balm for her pain;
perhaps she can be healed.

          “‘We would have healed Babylon,
but she cannot be healed;
let us leave her and each go to his own land,
for her judgment reaches to the skies,
it rises as high as the clouds.’ (Jer 51:7-9)

• After Babylon comes Rome, the greatest of these cities. Much in the book of Revelation can be seen as a concealed condemnation against its power and godlessness (Rev 17).

All of these examples of cities indicate that a fundamental aspect of their identity is sinfulness. They are hotbeds of idolatry, human (over)ambition, imperialism and pride. Such a perspective on ‘the city’ may have made many people to give up on cities altogether. Because they are hotbeds of sin (and possibly even warrant destruction), it becomes much more attractive to get away from the cities to a healthier environment – the countryside or even the suburbs. Even worse, this outlook can make it easy to ignore the pressing urban plagues of poverty, crime, injustice and oppression by assuming “that’s how all cities are.”

The greatest demographic shift in recent times is the mass migration of the rural poor into urban areas. For many reasons, people in the two-thirds world are packing into cities, creating massive megacities and even more pressing examples of poverty, crime, injustice and oppression in the cities. There is much that is wrong with these places, but I’m not quite sure God would have us simply reject urban life because of it.

Next, I’ll take the view from the other side – the benefits of cities as seen in the Bible.

Cities, 1 – Psalm 107’s restored community

I think I’m going to spend the next few weeks looking the idea of “city” in the Bible. I’ll go through different examples throughout the Bible of certain passages and show what God’s getting at when he speaks of different cities. Ultimately, I think God’s vision of what a city is (or can be) is much different than how the world sees it.

I’d like to start with a simple overview of a common idea about cities – a location where a people come together that have a feeling of being gathered by God. Psalm 107 describes the nature of this location and what defines its identity.

Psalm 107 mentions how different groups of people are transformed by their interactions with God. In fact, the basic message is basically that God acts to transform the world – making places that prosper into barren wastelands because of humanity’s wickedness.

He turned rivers into a desert,
flowing springs into thirsty ground,
and fruitful land into a salt waste,
because of the wickedness of those who lived there. (33-34)

But God is not presented as only a force of destruction. He’s also building up, but it’s not done for those in power and control:

He turned the desert into pools of water
and the parched ground into flowing springs; (v. 35)

The spring in the desert is a common biblical theme to show how God’s work transforms the world. But, in the psalm, the more-developed image used to describe this new reality is of a city:

Some wandered in desert wastelands,
finding no way to a city where they could settle.
They were hungry and thirsty,
and their lives ebbed away.
Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He led them by a straight way
to a city where they could settle. (4-7)

These people are wanderers with no attachment to any place, isolated and alone. After crying out to God – their only source of deliverance – they are brought to a place of healing and restoration: a city. It’s a far cry from the modern vision of cities, which are characterized by urban decay, crime, poverty and hopelessness. But, the image is clear: God’s vision of prosperity is closely tied to cities.

He turned the desert into pools of water
and the parched ground into flowing springs;
there he brought the hungry to live,
and they founded a city where they could settle.
They sowed fields and planted vineyards
that yielded a fruitful harvest;
he blessed them, and their numbers greatly increased,
and he did not let their herds diminish. (35-38)

This city is a place of fruitfulness. But also, there is the formation of a new society, one that is made by bringing together the broken, hungry, and lost. Psalm 107 speaks of homeless wanderers (4-7), prisoners (10-14), rebels & sinners (17-20), and merchants who realize their own frailty in the face of God’s power (27-30). Each of these groups comes from very different situations, and as a result, the new members of this city have very little in common. In fact, only two aspects bring them together. Each of their experiences, different though they are, lead them all to repeat the same cry of thankfulness to God (verses 8, 15, 21, 31). And also, their communal identity is based on a feeling of being brought together by God; they are “those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south” (v. 3).

These two elements forge a new sense of belonging, and the city – the community formed by the restoration and transformation of God – is founded on 1) being thankful for God’s work & restoration and 2) crossing barriers to create a new society of people – an unlikely community of wildly different people – brought together by and for God.