The Lure of the City
I admit that I’m a City Guy. As an adult, I have lived in the heart of five great American urban areas. As I was coming of age in a cozy suburb east of Philadelphia, I felt continually drawn to the city. Averaging perhaps twice a week, I would take the train or the trolley-and-subway combination to Center City and then travel to some of the other great neighborhoods to enjoy movies, concerts, restaurants, poetry readings, plays, sporting events and museums. I considered moving into a new downtown high-rise right after I turned eighteen, but instead chose to live in urban Denver, Colorado, for several years, half a block from the main east-west thoroughfare running through town. The buses came by every six minutes, women dressed in colorful clothing picked up men on the next block over, and sometimes I heard lovers’ quarrels outside my third-floor window. I saw weapons drawn on a couple of occasions and I was burgled two or three times, but I had been robbed by a gang of men in my middle-class suburban town in Pennsylvania as well, so I wasn’t fazed. My neighbors were interesting, down-to-earth people, a diverse crowd. I always enjoyed the city vibe.
My Rural Frustrations
I have also lived in rural areas of New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois. I found those areas to be much less satisfactory. Rural areas have their own problems that sometimes seem similar to urban ones, but they annoy me more. When I pastored a small church in a very small town in central Pennsylvania, the area from which I could draw new families was greatly diminished compared to what I was accustomed, and I also had a much smaller pool of volunteers from which to draw. While I had discovered a good deal of instability among my volunteers in an urban region of New England, they weren’t any more reliable in the country, and I had difficulty getting them to follow instructions. The rural folks were always quick to adopt privileged attitudes regarding their ministry tasks, refusing to follow the selected curriculum and resisting the regular training sessions I tried to establish. This may have been due to the sentiment that they had lived in that community for all their lives, and since I was much newer to the region, they felt they had a better grasp on how things should be done; At least, that’s what they told me, often in language blunter than I would have employed. The core group I inherited was all related to one another in the congregation, and sometimes it took me two years or more to sort out the kinship ties. If one family member didn’t like what I was doing, the discontentment spread rapidly through the congregation, sometimes resulting in a mass exodus.
I held other community jobs while I pastored the small rural church, which met in the whitewashed clapboard building on the main two-lane blacktop meandering through town. As a mobile crisis counselor, I traveled to the homes, regional schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and jails each week to help people in crisis. What I discovered about the habits and histories of the people in my three-county area was often shocking, and I was left wondering whether my ministry would have any lasting impact. While I realized that sin is sin wherever I might travel, it seemed to be broadcast from the mountaintops in rural areas. People in the cities seemed to be more successful at keeping their offenses under the surface.
City Dwellers Also Love Nature
While it’s true that American cities are far removed from paradise, I enjoy living in close proximity to a lot of diverse people. When I hear country musicians warbling idealistically about their small towns, their love of cornfields and tractors and their obsessions with hunting and fishing, it invokes in me an internal eye-roll. Not being a farmer, or a sportsman, or a patron of the Friday Night Lights, my small-town experiences ran one hundred eighty degrees contrary to the ones idealized by the Nashville crowd. I observed the racism that rapidly emerged when Asians opened businesses in our community, and when a black man won the Democratic primary, later ascending to the presidency. I experienced personal discrimination from people who refused to rent to me after I left my first church because they had heard specious rumors about me and had spread them all over town. I experienced people pretending not to know me when they passed me on the street or at county fairs because they had decided I was insufficiently supportive of one of their heroes, or because they had heard gossip about me that I refused to respond to. The very thing that was liberating for many of these rural folks—staying in the same town for generations even though it severely curtailed their educational and vocational opportunities—was oppressive to me. I simply was not cut out to be a country boy, and I have never apologized for that.
While I have always loved spending countless hours and days enjoying God’s creation, camping, hiking or simply reading and praying on the banks of a mountain stream, I had always managed to incorporate these activities when I lived in cities. Those graces were often within the domain of my weekends, days off and vacations. I didn’t have to live on a farm to revel in the great outdoors.
The Afterlife Convenes in a City
Those who hate cities might want to brace themselves when they discover important data about the coming kingdom. The Revelation of St. John the Divine is the primary source Christians use to understand future events. Even the U.S. military has recently employed Revelation to anticipate the fulfillment of recent conflicts. Believers seem to salivate over the thought of a coming Antichrist and the subsequent horrific battle paving the way to the conclusion of history. I have to wonder if they have discerned the nature of their new living quarters after these things come to pass. If they believe the scriptures to be inspired, they will discover that their destination is a city of unimaginable proportions.
One estimate puts the city described in Revelation Chapter 21 at about 1,400 miles long! If you can imagine walking the most direct route from New York City to Oklahoma City and then reimagine that route as encompassing the east-west borders of a city, you are on the way to grasping what St. John marveled at in his apocalyptic vision. But going north to south, the city would also approximate a stroll from Boston to Miami. This doesn’t even take into account the perspective that the boundaries would extend not just in two directions but 1400 miles vertically as well. It’s heaven, you know? It’s not as if people will be limited to living on the ground. Billions could easily occupy a city of such proportions, without ever overcrowding it.
The Revelation Reveals our Destination
The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cubits thick. The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass. -Revelation 21: 15-21
Symbols Pointing to Complex Truths
Having thus teased out, for your consumption, an admittedly faulty biblical foundation regarding God’s love for the urban environment, I would be remiss not to mention that the entire book of Revelation is based on a complex network of symbols. The numbers cited are not meant to be applied literally, but they point to a greater reality. In fact, the use of the numbers 12,000 and 144 indicates perfection and completion, and as such should not be taken as literal measurements. In all likelihood, this city will be exponentially larger—the “complete” size suitable for eternity– and we can’t accurately speculate upon its content. The symbolic numbers may indicate that this will be a city without any boundaries whatsoever. By acknowledging the urban analogy, I am not suggesting that this implies an environment of wall-to-wall people, nor that any sense of urban sprawl will exist. God’s ultimate paradise will surely put all of our city parks or green spaces to shame by comparison. There will be more than enough room to satisfy everyone’s predilections. We need not prepare our imaginations for celestial urban planning. What we do need to understand is that, like cities, the afterlife will be resplendent with people. A vast number, which cannot be counted, as referenced in Revelation 7:9. These people will be representative of all ethnicities and languages.
What God Loves about Cities
Among the rural people I have encountered, one of the urban features most frequently disparaged is the sheer number of people living in a relatively small region. Country people often tremble at the notion of so many residents living together in close quarters. Yet, isn’t that exactly the point? The Future Kingdom apparently will be full of people, emerging out of the wazoo. Millions upon millions of people. This is simply one more indicator of the admonition to love them here on earth; Doing so is paradise. It is literally a heavenly dictum to be surrounded by others who are loving, who possess sentiments and common humanity.
I don’t believe that God’s heart for the cities is predicated upon the architecture that is often unique to their regions, or appreciation for all the historic, entertainment, and sightseeing opportunities afforded. I believe he loves cities because of the sheer number of people who occupy their borders. These are his people, in the global sense. Certainly not all urban dwellers are Christ-followers. Perhaps God sees the masses as pre-believers or as people from other faiths who are endeavoring to look upward for divine encounters. and God is planning to reclaim them. Many of them may be so calcified in their urban problems, in self-serving habits, and in evil pursuits that they have hardened their hearts to him. The hardness of their hearts may be something they are never able to overcome. Even so, we aren’t privy to which ones will and will not yield to his designs. Therefore, when I see a city—whether it is the one I currently live in or one I may be visiting—I see opportunities. I recognize that because so many families are congregating in one geographic region, this provides even greater opportunities to proclaim the good news to those who haven’t heard it, as well as to those who have heard it but not yet acted upon it.
Challenge to Rural People
So, if you love your tractors, your hunting dogs, your small-town ways, just know that you’re going to have to get your fill of them here on earth. I love retreating to rural places, too. But something superior awaits us in the future, greater than we can imagine. It will be a giant city where the joy of shared humanity—all of us worshipping a common God who has redeemed us—will be the prevailing reality.
If you are engaged in urban ministry as I am, do not lose heart. Where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. Among the evils we encounter each week, and among the abuses, the problems, and frustrations found in urban areas, there will always be prolific opportunities for redemption looming just below the surface. Let us not grow weary in loving people as Christ loved them, and let’s seize whatever opportunities may be hovering on the horizon. God loves people profoundly, and whatever proclivities we demonstrate here on earth, our love for people he is preparing for redemption will be the theme song serenading us into the afterlife.
Image: Pamela Reynoso
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