THE CITY OF MAN AGAINST THE CITY OF GOD
by David G. Duggan ©
Special to Virtueonline
December 26, 2024
Though I live in a city housing millions of souls, the pandemic, its crime and politics of unmatched corruption have largely robbed it of the vibe of city life. Crowds are shunning the downtown, remote workers don’t pack the public transit, and despite the holiday lights, the art, shopping, sports and entertainment venues don’t draw the suburbanites from their manicured lawns. It doesn’t help that its sports teams are beyond lousy.
For thousands of years, Christians and Jews have worshiped in cities. Perhaps not a requirement of the faith, cities create the critical mass and stark contrast of wealth and poverty, aloneness and congestion, sacred and profane. Mere blocks from cathedrals lie red-light districts, mere steps from high-end retailers beggars stick their hands out, and pickpockets are always prowling the streets and subways.
Though raised in rural Judea, Jesus spent about a third of his ministry in cities, principally Jerusalem, but also Capernaum and the Decapolis. He used cities as examples of places of sin worthy of redemption as a hen gathers her brood. Sometimes the crowds in the cities Jesus visited were so packed that the lame and the halt hoped simply to touch his garment to be healed. Their faith was rewarded.
Why God has chosen cities as recipients of His grace may seem incongruous. His initial call was to Abram to leave Ur, the largest city of Mesopotamia, and go to the Canaan wilderness, some 700 miles to the west. God later appeared to Moses in the wilderness and He used Moses to lead His people into the desert. After Nebuchadnezzar had leveled Jerusalem, the Israelites were exiled to Babylon where they were a religious minority. One might think that God was telling His people: “Forget this fascination with crowds and temples, walled enclosures and sentries. Stick to your roots as farmers and shepherds. There you will see my abundance and mercy.”
Yet the Israelites rebuilt the holy city when they were released from exile, and for 2,500 years ever since then, through the destruction of Jerusalem, the sack of Rome, the Black Death and plagues and pandemics, the faith has persisted in cities. Despite the crime and the grime, the poverty and the alienation, cities create the means of God’s mercy to shine through the winter darkness.
David Duggan is a retired attorney living in Chicago.
It's remarkable these days that the worst places regarding drug addiction seem to be also the most rural places, such as West Virginia. When I was young, it was the opposite. Mass media has transformed things in this way, I guess.
Yes, cities provide that contrast effect… the best and worst of humankind, and especially when people gather closely together. Both Jerusalem and Rome typified this contrast.
Lament over Jerusalem. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, our house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Matthew 23:37–39)
Like Nineveh and of course Sodom and Gomorrah, God would speak of these cities almost as…