Urbanization
Posted by: ba <ba@...>
http://www.forthright.net
Straight to the Cross
COLUMN: Field Notes
Urbanization
By Michael E. Brooks
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the
prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How
often I wanted to gather your children together,
as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but
you were not willing!" (Matt. 23:37).
It was almost exactly twenty years ago that I was
in a truly large city for the first time. The city
was Cairo, Egypt, and though I have been in other
metropolises since, I still remember the impact of
that first experience. Urbanization is a fact of
life that we all know intellectually, but I am not
sure the average person from middle America, or
any other rural background, can really appreciate
the reality until he or she has actually been
there.
Traffic is part of it. You sit in the heat and the
noise and the exhaust fumes and you just can't
believe it. But that is only the surface. There is
also the ghetto squalor and the fascinating blur
of all those different people and vehicles and
sights and sounds and smells that assault your
senses. But again, that is not really "it".
Why do people come into the city in such huge
numbers? If newspaper and broadcast opinions can
be trusted, it is largely about hope and
opportunity. Our rural areas don't provide the
jobs, the diversity, the upward mobility that we
see in the city. And so we flock en masse, looking
for that solution to our economic woes that we
have come to believe the big city offers. And,
certainly, some find it. But far more find only
the filth, the stench, and the despair of too many
people in too small a space.
First century Jerusalem was a small, rather
insignificant town, even by the standards of the
day. Yet it attracted the needy just as do our
cities today. And one newcomer, not needy but
there to help those who were, looked upon it and
saw the despair, and it almost broke his heart.
"Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem," Jesus cried! Can you
help but wonder how he would have viewed our
immense urban sprawls? But we know don't we? He
does view them with compassion and urgency just as
he did while here on earth. "Go into all the
world," surely means "go into the cities," and
preach and minister and care, just as He did so
long ago.
This is not offered as some kind of contribution
to missions methodology, but as a personal
reaction to the impact yet another huge city has
recently made. I have just spent a few days in
Dhaka, Bangladesh, home to more than ten million
souls. Much of that time was spent in frustration
and irritation, stuck in traffic, bothered by
beggars, wishing for some clean country air. Is
that a true Christian reaction? No, not really.
Rather, I wish I had spent more time seeing
opportunity, interacting with people, seeking
mission. Our cities have many tremendous problems.
They are filled with despair, poverty and need.
But they also are filled with those seeking hope
and "life more abundant." May we find ways and
means to help them find it.
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