MAY 26 2018
THE CITY OF THE FUTURE.
I once preached in our church on Jonah, and not finding a song about him I made one. Singing it on the tune of Psalm 8, “Lord, oh Lord your glorious name”, was a lot of fun.
JONAH IN THE WHALE
REFRAIN
Whale oh whale in all the sea
The greatest whale
With its double-steepled tail
Swallowed Jonah in travail:
Oh what a tale!
1. God, the Lord to Jonah said:
Go to Nineveh the bad
Jonah did not like the charge
Instead to Tarshish did he march
Set out to sail. REFRAIN
2. Jonah caused the storm they got
Sailors then did cast the lot
In the sea they threw the male
And at once it stopped the gale
But not the whale! REFRAIN
3. In the belly of the fish
Jonah made a fervent wish.
Then the Lord spoke to the whale
Who spew Jonah on the shale
So pale and frail. REFRAIN
4. On the Nineveh he went
Telling all now to repent.
When they did he got so mad
Calling God e’vrything that’s bad
How sad, how sad. REFRAIN
5. Jonah tired and angry
Sat himself under a tree
Which the Lord for him supplied
But the tree grew sick and died
And Jonah cried. REFRAIN
6. Then the Lord to Jonah said
If one dead tree makes you so mad
Don’t I then have equal right
To be concerned for Nineveh’s plight:
Don’t be so trite! REFRAIN.
In verse 11 of the last chapter of the book of Jonah, the LORD said, “Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left, as well as many animals?”
No doubt ancient Nineveh was a huge city, also because people farmed within the confines of its limits: that’s why it was so huge and had many animals. That indicates that cities in the very early antiquity were basically self-sustaining: they had to be.
The city of Rome changed that pattern. During its heyday it was totally depended on the countryside, needing ever greater distances to find food and wood. Thomas Homer-Dixon, in his book THE UPSIDE OF DOWN, writes, “The Empire needed more and more energy, and in the end it could not find enough.” That was the end of Rome.
And we?
Ever wondered why there are so many trucks on the highways? Many of them are there to bring food to the millions of city dwellers who want three square meals per day: food from all over the world. We waste a lot of that food, enough to feed the poorer 30 percent of the world.
By now it’s becoming quite clear that in North America, trucks and the cars have fashioned our cities, an unsustainable situation. Walrus Magazine, in its May issue, with as subtitle, “The FUTURE OF almost everything”, emphasizes this again when it points out that, “If we are currently doing a poor job of building them (the cities), it is because we insist on catering not to the need of city dwellers, but to the demands of cars.”
One of the curses of modernity is that North America’s cities have been weaned on the automobile: the entire economy depends on having a personal vehicle: our subdivisions, our shopping malls and our box stores all are car-dependent. Not so much in Europe. There the cities are centuries old and came into being before the advent of the automobile.
WALRUS really sees the North America’s future in terms of UTOPIA, wishing for a car-less, walkable, bicycle-friendly city. Dream on! The problem of suburbs and accommodation for the poor does not magically go away: we are stuck with the ‘sins of our fathers’ in more than one way. Not only did we welcome the ‘car’, we also gutted all public transportation, seeing salvation in carbon slaves. Even now governments on all levels subsidize automobile manufacture to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The same is of true of energy production. Where will the money come from to build subways at a rate of $1 billion per mile, as we all are already overburdened with debt?
I already quoted one example from the Bible. Let me take another one, even far earlier.
You may recall how the two first sons of Adam and Eve were quite religious and made an offering to Yahweh. God accepted Abel’s gesture of devotion, but rejected Cain’s, because he was not sincere in his approach to God. This infuriated Cain so much that he killed his brother. Religious strife is still with us and is often the most ferocious.
Cain fled and we read that he built a city. This is a clear sign that the human desire is to exclude God from creation and is the prime motive behind the founding of the city. Oops, that hurts: the city is not a product of God, but of his ever-present opponent.
Cain, who murdered his brother Abel, is the first city builder. He called it Enoch, which means a New Beginning.
French Law Professor Jacques Ellul in his book THE MEANING OF THE CITY mentioned that it was Cain’s intention to re-make the world over again, with not the Garden of Eden but the City as the new paradise.
He also wrote: “Cain has built a city. For God’s Eden he substitutes his own, for the goal given to his life by God, he substitutes a goal chosen by himself.
The city is the direct consequence of Cain’s murderous act and of his own refusal to accept God’s protection. ….The city is opposed to Eden….God’s creation is seen as nothing. Cain made a new start, a start no longer seen as God’s beginning, but of human making.
And thus Cain, with everything he does digs a little deeper the abyss between himself and God. With Cain’s founding of Enoch, we have a sure starting place for all of civilization, with the result that Paradise became a legend and creation a myth. Cain took possession of the world and used it as he wishes. We do the very same: it is our highhanded piracy of creation that has made it impossible for creation to give God the glory.
Today we see this all too clearly in Trump who has no consideration for God’s creation whatsoever, enthusiastically supported by the majority of “Christians”.
Country versus City.
Ellul does not glorify the country over the city, because, today, by and large, the countryside simply has become an extension of the city. Geert Mak in his Dutch book “How God disappeared from Jorwerd” (Hoe God verdween uit Jorwerd), eloquently describes how a small Frisian village lost its tradesmen, its specialty stores, its very soul, when commuters bought its houses, and relied for on city-based big block merchandize, so effectively killing the village’s economy.
The same is now true everywhere in the Western world on a much grander scale. We have gone to Asia for making things, while the old manufacturing cities are losing their soul: doing exactly what happened to Jorwerd. Just look at Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Lansing, Welland and Windsor: there too God has disappeared, paving the way for Trump.
Once our financial house collapses, the same will happen to New York and Toronto, to London and Frankfort.
Ellul mentions that too when he writes that, “Babylon is not A city, it is THE city……..When the wrath of God is loosed, she is struck first…. She is the very home of civilization and when the great city vanishes, there is no more civilization, a world disappears…..The very fact of living in the city directs a person down an inhuman road. They are taken into the service and worship of a somber goddess.”
Strong language and utterly scary.
Is that the end? Does Ellul in his THE MEANING OF THE CITY offer no hope?
He does. He points to the NEW CITY to come, the exact opposite of the city Cain founded and in which we now live. In the new city, the City of God, the Lord’s presence will be constant, his spirit all pervasive. It promises in Revelation 14: 13, “Our good deeds will follow us there”.
Writes Ellul: “The new city is founded in humility, constructed in the acceptance of God’s decisions. ……….Just as the new city is the accomplishment of what we humans were never able to realize, she is also the exact opposite of the earthly city….and the exact counterpart of what we humans had wanted to do.”
Properly speaking the new world to come will totally reflect God’s will. It will be a world where communion with God is perfect, expressed in total symbiosis with all, humans, animals and plants.
The City of the Future.
Today water has become a curse: rising sea levels, unstoppable rains, more severe hurricanes have made water-side properties an insurance nightmare.
Not so in the City of the Future. There the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22, starts with “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the City. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.” Isn’t that beautiful: the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations!
That tells a lot. In the City of the Future, water is as pure as God. Trees are there too: the very trees which had become inaccessible after Adam and Eve were banned from the Garden of Eden: the Trees of Life, trees that provide a variety of fruits continuously.
It seems to me that we can visualize paradise as being situated on a high plateau with the fountainheads of mighty rivers. It suggests to me that these four rivers represent the streams that irrigate the major countries of the world and so provide the world with riches and life.
Paradise is the source that provides the world with precious water. It lies at the centre of the world. Paradise discloses the secret of the well being and beauty of the world: it is here in particular that God reveals his presence.
Revelation 21 gives a description of the New Jerusalem. Streets of gold? Well, I don’t particularly buy that. I believe that John tries to convey here the utter uniqueness of the coming Kingdom. That singularity is so different, so totally contrary to what we see the city today.
So what how will The City of the Future be like?
The City of the Future, the new paradise, is like the old paradise, with rivers flowing, with the trees of life growing in the heart of the world. From these the world receives its life.
In Revelation 21, John has a view of the new city. He looks closely for a temple there, but sees none. Not seeing a temple there he concludes that the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple: the divine law written on our hearts. Gone are the churches, the preachers and the Bible.
The Good News.
The City of the Future is already happening today. Churches are changing. I am a member of our church’s Environmental Team. We are converting the lawn around our church building into “Bee and Butterfly friendly flower beds”, and intend to raise vegetables there as well for community use. We also have special services at outdoor beauty spots. On June 23 this will take place at our own property at our huge Beaver Dam.
We’re in the middle of a vast historical transition. Now is the time to prepare for Life after life. Now is the time to prepare for the City of the Future: the complete oneness of humanity with creation.
If you want to live in The Eternal City to come, seek a church community or start one that practices the holy unity of God, Humanity and the Earth.