Save the City, (Part Two). . .
Jonah 4:11 (NIV)
“. . . 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?”
It happened that I was talking with a Methodist preacher friend of mine who had appreciated the first post on this subject. ‘Said he knew just how I felt because his church, like mine, had its share of the endless parade of human brokenness drifting over its grounds.
We both agreed it all felt overwhelming, at times, this constant tide of aimless, lost ones and ourselves so unskillful in their rescue. Yet it is clear that such skill comes only by ceaseless practice so we’ll go on trying to find ways to relate, ways to connect, ways to be a community with them and for them.
Then the subject shifted a bit. We took up the many pastors who, in reading those words describing a people living on the ragged edge of life — “out there” with their brokenness and sin, may not see their congregations among that number. Each Sunday their people appear like magic, freshly scrubbed and smiling, to fill their padded pews. They are “church broke” (that is, like a “house broke” puppy they know when and where to do what and why) and are really a splendid group of folk. The very best sort. Not at all like the winos and druggies that drift across my church lawn.
But, wait a minute. . .
If you could float home behind them and hide in the air above their heads and wait there, watching throughout the whole week, I wonder what you’d see? Would you see more similarities than dissimilarities? For example,
Where my neighbors score hard and illegal drugs, might yours use a bottle with a prescription or a distillery label on it for the same purpose, instead?
Where my neighbors might lie down in the back of someone’s car to turn a trick for drugs, do yours drive fine cars through clean streets out to the upscale hotel — to meet someone else’s husband or wife for an hour or a night?
And where my neighbors beat and abuse one another with fists and fury, do yours sit in stoney silence, putting on a happy face only so long as is necessary to meet with friends and associates . . . or to go to your church?
I’ve a feeling that Nineveh’s neighbors all share common needs and longings. Upscale, downscale is really irrelevant. What matters is the connection of those neighbors to one another and to God.
Our Nineveh has a God. And that God has deep compassion for all the neighborhoods of the city. He is loving and merciful, hungry for relationship with the people of the city. He is a God with a smiling face, a loving heart, and wide-open arms.
Yes, Nineveh has a God. Just one question remains to be answered. . .
Does our Nineveh have a Jonah?
