Finding Jesus in the City

At the risk of reinforcing the kinds of stereotypes that I am ever trying to push against, let me speak to how being an urban Christian connects me more closely to the life of Jesus than if I lived in the suburbs.  This may not seem a surprising statement, except that there remains a prevailing sentiment in modern American Christianity that being of this faith persuasion means attending a respectable church in a suburban community, and that furthermore that urban settings are either cesspools of sin and/or places where you go to do service projects and mercy ministries.  Never mind that the vast majority of the New Testament, and therefore of the stories of the early church, is set in an urban context.  Which is of course not to say that God is only at work in cities, but it is to say that if Jesus, the apostles, and Paul did their thing in cities then surely God is still showing up in those places today too.




But I digress from today's point, which is that the kinds of life experiences that Jesus had and could directly empathize with are the ones that we modern-day believers can more easily access in urban settings than elsewhere.  It is in our cities that culture is formed, criminal justice is conducted, and the best and worst of humanity are more concentrated.  Jesus, recall, though he abided by contemporary mores concerning how religion was conducted (attending synagogue, for example), more often than not rubbed shoulders with society's outcasts than with the day's respected religious leaders.  He was falsely accused, unjustly condemned, and ostracized from his friends - where do you think you will be more likely to find people who have had similar experiences?  And his followers, after first being downcast that his ministry had come to a screeching halt at the hands of Roman executors and then rejoicing that he was indeed risen again, took their message to cities and to city folk.

Where he lived and ministered, who he sought out, what life experiences he would find his deepest connections to - all of these things point to an urban Jesus.  For those of us who live in cities and as a result more readily intersect and empathize with all that is found in our cities, what a wonderful way to connect with our savior.