The City of Joy

In a recent book I read, the author argues that as our world becomes increasingly urban, so conflicts, warfare and the search for security are increasingly located within cities. The tensions triggered by cultural changes, migration, and ethnic and religious differences, are expressed in what have become the key strategic sites of our day: cities. Especially in the developed world, cities increasingly become fortresses, defended by surveillance of entire populations, raising barriers to entry by strangers, and the militarization of urban spaces. Yet the goal of urban peace and well-being remains elusive. 

How powerful is the language of faith in this psalm! It involves perhaps the clearest statement in the Old Testament of the possibility of peace, beauty, joy and security in an urban context. There is no anti-urban flight from the city here; rather, the blessings located within the urban center radiate out to the surrounding countryside, so that “the villages of Judah are glad” and benefit from the justice shaping the social life of Zion (11). In addition, the city is praised for the beauty of its location and appearance; the very sight of Jerusalem brings joy and stimulates pride and celebration. Might we propose this as the foundation for a biblical approach to architecture and urban planning? God’s intention, as modeled in ancient Jerusalem (and later seen even more clearly in John’s vision of the new Jerusalem, see Rev. 21:9-26), is that cities become places of beauty and joy for all who dwell within them.

The crucial point concerns the source of these urban blessings, “the city of the Lord Almighty … the city of our God” (8). Our dreams of utopia will all turn to nightmares as long as they focus on urban renewal without reference to the “great King” (2) whose praise “reaches to the ends of the earth” (10).

Think of one city known to you, reread the psalm and pray for that city in light of this biblical vision.