Loving Nineveh

“You really do love this town, don’t you,” I said while visiting with a pastor-friend in a city where I once lived.

“I don’t love its debauchery, I don’t condone its sin; I love it enough to confront its sin. I love it enough to stay here,” he said as we drank cups of the strong coffee the region is known for.

We talked about the new mayor and the new police chief and the old problems with corruption and crime. We talked about the laissez faire attitude toward morality and inherent in that the difficulty of ministering the gospel of Christ. I wondered how he had stayed so long—almost 15 years—when so many pastors had come and gone in that time.

My friend said, “When I talk with students who move here to attend seminary, guys will often say, ‘My wife hates it here. It’s just not home.'”

“What do you tell them?” I asked.

“Give it a year.”

It took longer than that for me, I thought. I lived in this town ten years as a seminarian and pastor, and only in the last three or four years did it really feel like home.

I became a student of the city and its culture. Our church sponsored a sightseeing tour for new residents a couple of times a year, and I became the tour guide. I could point out all the famous spots and tell the great stories. And, of course, I found all the great eating spots in this town known for its food, and I shared my favorites list with the newcomers.

But it was more than a year before this place that was so different from “back home” felt remotely like home. The accents were different, the attitudes were askew, and the message, so readily received in my more overtly “Christian” homeland fell on deaf ears. Here I had to earn a hearing for the gospel. And even then, the message often seemed drowned out by jazz bands, strip-bar barkers, and shouts of “Throw me something, mister!” from inebriated parade goers willing to offer fleshly enticements. The greater threat, the prevailing attitude among church members: “That’s just the way it is here. You’ll get used to it.”

I didn’t want to get used to it. Any more than Jonah wanted to get used to the sins of Nineveh. At times I thought, If God overturns this place, they’ll deserve it, and prayed for enough notice to get out of town.

“Give it a year?” I asked, reaching for the cream, as I had forgotten how strong the coffee is.

“During that year, I tell them, ask for a love for the place,” he said. “Ask God to show you something about the place that he loves and to give you that love.”

I did come to appreciate its history and its food, I thought. But he’s not talking about gumbo.

“I’m not saying you have to love the attitudes or the sin, but you have to love the people enough to confront their sin and to preach against it. That’s a different kind of love. That’s the call to be a Jeremiah, to preach truth about the coming judgment and to weep while you do.”

I had the wrong prophet. I was thinking of the pouting prophet and he was talking about the crying prophet.

“During that year, you have to ask God to help you redefine love,” he concluded.

So many students I met wanted to love this city as they loved home, but the love of home is often about familiarity and warmth. At home we derive our sense of belonging from knowing all the names and faces, from having well defined relationships and shared history. It’s others who define us—as friend, child, sibling, parent; we love who we are in that place, and therefore it’s easy to love the place.

My wife calls this “knowing where the restrooms are.” In an unfamiliar place, it’s embarrassing to ask strangers for directions to the facilities. It’s easier to stay in a familiar place, even if you aren’t completely happy there, even if you have the sense God is leading you elsewhere, because you know where the restrooms are. The same is true of relationships and ministries. But we mustn’t confuse familiarity with love, or comfort with calling.

In unfamiliar places (or those we know, but still don’t like), our sense of belonging comes not from how others define us, but from the definition of our calling—we are preacher, prophet, missionary, Christ-follower. And unfamiliar places, our motivation is not that we are loved, but that we are sent to love.

Loving a place means working for its transformation, not merely embracing it in its sinful state. This kind of love means advocating for it when other Christians and ministers and missions organizations have given up. When we find Christ growing within us this kind of love, we will not run from the place but to it—and its people.

For a moment I thought of my former congregation, the people I had grown to love as family, and the meaningful ministry we had done there. Then the conversation turned to my friend’s new position. At a time when he could retire to the country, he has agreed to stay in the city as a denominational leader. He will plant churches and help pastors develop their love for this strange place.

“Give it a year,” he will tell them, “and learn to love the place because God sent you here. Learn to love the people and advocate for their transformation.”

He told me his plans, and I drank my strong coffee, and loved it.

Eric Reed is managing editor of Leadership journal and presently interim pastor of a church in suburban Chicago.

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