From our It-Could-Only-Happen-in-a-Church Department: A nursery worker refused to change a baby’s diaper. Why? Because the baby had been brought to church by a baby sitter.
The worker didn’t feel it was proper for a baby sitter to let the nursery do her work. When the nursery supervisor decided the worker should change the diaper, the worker quit.
Anyone who has pastored a church knows people get angry for the strangest reasons. We can wish it weren’t so, but it is. The question is, can we help?
While that question was running through my mind, my Bible reading happened to take me to the Book of Numbers and the rules for the cities of refuge. You remember the situation. After conquering the land of Canaan, the Israelites set apart six cities as refuges for anyone who accidentally killed another person.
The ancient Near East custom of blood vengeance, the execution of a willful murderer by the victim’s next of kin, was recognized by the Hebrew people as a valid legal principle. But for involuntary manslaughter, anyone, whether Israelite or foreigner, who committed the deed could flee to one of these six cities for asylum.
This was not a legal loophole. The refugee still had to stand trial to determine if the death was accidental. If so, asylum continued.
Neither was this refugee program an easy way to start a grand new life. A person who fled to a city of refuge had to remain within city boundaries until the high priest of Israel died, a time of general amnesty for all. That could mean many years away from family, friends, and livelihood.
Providing refuge during disputes-the idea intrigued me. I immediately thought of the countless people in our churches either suffering emotional bruises or inflicting them. Perhaps they, too, need refuge, not for manslaughter but for “feeling-slaughter.”
In such cases, of course, God is our primary refuge. Many Old Testament passages speak of God as refuge. Moses, in his final blessing to the tribes of Israel, told them that “the eternal God is your refuge.” And David’s song of praise in 2 Samuel testifies that “my God is my rock in whom I take refuge.” In fact, God as refuge from enemies is a frequent theme of the Psalms.
Yet beyond the God-as-refuge idea, is there a place for human-based sanctuary provided by the church for those in emotional need? Modern-day cities of refuge? True, we no longer need to protect manslaughterers from blood avengers. But what local church leader hasn’t felt the need to separate two feeling-slaughterers to prevent escalation of hostilities? Who of us has not counseled a suffering brother who needs some time away from the battlefield until his wounds can heal? What kind of refuge can we provide?
It might be as simple as physical separation-removing someone from one committee and placing him on another, for example, to minimize unnecessary personal contact. Or it could involve calling a month-long moratorium on discussion of a particularly divisive issue.
This requires a patient attitude toward the “criminal.” Judgment is suspended. It can mean lending psychological support to someone who needs a safe place to vent feelings and hear encouraging words.
The refuge idea avoids the big mistake in dealing with heated emotions: to trivialize them, to say, “This just isn’t rational,” and to try to talk people out of their anger. Emotions are real, and the first step in dealing with an emotion like anger is not to assign blame but to admit we all get angry, sometimes for the flimsiest reasons, yet those reasons must be dealt with.
William Blake put it best when he said, “The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of experience.”
Perhaps we can be most helpful by providing an opportunity and place to work out their feelings rather than a logical paradigm to explain why they shouldn’t feel them.
A refuge also provides time to catch one’s breath without feeling rushed toward resolution. Working out anger is a little like digesting food: there is no rushing the process. Trying to speed it up is just asking for a stomachache later.
What about our own need for cities of refuge? We can’t deny the reality of our emotions any more than we can deny them in our parishioners.
Pastors use many refuges. For some it’s a day away every month. For others, private office hours. Having a hobby helps, as does a special circle of friends totally separate from the church family. A refuge is an individual thing, and it might take some experimentation to find the right one.
One of my refuges these past seven years has been writing this column. Four times a year I sit down in front of a keyboard and try to put myself in your shoes. After snugging the laces and wiggling my toes a bit to get the feel, I flex a thought or two on how the theme of this issue intersects with local church leaders.
It has been fun, and I have enjoyed every minute. Since most of an editor’s time is spent polishing the work of others, writing is an opportunity to get away from it all and create.
From now on, Marshall Shelley, managing editor of LEADERSHIP, will write this page. It will become, perhaps, his escape and definitely your delight. I will take my place as an occasional columnist on the back page along with Harold Myra and Paul Robbins. That’s one more thing about finding refuges. They change all the time, and the changes are usually good.
Terry C. Muck is editor of LEADERSHIP.
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