We all played tag as a kid.  When Father created us, he installed play as something we all know how to do.  The games vary from one culture to the next.  They generally trend toward having a ball involved, but when you’re real little and you’re first figuring out how play works, tag has to be a stepping stone.  Tag is one of those fundamental games that other games build off, and it’s where you learn the fundamentals.  You learn that play involves running away from people as if they were trying to “get you”.  You learn what to do when you fail; what to do when the thing you‘re trying to avoid catches up to you and makes contact, and you are… it.  What do you do when you’re it?

Your children group, just like all the others, had to decide on rules about tag-backs, because children who have just discovered tag have also discovered that we’re all vengeful.  Every last one of us has this impulse to tag-back the person who just tagged us.  And I mean impulse in the electrical sense, your brain receives that “just got tagged” input, decides it needs to act quickly, skips the prefrontal decision making and just sends the impulse right down your arm and you’re tagging back without really thinking about it.  The whole thing was automated and you just broke a rule that you believe in so strongly, that you were just preaching it to the other kids two minutes ago.  If you have kids, then you know what a playground sounds like – “no tag-backs, no tag-backs”.  A never-ending cry for justice to prevail over revenge.

The game of tag cannot work until we establish a safe place for the tagger.  It’s often called “base” or “home” to sound like a refuge.  I grew up in Wisconsin in the 90s though, so we had “ghouls”. It’s pronounced like “gools” and since we never wrote it down, either spelling would be fine I suppose.  When I grew up I asked people outside of Wisconsin about ghouls and they never heard of it.  So I looked it up on Reddit and found out that it’s just New England and Wisconsin, which is really fascinating.  

The way ghouls works, the way it saves the game of tag is that when one kid keeps going after another, it gives the chased player a place that he or she can catch their breath and get a fair chance to explain their actions, get some witnesses, and resolve disputes before the dispute turns into a fight.  Without it, our impulse for revenge ruins our precious play time.  And without tag, we’re unable to learn more advanced games where you have to keep score.  How are you going to handle sportsmanship in a game that has a scoreboard, if you can’t catch that impulse for revenge before it turns into reaction?

Father was looking at that same problem in chapter 35 of the Book of Numbers

The Bible is not a book of course, it’s a collection of books, and as the nation of Israel was being born out of the Exodus they were carrying a handful.  One of the books we call Numbers because it opens with a census.  The census counted males 20 years and older, so that each tribe knew how big their army was when it entered into the Promised Land, and each tribe knew how much land they’d be given after the conquest.  It’s right after the book of Leviticus and together they also lay out the duties of the tribe of Levi.  Levi was the tribe that didn’t get a parcel of land.  Instead Yahweh says in Numbers chapter 35 that the other tribes will give Levi a total of 48 cities and out of those 48, they will decide on six refuge cities.

And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there. The cities shall be for you a refuge from the avenger, that the manslayer may not die until he stands before the congregation for judgment. And the cities that you give shall be your six cities of refuge. You shall give three cities beyond the Jordan, and three cities in the land of Canaan, to be cities of refuge. These six cities shall be for refuge for the people of Israel, and for the stranger and for the sojourner among them, that anyone who kills any person without intent may flee there.

Numbers 35:9-15

This is a really good idea.  It sounds weird at first, refuge for sinners, but that’s exactly what sinners need if we’re going to have a functional society.  He also needed to define terms like “avenger” and “manslayer”, so Numbers 35 continues with definitions such as:

• If he strikes with an iron object with intent to kill, he is a murderer
• If he strikes with a stone or wood tool that could cause death, and it does, he is a murderer
• If he throws a stone and it causes death, but it wasn’t his intent, he gets refuge and a trial
• If he pushes someone out of hatred and they die, he is a murderer
• If he pushes someone without enmity and they die, he gets refuge and a trial.
• Deuteronomy 19 gives a specific example – if you’re in the forest chopping wood with your neighbor, and the axe head slips off your handle and kills him, “he may flee to one of these cities and live, lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past”

And then Yahweh sets the rules of “ghouls”.  Verses 4 and 5 say ghouls will be a rectangle measuring 1,000 cubits to the north, south, east, and west of the city walls.  That’s about a half a mile, so basically the Levites were given the suburbs and the pastureland around them, but they had to maintain and enforce it and the city as ghouls.  As long as you are within 1,000 cubits of the walls of a city of refuge, the avenger of blood can’t get you, but if you leave the boundaries of the city, he can get his revenge and not be a murderer.  You have to stay in the city of refuge until the high priest dies, and then you can return home safely.  This is a foreshadow of Jesus, by the way, because He is our high priest and it was his death that set us free from the penalty of our sins.

Do We Still Have Those Today?

I know the levitical law ended when God tore the temple veil at the death of Messiah.  And just to make sure we didn’t miss the change from old to new covenant, Messiah also predicted that the temple would be utterly destroyed and removed and that’s exactly what the Romans did 40 years later.  We no longer have Levites because Yahweh no longer needs a temple.  At pentecost, He put His temple inside the hearts of his chosen.  Paul says it and Peter says it.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord.

Ephesians 2:19-22

…you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ

1 Peter 2:5

That means we can’t rely on the Levites to maintain our ghouls, but as we demonstrated on the playground as children, ghouls must be established or we end in chaos and destruction.  If we are His temple and His priesthood, then we need to maintain the ghouls.  We have to give each other refuge.  If someone comes into my church but they’ve got tattoos on their face, they should feel like this is a refuge for them.  If someone is confused about sexuality and gender, the good seats right in the middle of church still need to be a refuge for them.  If someone is struggling with sin, the church shouldn’t cover it up, or immediately kick them out to maintain their outward image of purity. The church needs to be a safe place for sinners to say “hey, I screwed up.  I made a terrible selfish mistake but it was never my intent to destroy anyone, I was careless and inconsiderate and for that I repent”.  It’s not turning a blind eye to sin, it’s providing a safe place to confess it, find out if we have two or more witnesses, and obtain a fair trial.

Bad Examples of Refuge in Church

In my experience, small groups are the best for this and I’ve been in various kinds of churches.  In some groups if you’re asked “how are you?” the correct response is some flavor of “living the dream”, “more blessings than I can count”, or “another day in paradise”.  And while these things may be true, they are not the honest answer to the question.  Sometimes the answer is “You know, I kind of feel like a failure right now and I’m not really sure why.”  Or sometimes the answer is “I’m really mad at God because I’ve been praying for healing for my wife for years and it’s only gotten worse.” Sometimes the answer is “My relationships are a mess and it’s mostly because of something I said or did.”  Or God forbid, “I’m struggling with porn right now and I feel trapped.”  I’ve actually given that answer before, in a church that turned out not to have any refuge cities.  It sure looked like a refuge; these were seven men on the church council.  We were all cleaned up and buttoned up, literally, dressed in business casual.  I thought these were spiritual mentors until I came to them for refuge and they looked at me like a crazy person.  They said the churchy sounding things you would expect – “Thank you for confessing your sins to the church.  Jesus forgives you and we’re gonna follow up and keep you accountable.”  Six out of the seven never spoke another word of it to me.  Even on days when I came into council meetings clearly depressed with my face covered in shame.  And the seventh guy reached out quietly in the parking lot to encourage me with an old story of his own adultery and repentance.  Apparently he didn’t feel safe sharing that with the others, but hey, it was better than nothing.  I understand some people find asking for refuge to be terrifying, and maybe doing that one-on-one with someone you trust is all you can muster.  That’s great!  The important thing is we all need to go there sometimes when we’re wrestling with doubt or sin.  But this was an example of a bad small group, because we didn’t provide a refuge for manslayers, and Lord knows we all slay the people closest to us every now and again.

Good Examples of Refuge in Church

I go to Paradox Church in Fort Worth and we have something called Redemption Groups. It’s where believers get together to repent of sin, receive forgiveness and redemption, drop baggage from the past, and learn to pray about the things that happened to you when you were little. Breaking into even smaller small groups, answering more direct questions, your prayers become like psalms, short little poems about your redemption. Then you have a special celebration night where we praise and rejoice in our redemption.

I’ve been to churches that have Celebrate Recovery. One of my favorite things about Celebrate Recovery is the safety rules.  Amazing things can happen when we are brutally honest about ourselves out loud.  But nothing shuts down vulnerability like getting wounded right in the moment when you expose the soft part of your heart.  It is so important for Christian communities to build and safeguard the small groups with rules that guarantee a haven for us to admit that we’ve been slaying people.  If you need a safe haven right now because you hurt someone you love, I recommend you go to the Celebrate Recovery Locator and find a Celebrate Recovery in your town.

What about me personally?  Do I give people a safe place when I feel they’ve wronged me?  If I’ve had an argument with someone recently, do they know that it’s always safe to come back and finish the discussion?  I know what the impulse is; it’s that same built-in, tag-back impulse I had on the playground.  My first thought is to make a list of their faults and make absolutely sure they see the list.  Then they feel ashamed, I outscore them, and I win.  Congratulations, I have just re-invented the scoreboard – a way to objectively show someone I’ve earned more points than they have, making me the winner.  Well, the winner in my own eyes.

Thank God for Refuge

Thank God that He doesn’t see it that way.  Thank God that even as mistake-prone and vengeful as we are, He has established rules that can give refuge even though we hurt people pretty often. Make your home a refuge city.  Let your children know that when they commit proverbial manslaughter, they can go to mother or father and receive a fair trial.  Let your best friend, your brother-in-law, whoever you think is a screw-up, let him or her know what a city of refuge looks like.

The old covenant was always a picture of the new covenant.  The final words spoken by Jesus are in Revelation 21 and 22, and He was describing the new earth He’s been preparing for us.

“And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”