Justus was well respected and loved by his parishioners and fellow clergy, and, in time was exalted to the position of Archbishop of Lyons in the latter part of the 4th century. And he tried so hard to assist with justice.

One evening, Butler relates, a madman who had stabbed several people in the street, ran into Justus’s church, seeking sanctuary. A mob gathered outside, demanding that Justus turn over this dangerous, mentally ill person to them. So Justus thought about it, and concluded that the best idea would be to turn this deranged individual over to “a public officer, upon a promise that the prisoner’s life would be spared.”

Sadly, this was a fatal misjudgment by Justus. The public official was only too happy to let the crowd vent their mob rage on this man who had sought sanctuary from the Church, and he was killed on the spot. Justus was devastated, regarding himself as an accessory to this man’s death. Indeed, had he not tried to forge a deal with the government official, the man seeking sanctuary would not have been brutally slain in the streets by the crowd. Because of this, Justus felt he could no longer continue as any kind of priest, let alone as archbishop.

Because his parish and his superiors all wanted him to remain in his position, Justus had to wait until there was a Church conference to take his leave. While ostensibly in transit to that meeting, Justus veered off, and escaped into obscurity, eventually ending up in a monastery in Egypt, far from his native France–only discovered years later by a traveling priest. Even at that point in time, Justus still would not be talked into returning to pastoral or ecclesiastical service.

It’s easy to see how what happened shook Justus to his very foundations. Someone came to him and his physical sanctuary–for sanctuary. Yes, the man was potentially a lawbreaker and, yes, the man was mentally ill. These are both reasons for seeking sanctuary. In the Torah (the first five books of the Bible for both Jews and Christians), we read that six locales were set aside as “cities of refuge” where anyone accused of killing another could flee and be safe from mob (including family) vengeance until the question of whether the actions were intentional or whether they were either accidental or excusable could be properly sorted out. (See, especially, Numbers 35.) There is an ancient and long-standing tradition of faith communities providing safe harbor, asylum, refuge, call-it-what-you-will for those whose lives are threatened by both members of the populace and government officers.

Certainly church doors can be broken down. And SWAT teams can (and well might) raid sanctuaries if so ordered. But at the very least, those seeking asylum would know beyond any doubt that there were people who–in the name of their faith–were willing to be with them, to stand between them and those who would harm them, and to suffer with them should it come to that. People seeking sanctuary should know, at a minimum, that they need never be alone again.

Just as then, we live in a time when people are seeking asylum, when cities of refuge (aka “sanctuary cities”) are targeted by various governmental and vigilante interests for destruction, and when we can see the results of what happens when religion is hand-in-glove with government: people suffer, people sicken, people are arrested, people are isolated, people die.

Let’s learn from the disastrous attempt of Justus to manage crowds and government officials in a quixotic effort to “do the right thing”–the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Let us instead make the choice to openly welcome and steadfastly remain alongside those who seek safety from dangerous mobs and unjust governments. Let us refuse to be governed by fear.