The Peace Oak

     During the last half of the 1600s, many Mennonites left Switzerland to escape persecution and went to France. The king of France knew they were good farmers and wanted them to come and restore the land that had been ruined in the Thirty Years War.
    Wherever they settled in the Alsace-Lorraine area, the Mennonites met in one of their homes for Sunday worship services. In the late 1600s, when Jacob Amman was their bishop, they adopted more strict rules and separated from the Mennonites. Their neighbors called them heftler (stapler) because their clothes fastened with hooks instead of buttons. Eventually, the Amman group was called Amish.
   The Amish were not allowed to buy land but they rented farms and worked hard. After a few years, the ruined land grew good crops. They had nicer farms and made more money than their neighbors. They were jealous and complained to the king. He forced many of the Amish to move to other places in France. In 1708, a few of these families went to Salm in the Vosges Mountain area where they lived in relative peace and prospered.

    The peace on the secluded Amish farms was a stark contrast to the turmoil of the French Revolution that began in 1789. After the king was executed in January 1793, the National Convention struggled to bring the outlying principalities such as Salm into the new Republic of France and recruit enough men for the military. In March, Philip Charles Aime Goupilleau of Montaigu and two other men were sent to Semones (the capital of the principality of Salm) to bring it into the Republic of France and have people swear allegiance to it. While there, Goupilleau met an Amish man from Framont. He invited Goupilleau to visit them, which he did. During this visit they gave him a copy of the Dordrecht Confession and recommended he visit their bishop, Jacob Kuperschmidt, in Salm. Goupilleau kept a diary of his travels and described his encounters with the Amish. 

    In April Philip Goupilleau, George Couthan, and Michel visited Jacob Kuperschmidt. Michel seems to have been an assistant for Couthan who was crippled. Goupilleau and Couthan were supporters of Maximillen Robespierre, the ruthless leader of the Jacobian party who sent wagon loads of people to the guillotine for suspicion of disloyalty to the Revolution. Refusing to swear the oath of allegiance or serve in the military was evidence of disloyalty. How would these officials respond to the Amish who refused to do both?

    Goupilleau's diary reports that they were impressed with the well-kept farms of the Amish. At their request, some of the Amish men led them up the mountain to see the ruins of the castle of the Prince of Salm which was slated to be torn down. Jacob Kuperschmidt then explained their beliefs on swearing an oath and defenselessness (nonresistance) and invited the visitors to join them for dinner. At the end of the meal it was the family's custom to sing a hymn. Goupilleau wrote that they sang the third hymn in the Ausbund and it sounded like a chant from hundreds of years ago. 

    According to the legend, at the end of the meal Goupilleau said with tears in his eyes, "You take care of the farming and we will take care of the fighting." That is where the often-told story ends but it was not the end of the story. Goupilleau's diary does not include that sentence. He does say he thought these humble hospitable people were some of the most upright and sincere he had ever met. And he said it was almost with tears he said goodbye and wished he had been born among these good citizens. Jacob exchanged addresses with Goupilleau and promised to keep in touch. Some of the Amish men accompanied the visitors to Framont where they would spend the night.

    Back in Paris, Goupilleau and Couthan gave the Committee of Public Safety a glowing report of their visit with the Amish and recommended they be allowed to serve in peaceful ways or pay an exemption tax. In August, Jacob Kuperschmidt and his son-in-law, Christian Gerber, went to Paris to personally present a written petition to the Committee of Public Safety. Goupilleau was out of town but Couthan was there. The committee read the petition and after lengthy discussion signed a recommendation that the Anabaptists be allowed to serve in peaceful ways or pay an exemption tax. The recommendation was signed by the blood-thirsty Maximillen Robespierre, George Couthan, and four other committee members. 

     Although it was only a recommendation and did not have the teeth of the law, the jubilant Amish and Mennonites considered it a law. According to the legend, Jacob Kuperschmidt planted an oak tree as a memorial of the great answer to prayer. Anabaptist tour groups go to see the huge old tree every year. The printed recommendation was treasured and safely stored in Jacob Kuperschmidt's house until it was yellowed with age. In 1857, Nicholas Augsburger (who was then the Amish bishop and a son-in-law of Christian Gerber) showed the paper to Alfred Michiels who wrote a book about his visit with them.

    It's a great story, but unfortunately it was not the end of the Anabaptist's struggle to maintain their peaceful beliefs. The recommendation proved to be only a temporary relief. As it was only a recommendation, some local officials did not feel bound by it. Those who resented the Anabaptists ignored it and some young men were forced into the military against their wishes,

    The turmoil of the Revolution continued with Robespierre and Couthan being executed in 1794. It finally ended when Napoleon Bonaparte assumed power in 1799. In 1803, he revoked exemption from military service. An appeal for exemption was denied and the Amish began moving to Germany, Bavaria, and Prussia. Another appeal presented in 1809 was also fruitless. In 1829, Christian Gerber, Joseph Hirschy, Christian Engel, and John Hirschy of Salm petitioned the Minister of the Interior for exemption without success. 

    The Amish and Mennonites who remained in Alsace, Lorraine, and Montbeliard realized they would not be able to escape military service and many of them immigrated to America. Christian Gerber's daughter Barbara and her husband, Johannes Gingrich, immigrated in 1840 and settled in Metamora, Illinois. More than 3,000 Amish crossed the ocean to settle in the United States and Canada in the first half of the nineteenth century. The last Amish congregation in Europe was located at Ixheim, Germany, about five miles north of the border of Lorraine. They merged with a local Mennonite congregation in 1937.

   When James Hershberger visited the 200-year old Peace Oak in Salm, he thought it was a great story and picked up some of the acorns that had fallen from the tree. He became the "Johnny Appleseed" of the Peace Oak and planted oak trees multiple places in Virginia and Ohio.

   And that's the whole story of the Peace Oak.

Sycamine Tree

   Yesterday I learned something in the Sunday school lesson from Luke 17:5-19. Verse 6 mentions a sycamine tree. In Luke 19, Zaccheaus climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus as he passed by. When I read that, I always pictured a North American sycamore tree with white peeling bark. Wrong! The sycamore in Israel was a fig tree. There were two kinds of fig trees, the sycamore fig and the mulberry fig. The mulberry fig was sweet and good to eat but the sycamore fig was bitter. 

   In the first four verses of Luke 17, Jesus told his disciples that if someone asked for forgiveness seven times in a day, they should forgive. The disciples said they needed more faith to do that. Then Jesus said, "If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you." Jesus was saying a small amount of faith can do great things, even the ability to forgive the same person seven times in one day. 

   Why did Jesus use a sycamore tree for this illustration? 

   The sycamore grows wild everywhere. It is a tall tree with deep roots. It is difficult to get rid of. If you cut it off, the root will send up a new shoot. The fruit is bitter. It can only be eaten in small bites. The wood was preferred for coffins. 

   The sycamore is like unforgiveness. Anger, bitterness, and grudges (unforgiveness) grow naturally in every human being around the world. The root of bitterness goes down deep and is difficult to remove permanently. Unforgiveness produces a bitter fruit. If harbored and chewed on a bite at a time, it can poison your life and even make you physically sick. Jesus said if you can't forgive others, neither will God forgive you. So the fruit of unforgiveness is death.

   Unforgiveness is hard to get rid of but it can be rooted out by faith in Christ who overcame death. As we follow Him and live by the principles He taught, we can forgive like God forgives. Ezekiel 18:21-22 says, "If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live." God forgives and forgets, never mentions the sin again. The fruit of forgiveness is life.

   Although North American sycamores do not produce figs, they will always remind me of the high cost of unforgiveness.

Sycamore in Israel

Fire of God

    You may have figured this out long ago but I recently became aware how often God showed Himself as fire. The first one is in Genesis 15 when God appeared as a burning lamp while making a covenant with Abraham. Fire from heaven was used as judgement on Sodom and Gomorrah. 

    Jump ahead to Moses and God speaking to him from a burning bush. The children of Israel were assured God was with them by a pillar of fire every night. Fire from heaven was used several times to punish the Israelites during their wandering in the wilderness. 

    When Elijah prayed on Mount Carmel, fire from heaven consumed the altar and licked up the dust to prove God was the one true God. A chariot and horses of fire took Elijah to heaven. Elisha was surrounded by horses and chariots of fire. Fire from heaven fell on the altar at the dedication of Solomon's temple.

     Jesus told His disciples they would be baptized with fire. On the day of Pentecost, tongues of fire sat on each of the believers. The fire was confirmation it was an act of God and His presence was not just with them but in them.

     Deuteronomy 4:24 says "The Lord they God is a consuming fire." That is repeated in Hebrews 12:29, "For our God is a consuming fire."