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“and that Christ may dwelln your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19, NRSVUE)
On June 23, 1940, a 16-year-old girl went to church with her family in Le Chambon, a village in rural France. The day before, France had signed an armistice with Germany after six humiliating weeks of warfare. The armistice outlined the terms of their surrender and German occupation. The two pastors of her small Protestant parish, Edouard Theis and André Trocmé, had written that Sunday’s sermon jointly. They stood together as Trocmé, the head pastor, delivered it. The church was packed with parishioners, evacuees, refugees, and the families of enlisted husbands, brothers, sons, and fathers who were among the two million French prisoners of war. Everyone was stunned and frightened: the world as they had known it even a week earlier was gone. What word of hope could their pastors offer?
The call
In their sermon Theis and Trocmé called their congregation to three things: first, to repentance for the responsibilities they bore for the current catastrophe, then to humility and finally, with the freedom received in forgiveness, to arm themselves with the weapons of the Spirit to resist the pressure of their occupiers to act contrary to the Gospel. Their sermon has become known as the Weapons of the Spirit sermon in the many books and documentaries on how the people of Le Chambon and the other villages on this remote Plateau in France saved thousands of Jews and other refugees during German occupation (https://weaponsofthespirit.com/weapons). The first two sections of the sermon, the call to repentance and to humility, have received little attention.
In a sense, despite France’s shattering defeat and occupation, the two pastors preached nothing new, nothing their parishioners had not heard Sunday after Sunday. The hope the pastors offered their frightened people was the Word of God, Jesus Christ, which endures all things. This hope is what called the church to repent, even in light of their defeat; this is what shaped true humility when they had been humiliated. The pastors’ call to arm themselves with the weapons of the Spirit to resist the antisemitism of their occupiers was the fruit of being rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ and nothing else.
What the pastors did was remind their frightened people that nothing could shake the Word of God. And this reality shapes everything. Preaching about the true nature of humility, the pastors declared the reliability of God’s enduring Word:
“Let us not confuse humiliation with discouragement; let us not think and tell those around us that all is lost. It is not true that everything is lost. Gospel truth has not been lost. It will be freely proclaimed from this pulpit and in all our church gatherings and family visits. The Word of God is not lost, and it is precisely in the Word of God that we will find all the promises and possibilities of spiritual revival for ourselves, our people, and our church. Faith has not been lost. A genuine humbling of the self doesn’t weaken faith; it leads to a more profound faith and a more fervent desire to serve God.” (Trocmé, André. The Memoirs of André Trocmé: The Pastor Who Rescued Jews (page 285). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.)
The soil
The young woman, Catherine Cambessédès, who was there that Sunday, and listened to her pastors’ sermon, said this about the church service: “I remember the feeling coming out of church thinking, ’Oh well, all right.’ If everything that’s familiar to you is all of a sudden crumbling, what do you do? What do you tie yourself to? What do you hang on to? You don’t know what tomorrow will bring. You don’t know what anything will bring. And those two men said, well, actually the basic thing from which we live has not changed, and that was very, very soothing to hear that.” (https://wagingnonviolence.org/podcast/city-of-refuge-part-3/).
Somehow, this young woman understood that France’s defeat and occupation was the soil in which the Word of God was rooted and grounded in love, the context in which the frightened people of this occupied village now followed Christ. So, as she said, the basic things from which they lived had not changed—and in this she found great comfort.
This is no small awareness for such a young woman. When teaching pastoral theology, I discovered that students often struggled with where to locate the problems brought to them in ministry—be it a troubled marriage, a betrayal, or a great sorrow. My students often felt it was their job to solve the problems of their parishioners and to meet their spiritual needs. A sure recipe for burnout, I told them. They are not ours to solve, even if we could. Problems—no matter how devastating or intractable—are the context for God’s care, the soil in which Christ is rooted and grounded in love. The church’s vocation is to remind our people of this reality, as Trocmé and Theis did on that morning when all seemed lost, and to help them unveil this truth in the soil of their particular circumstances.
The weapons of the Spirit
The pastors’ call to the villagers—to arm themselves with the weapons of the Spirit to resist the violence imposed on them—was preparation for what would come. There were refugees in Le Chambon and other villages, from Paris, Alsace, and other places in Europe. But they could not foresee the thousands of Jews who would find their way there seeking protection from extermination.
What are these weapons of the Spirit? They are the fruit of being rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ, taken up when, in our day, we are called to resist the violent forces that act contrary to Christ’s love. Theis and Trocmé called their parishioners to use the freedom received in God’s forgiveness to love and pray for their enemies but to resist whenever the Gestapo demanded that they hand over Jews and other refugees. In their refusal the people remained obedient to Christ and His love and care for all persons. As their pastors had told them, spiritual resistance springs from the freedom received in repentance, and the gift of true humility, which rejects both violent action and passive resignation. Catherine Cambessédès and her family were among the many people who sheltered refugees and helped to save lives. As this young woman said, nothing really had changed. Christ was not lost. The Gospel was not lost. Christ was rooted in the soil of war, defeat, and occupation.
Trusting the rootedness of God’s enduring Word, the church invites us to respond with repentance, true humility, and obedience to the Gospel. Right where we are. For that is where Christ is rooted and grounded in love.
