The Thundering Sound of Silence

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends."-Martin Luther King Jr.

Have you ever been in a situation where something needed to be said, and you knew what to say and wanted to say it but just didn't? And no one else did either? I hate that feeling. There've been times when someone was cussing loudly or talking loudly on their cell phones or being rude to someone else and I want to say, "Hey! Knock it off!"

Or what about a situation when you should have said something, but didn't realize it until later? I remember being in Hawai'i one time and the cab driver that picked us up to take us to church was listening to preaching on his radio. He said a few things that should have clued me in to his interest in God and the church, but I didn't realize what had happened until I was in worship later.
We observed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day last Monday. I get so frustrated by the number of churches that stood by while people were being mistreated or discriminated against just because their skin was a different color. If anyone should have stood up and said something, it should have been the Lord's Church. In fact, King should never have had to stand up and say something because the Church had already said it.

I think the main thing that keeps us from speaking up is fear. It may be fear of different things-like being retaliated against, arrested, abused, ridiculed, rejected, etc. And those can be pretty big things. But what is the cost if we don't speak up?

What was the cost to the Jews and other "undesirables" in Nazi Germany? What was the cost in Rwanda? What is the cost in Sudan? Just think about social issues here in the States. What has been the cost of not saying anything about having children out of marriage? The cost of divorce? The cost of absent dads? The cost of letting our children be in control of our families, schools or neighborhoods? The cost of letting sinful behavior exist openly in the church?

Now I know what the Bible says about being swift to hear and slow to speak (James 1.19). Solomon taught that there was a time to be silent and a time to speak (Ecclesiastes 3.7). I recognize, too, that how we say something can be even more important than what we say. Maybe I need to be more vocal when my kids are doing right than when my kids are doing wrong. Not silent when they do wrong; just more vocal when they do right. Maybe I need to tell my wife more often why I think she's a good wife, and not tell her as much what she does that I don't like. I don't know-just thinking out loud here. Maybe you have areas where you need to speak up more and other areas where you need to be silent more.

At any rate, King's quote above points out the betrayal we feel when our friends fail to speak out for us or the cause for which we plead. I wonder if Jesus feels the same way when we are silent about him. I came across this verse the other night in my Bible reading. Maybe it will encourage you to speak up more as it has me: "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in Heaven."

I would really like Jesus to say to the Father, "Hello, Father. This is my friend Shawn. He spoke up for me." Wouldn't you like him to say that about you, too?

~Shawn