Your Silence is the problem

If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this? (Esther 4:14 NLT)

"The soul work, the mediative task of finding center and bring to the surface our most playful, poetic and responsive selves in our world of busy intersections when we feel belittled, shut down, or silenced, is perhaps our most essential task." --David Dark in We Become What We Normalize

In the book of Esther, we learn the story of a young Jewish woman who is forcibly placed in the harem of King Xerses from Persia.  Persia was the superpower of its day (5th century BCE) and continued its oppression of what we consider the mid-east.  I have read multiple accounts of this story that often romanticizes her story as if she wasn't traumatized by being taken from her family, and then sexually assaulted.   She was chosen due to her physical appearance and then basically exploited.

As the story goes, she is chosen as the Queen, but conceals her ethnic identity and becomes an instrumental part of Persian royalty.  Her ethnicity becomes an issue when a decree is made to destroy all of the Jewish people who lived under Persian authority.  She is caught between the priorities of her own survival and the wellbeing of her people. It was well known, and exemplified by the dethroning of Queen Ester's predecessor, Vashti, that the status of the Queen was at the whim of the King and activity that could be interpreted as disrespectful, or subversive was often met with the severest of punishments.

In Esther's case she would speak up and the king would intervene, and Jewish people were saved due to her willingness to speak.  

In our contemporary society, we are bombarded by messages through numerous mediums such as print media, social media, chats, even virtual reality.  The consistent pressure, regardless of media, is that there are consequences to speaking up against whatever is the dominant narrative of the those with political, cultural, and financial power.  Our political elections are not grand debates among inspiring ideologies, with the exchange of information and safe forums to give and receive perspectives.  They are struggles for power, built upon sound bites and affinity politics.  The American population as a whole are identity voters, voting not on their own best interests but often with a party or platform to whom they feel they identify with.

A classic study in the 1960's explained the "bystander effect" which is the phenomena in which a community witnesses or identifies something wrong but refuses to get involved.  It is a neighborhood, witnessing domestic violence, but no one reporting it.  It is drug related transactions happening in busy intersections, without it being reported.   It is being part of online communities when something racist, sexist, or generally hateful is said without correction. Bystander effect often occurs when there is a lack of solidarity in the community (we have proximity, but not relationship) and diffusion of responsibility (Someone else will do it).

Today's silence in the face of lies and injustice is partially influenced by the bystander effect but is greatly informed by what is described as deferential fear.  This is the fear that comes from being expelled or disconnected from a group of people, which whom you identify with.  Courageously speaking truth often results in a loss of respect, authority and community.  Those of you in the church world have either seen or heard horror stories where someone had legitimate concerns about a policy or approach and were censored, shunned or removed. 

The Houston Chronicle published a report in 2019 that detailed over 700 cases of abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention and detailed how person after person who spoke up were often dismissed, maligned, and silenced. 

Our silence in the face of injustice is a weapon for evil.  Many of the greatest atrocities were committed in the plain sight of "well intentioned people".  How many faithful, church-attending German Christians agreed with the rounding up of their Jewish neighbors?  How many members of the Jonestown cult had spoke out against the increasingly bizarre behavior of its leaders before the mass suicide and slaughter in 1978.  94% of Rwandans in 1993 professed Jesus but witnessed one of the most brutal genocide where over 1 million neighbors died in 100 days.  Who was to speak up for those without a voice.

Often in charismatic circles, language is used to personify or spiritualize a particular activity.  For example, someone who doubts may be described as having a Spirit of Thomas, the disciple of Jesus known for his doubting.  In many ways, due to deferential fear, many Christians are possessed by a spirit of Silence.   In Mark 9, Jesus comes from having a "mountain-top experience" to find his disciple's arguing with a crowd when they could not exorcise a demon that caused a boy to have seizures and to be unable to speak.  Eventually, Jesus casts out the demon:

Noticing that the crowd had surged together, Jesus spoke harshly to the unclean spirit, “Mute and deaf spirit, I command you to come out of him and never enter him again.” 26 After screaming and shaking the boy horribly, the spirit came out. The boy seemed to be dead; in fact, several people said that he had died. 27 But Jesus took his hand, lifted him up, and he arose. (Mark 9:25-27 CEB)

This exorcism is suggestive of the demonic, sinful, and evil spiritual warfare that exists to prevent people from speaking.  It's interesting how the boy's father in this text, questions Jesus' ability to heal his son (v21-23). Jesus responds that all things can be done for the one who believes (v23).

So often, people do not speak out because they do not believe it will make any difference.  Perhaps they have experienced years of injustice without change and may have seen the cost bore by those who speak out against injustice and speak out for those who have been victimized.   Yet Jesus reminds us that "For God all things are possible." (Mk10:27).  

Prophetic speaking, not foretelling, but forth-telling is speaking the truth in the face of consequences and repercussions that may cost you everything, but also may change everything.  Some of us need to encounter Jesus more intimately so that we are peacemaking truth-tellers.  Jesus in the same story counsels his disciples that the demon could only come out with prayer.  Jesus wasn't speaking on the technicalities of prayer as much as the transformational intimacy that occurs in prayer that strengthens your faith and empowers your purpose.  Old Testament Scholar Walter Brueggeman describes prayer as a "refusal to settle for what is". 

We settle for what is when we doubt that God is able to transform what is into what should be.  We settle for what is, no matter how much suffering is experienced, when we also believe that Jesus is comfortable with what is.  We settle for what is in the face of brutality and violence because our approach to life is fear driven instead of faith formed. The key to paradigm shifting from fear, doubt and disconnection to life-giving, liberating and loving faith, is intimacy with Jesus.  Faith, as a gift, comes from our deepest connection with Jesus.

We pray that we experience the mind of Christ, so that we will be the body of Christ, which includes his voice, particularly for those who suffer.  I end with this quote from the late Theologian James Cone and from World Vision Executive Richard Stearns:

"Heresy is the refusal to speak the truth or live the truth in the light of the One who is the Truth." --James Cones in God of the Oppressed.

"God offers all of us the amazing opportunity to join in this sacred work.  We have the great privilege of being the hands and feet of Christ in a hostile and hurting world, and there are countless ways to participate.  WE can work with joy in the face of difficulty, speak the truth in a place of deceit, choose integrity when corruption is the norm, offer comfort in a time of grief, challenge injustice to protect its victims, and offer forgiveness in the midst of brokenness." --Richard Stearns in Unfinished.

Who knows, perhaps you are here for such a time as this.