Opening My Mouth

"Open your mouth for those who cannot speak; for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth; judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and the needy."
Proverbs 31:8-9 (emphasis mine)

I have a confession. Since I have been in Africa, I haven't thought much about the repeated phrase of this passage. When I was still in Charlottesville, speaking on behalf of orphans with intellectual disabilities was pretty much all I was able do for them, and so I thought about it a lot. Now that I am here, and faced with a thousand needs that require much more than words to meet, I haven't thought much about the 'speaking' aspect of the call that is on my life.

The thing is, 'opening my mouth' is actually the first and primary thing I am called to do. Now that I'm here, however, it has taken on a whole new meaning (are you noticing the same trend I am?). I have actually met those who cannot speak. I have looked into the eyes of the unfortunate. I have been with the afflicted and the needy. Speaking with passion about an idea or concept is one thing; but defending the rights of people you love is quite another.

'Opening my mouth' has also taken on a new meaning because I have learned there are people who don't actually like it when I do. I now understand why Solomon had to firmly command it twice in this passage- it is not the easy thing to do most of the time. The easy thing to do would be to sit here in Africa and pretend like the way the rest of the world lives is just fine. The less complicated thing to do would be to continue meeting people who are dying of easily preventable causes and act like no one is to blame. The effortless thing to do would be to simply shut my mouth and let those who cannot speak, the unfortunate, the afflicted and the needy remain just as they are. It would certainly cut out of my life a lot of the hard conversations, tense emails, and uncomfortable blog posts...

Reality is, as far as I can read and understand in Scripture, it's not fine. Someone is to blame. And simply shutting my mouth so as remove a bit of difficulty from my life would be an utter failure on my part.

And if 'opening my mouth' sounds a bit like judgment- it should. It's a command of this passage as well. It's the really hard part; the remarkably complicated thing to do; the aspect that takes a lot of effort. That does not mean we are not called to do it. I used the first person plural ('we,' for those of you not dealing with grammar these days) on purpose- this verse is not addressed to me. As far as I can read, it doesn't have qualifiers attached- it is a command to the people of God to care for the poor.

Part of doing so is to recognize when the opposite is going on and to have the boldness to call it out. The Hebrew word used here, shapat- 'to execute judgment,' is also used to mean the same thing in another passage-

"These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true..."
Zechariah 8:16

In an effort to open my mouth to speak truth to you all, and to render judgments that are righteous and true- I will keep having hard conversations, sending tense emails, and writing uncomfortable blog posts. I know that I will mess it up along the way; and I will go overboard more often than necessary. But, I guess if nothing else, you can consider yourself warned.