A Time to Speak
There is a time for everything . . . a time to be silent and a time to speak. Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7
READ Ecclesiastes 3:1–7
For thirty long years, the African American
woman worked faithfully for a large global ministry. Yet when she sought
to talk with co-workers about racial injustice, she was met with
silence. Finally, however, in the spring of 2020—as open discussions
about racism expanded around the world—her ministry friends “started
having some open dialogue.” With mixed feelings and pain, she was
grateful discussions began.
Silence can be a virtue in some situations. As King Solomon wrote in
the book of Ecclesiastes, “There is a time for everything, and a season
for every activity under the heavens: . . . a time to be silent and a
time to speak” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7).
Silence in the face of bigotry and injustice, however, only enables
harm and hurt. Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoeller (jailed in Nazi Germany
for speaking out) confessed that in a poem he penned after the war.
“First they came for the Communists,” he wrote, “but I didn’t speak up
because I wasn’t a Communist.” He added, “Then they came for” the Jews,
the Catholics, and others, “but I didn’t speak up.” Finally, “they came
for me—and by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
It takes courage—and love—to speak up against injustice. Seeking God’s help, however, we recognize the time to speak is now.
By Patricia Raybon |
Why is it important not to be silent during
discussions about injustice? What hinders your willingness to engage in
such dialogue?
Dear God, release my tongue and heart from
the enemy’s grip. Equip me to see and feel the harm of injustice so that
I may speak up for those hurt by this sin. | | | | |
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Ecclesiastes may seem pessimistic, and we
might easily read today’s poem about time in a depressingly fatalistic
light. After all, the poem begins by balancing the miracle of birth
against the stony phrase “a time to die” (3:2). Essential to this
elegantly honest lyric is the section that immediately follows (vv.
9–14). “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time,” wrote the wise
author of Ecclesiastes (v. 11). Then he noted, “He has also set
eternity in the human heart” (v. 11). This awareness of the eternal
motivates us to look beyond ourselves (and beyond this time-bound earth)
to discover true meaning. We find it only in the eternal One.
“Everything God does will endure forever,” wrote the wise man (v. 14).
We can live joyfully in the acknowledgment of this great eternal God,
who gives us genuine meaning in this life and a forever future in the
next.
Tim Gustafson
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