"Open your mouths and they shall be filled, and you shall become even as Nephi of old, who journeyed from Jerusalem in the wilderness. Yea, open your mouths and spare not, and you shall be laden with sheaves upon your backs, for lo, I am with you. Yea, open your mouths and they shall be filled, saying: Repent, repent, and prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand"
At the time of this revelation, the Church has been restored for under six months, and the first and second General Conferences are barely complete when the mission calls and training begins. There is fierce opposition early, with some small mob intimidation tactics interrupting baptisms, threatening tar and feathering, and even arrests that the courts release for lack of credible evidence on the trumped up charges of disorderly conduct.
And yet, despite local opponents, there is growth as well. And there is fervor to go out and share the message. In four separate sections, the Lord's missionary training program seems to center around one core, repeated commandment to individuals: "open your mouth."
To Oliver Cowdery, the Lord promises unparalleled strength if he will "open his mouth and declare my gospel as with the voice of a trump, both day and night" (24:12) and do it "with the sound of rejoicing"(28:16). To Peter Whitmer, brother in law to Cowdery, witness to the Gold Plates, and longtime family friend, the great Head of the Church promised "power" to build up the church among the Lamanites (which they assumed Native Americans were by ancestry) alongside his brother by obeying the command to "open [his] mouth to declare my gospel" (30:5). The theme of the open mouth gets its last mention in scripture for about another year here in Section 33, resurfacing next in Section 60. This time, however, the command shifts the locus of control in one important way--rather than the agents of filling it being the missionary, this time the Lord repeats a passive voice twice, leaving the connotation that the Lord Himself will be the agent of filling it.
The lesson is useful, and was repeated often in training sessions all throughout my own mission experience--you supply the willingness, and the faith to initiate the speech acts, and the Spirit does the work of making the words and the persuasion flow. This is also a pattern extendable by metaphor to all acts of faith--you start, and let God finish. He's the one that does the work. This doctrine is both liberating (I don't have to stress about the "how" and feel pre-consoled in the face of my own clumsiness or their rejection, because it's not me responsible) and motivating (I have to supply the effort and willingness). As I type, I feel to contact my ministering families just knowing how that's the step that demonstrates my faith so that they can have whatever blessing the Lord has conditioned it on.
But there are also two references in this particular use of the phrase "open your mouth" that deserve comment:
1. The sheaves, piled in a poke in the above image, might not seem an obvious metaphor to those of us unfamiliar with pre-modern grain farming techniques. I don't like the thought of being more burdened than I am, or having heavy things laden upon my back. But this is harvest imagery. If the grain represents the souls gathered in for care and storage, providing the winter's sustaining provisions, then sheaves are about the biggest bundle of converts individuals can support on their own. The image is not one by one ministering, but success in connecting souls with Christ through covenant by the armload. The bundles of stalks are organized for transport, and are therefore signs of completion of purpose, and the feeling a harvester has carrying one to the poke is not one of burden, but of satisfaction at a job well done, and at the prospect of prosperity each one brings.
2. Nephi seems an odd example for a missionary. His mission efforts--Gospel teaching efforts, broadly conceived--within his own traveling community ended up largely rejected by his most specific targets. While he was a stalwart on his own, and did bring Zoram, Sam, and his own progeny to truth and peace, his mouth opened in fiery sermons and grievance for his brothers' recalcitrance and wickedness in great power, but not with the result of persuasion. Laman and Lemuel, and the Ishmaelite family they influenced, fell into forbidden paths and sought to take the life of Nephi on multiple occasions. Being "as Nephi of old" isn't an apt motivating image for a missionary commanded to open his mouth unless you narrow the scope of Nephi's example to the immediate moments he was constrained by the Spirit to speak great words of truth--the kind the wicked take to be hard--and calling for repentance, for faithful action, for trying again, even when the first time and the second time don't work, and finally being "led by the Spirit." Nephi's faith kept his family together and advancing in Gospel unity in ways that prevented immediate crumbling, and that allowed for the robust faith and growth of future generations. Even Laman and Lemuel repented from time to time, learned about the nature of God by listening to their brother, and contributed to family and community success through much of their lengthy and arduous voyage. Nephi was a success when he did his best, trusting the Lord would not give a commandment that he couldn't accomplish, and letting God guide him.
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