Thank you for the conversations that grew out of this church into acts of courage by Martha Sharp and Waitstill Sharp. UUSC is proud to be part of this legacy.

Things have not changed that much since World War II. We seem to be going through a revolving door of many violations of human rights. We need people like Martha and Waitstill Sharp to beckon us to speak and act on our conscience, to force us to lead with courage and to challenge us to re-look at the injustices we experience today.

Those people whose task it is to call us forth are not only in our past; they are here too. Those people are you and me. Any one of us can and must engage in conversations that can tilt the present and the future into a positive and humane world.

Today we are called to partake in actions that help reweave our world into acts of resistance and tolerance. In order to do this reweaving, we need new and just ways to understand diversity and differences. As we do this, we must keep in mind that it is not our differences that divide us, but our harsh judgments of each other. Yet, things will only change if we take courageous actions and if we question the injustices that surround us.

Martha and Waitstill Sharp’s courageous action invite us to ask questions of ourselves and of our world that can lead to more intelligent citizenship and a more profound life of faith and responsibility – a citizenship that is creative, tolerant and hopeful about our future. We live in a world that has a harsh need to change us for the worse rather than for the better. We need to take a strong stand for justice. We have sufficient human capacities to reflect, feel, and think about how to care for one another, to act courageously and to reclaim justice today and in the future.

There are many opportunities in the world that are giving us this chance to care and courageously question injustice. Darfur, in Sudan, Africa, is a case in point. Darfur gives us yet another chance to engage in conversation in order to combat the genocide by attrition that is taking place. The unnoticed human rights violations in this part of the world are unacceptable. Yet, we all know that expediency reigns in Washington, with the European Union, at the United Nations in New York, and in the African Union itself. Needless to say, the Arab League is seriously lobbying for a policy of “non-interference.”

Such expediency ensures that far too much of Darfur’s future will resemble its present if we, unlike Martha and Waitstill Sharp, don’t use enormous courage and act immediately.

The banner of injustice appears to have been hoisted up high. To take it down, we must act in concert and with resolve. We must also embrace and intensify a renewed commitment to the principle of justice that ensures that the dispossessed shall enjoy restitution and the violated are restored to dignity. I know we can, and we must. I have hope in you and me to tilt the future of Darfur into a big act of justice.

Thank you.