Moral Courage

First Unitarian Universalist Church
Moral Courage
Rev. Sandra Fees
September 16, 2007
Page 1 of 4
© 2007, Rev. Sandra Fees
Excerpts may be quoted with attribution.
When it comes to courage, I think of extraordinary people and
extraordinary circumstances. This week, I could not help but reflect on
the courage displayed on September 11th six years ago, the days and
weeks that followed.
Examples of valor can be found in the military, among firefighters, and
police officers – all of whom risk their lives in the line of duty. Saints and martyrs are recognized
for their courageous deeds and for giving their lives for a noble cause.
The story of Martha and Waitstill Sharp is a story of extraordinary people in extraordinary
circumstances. In 1939, the Sharps who were in their thirties volunteered for a relief effort in
Czechoslovakia. Martha Sharp was a social worker trained at Chicago’s Hull House. Her
husband was minister of the Unitarian Church of Wellesley Hills, Massaschusetts.
The relief work was sponsored by the American Unitarian Association. This was before the
Unitarians and Universalists merged in 1961.
Only weeks after Martha and Waitstill arrived in Czechoslovakia, the Nazi army occupied the
city of Prague. What they expected to be a humanitarian effort quickly shifted to something far
more dangerous. The couple began to help Jews and non-Jews flee from the Nazis and find
safety.
One snowy night, for example, Martha went in search of a known anti-Nazi leader. She called
him Mr. X. On her way to his apartment, she was pursued by a Gestapo agent and ducked into a
doorway. The agent walked past. She entered Mr. X’s building and rang the bell. A woman
answered the door and denied any knowledge of Mr. X.
In her description of this encounter, Martha says she begged the woman. She says, “I told her
there was little time. I produced my American passport. When she saw it, she said in Czech, ‘A
moment,’ and then snatched my passport from me and shut the door in my face.”
When the door re-opened, Mr. X stood before Martha. Martha explained to him that she had
been assigned to transport him to the British Embassy. From there, he would be smuggled out of
the country to safety.
Mr. X got his coat and her passport and the two of them quickly left the building en route for the
embassy. They were stopped three times. First they were stopped by a Nazi soldier who waved
them on when Martha produced her passport and confidently announced, “Americans!” They
were soon stopped again and she once again produced her passport. Just outside the embassy,
they were stopped for the third time.
At that point, Martha complained loudly about being late for a meeting with the embassy
secretary. She flashed her passport and demanded the guard tell the secretary that, “Mr. and Mrs.
Sharp are here.” The guard waved them ahead, and they walked safely into the embassy. When
Courage (cont’d.)
Rev. Sandra Fees
Page 2 of 4
© 2007, Rev. Sandra Fees
Excerpts may be quoted with attribution.
Martha returned to her apartment, her husband Waitstill was also returning from a similar
mission.
The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, which organizes humanitarian relief work to this
day, now traces its origins to the Sharps. Remarkably, their story didn’t become known until the
summer of 2006. They were not recognized widely in their lifetime for their work. Only
posthumously were they honored as “Righteous Among the Nations,” a designation by the
Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Israel.
The award has recognized more than 20,000 non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during
the Holocaust. The Sharps are the second and third Americans to receive the honor, and Martha
is the only American woman to be so honored (story adapted from UUWorld magazine).
The Sharps make me proud to be a Unitarian Universalist and to be an American. What they did
is noble and admirable. When called upon to stand up for what they believed, they mustered the
courage despite any fears. They surely had to have been afraid. But they didn’t wait for someone
else to step up. They didn’t stand idly by. The Sharps trusted that some powerful benefit would
result from adhering to their principles in the face of such danger. And it did. They rescued
hundreds of people.
There are five key attributes of morally courageous leaders like the Sharps. They display more
confidence in principles than in personalities. They have a high tolerance for ambiguity,
exposure, and personal loss. They are willing to defer gratification and accept simple rewards.
They are independent thinkers. And they have formidable persistence and determination.
(Rushworth Kidder, Moral Courage)
Perhaps not all of us will rise to quite this level of courage. That doesn’t mean we can’t each
embrace small acts of courage. Small acts of courage can have tremendous consequences in our
day-to-day lives.
For some people, getting up each morning is an act of courage. Facing a terminal illness with
strength and resolve is an act of courage. Withstanding peer pressure to do morally questionable
acts, blowing the whistle on unethical business practices, and standing up to sexist and racist
remarks are all ways we see courage in action every day. These are all ways of acting on our
beliefs despite the fear we may feel. Courage always requires some risk. Because of the risk,
courage is always difficult.
Displays of everyday moral courage have come to matter more and more to us. Rushworth
Kidder says moral courage matters so much to us today “because we see so many examples of its
lack.” The way we can change this and build a more ethical world is by our willingness to act
courageously.
It helps to remember that we don’t have to die for a cause or risk our lives to be courageous. We
also do not need to take up every situation that comes our way. In fact, if we are wise we will
weigh the actual risks and benefits of exercising moral courage in a given circumstance.
Courage (cont’d.)
Rev. Sandra Fees
Page 3 of 4
© 2007, Rev. Sandra Fees
Excerpts may be quoted with attribution.
As Rushworth Kidder says,
Part of every decision about moral courage, then involves some form of that starkly
famous military question: is this the hill you want to die on? Is this issue in fact the big
one? If you must hazard all – house family, children, job, career, financial future – is this
the mast on which to nail your colors? Perhaps, instead this issue is simply an overture to
something bigger, for which you must husband your resources. (Moral Courage)
My own life is filled with small acts of courage, rather than the large extravagant ones of the
Sharps. They are typically well-considered actions. I am not always inclined to even think of
them as acts of courage. They seem to me to be more about what I call integrity, the aligning of
my inner principles with outer actions.
When I did a chaplain residency, for example, I had no idea it would be one of the scariest things
I’d ever done. This was part of my training to be an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister.
Part of the responsibility was to be on call overnight once a week for the hospital’s trauma
center. It was Hershey Medical Center – a level one trauma center – where some of the most
severe injuries are sent.
The sound of the pager at 3 or 4 in the morning was terrifying to me in and of itself. When it
went off, only the barest of information would get shared. The age, gender, and type of injury
sustained. There was mostly no way of knowing until I stepped foot in the trauma bay what I was
about to actually see or experience.
Sometimes the injuries were thankfully far less serious than expected, and other times things
were far worse. Patients suffered gunshot wounds, falls, were involved in motorcycle accidents,
and machinery-related injuries, among others.
The chaplain, me, was the person who was expected to be there to provide a non-anxious
presence. I felt about as far from non-anxious as I could imagine. The support of a supervisor
and peer group helped. From them, I learned to display as calm an exterior as I could muster the
first few times, until I slowly began to become more comfortable as trauma chaplain.
One of the things ministers, especially chaplains, are trained for is to deal with the unexpected.
Theoretically we are supposed to be able to walk into an unknown situation and respond calmly
and pastorally. It seemed to me to be an impossible expectation.
What I learned was that it is not impossible. Just showing up mattered. Saying the right words
was less important, though I learned a little about not saying the wrong words. I learned how to
be with people in times of crisis. I learned what it means to be there for someone else when I
sometimes wanted more than anything to flee the room.
I found the courage to stay the course and to work through my fear. I learned not only to hold a
value of compassion, but also to live it. Had I left on any of those nights there would have been
no one to fill my place. The families and staff might not have had someone to support them
emotionally and spiritually during a crisis.
Courage (cont’d.)
Rev. Sandra Fees
Page 4 of 4
© 2007, Rev. Sandra Fees
Excerpts may be quoted with attribution.
I felt I had a responsibility to the patients and to the families, as well as to the nurses and doctors.
Out of compassion for their struggle, fear, and suffering, I found the strength to remain rather
than retreat.
Over the course of 12 weeks, I became confident as on call chaplain. It was never one of my
favorite duties, but it was, I learned, an absolutely essential part of the ministry of the hospital.
And as it turns out, it was also an important part of my development as a minister and person.
Each of us can perform small acts of courage. That’s where it all begins. Day by day. One action
at a time. Each of us committed to taking an ethical stand.
That is how our society can increasingly becomes a place of moral and ethical courage. That is
how we can build a world that we are proud for our children and grandchildren to inhabit and
inherit.
It is how we become people who others can look to for encouragement and inspiration in their
own lives. We can exercise moral courage for each other. It is how we live our lives with
integrity.
Amen.