At one point there's a montage of the community's participation in the abolitionist movement: people tell their neighbors about the horrors of the slave trade, people line up to read a memoir by a former slave, a shopkeeper puts a sign in his window saying that his establishment will not serve sugar, which was harvested by slave labor. In a dramatic moment, Wilberforce calls for the end of slavery and unfurls a petition that stretches across the parliament floor. I am struck by how Wilberforce, though his work was essential, could not have done what he did without thousands of nameless saints who made tiny, daily choices that mattered profoundly, even though they were unsung, unnoticed, and ordinary. The slave trade was crippled, and eventually outlawed, not because of a few heroes, but because thousands upon thousands of peacemakers made little choices that shone, light upon tiny light, which God used to overcome darkness.
At the end of days we will hear these stories of unseen faithfulness and know the names of these men and women..
Each time we make a small choice toward justice, or buy fair trade, or seek to share instead of hoard, or extend mercy to those around us and kindness to those with whom we disagree, or say "I forgive you," we pass peace where we are in ways that we can. And God can take these ordinary things and, like fish and bread, bless them and multiply them. He can make revolution stories out of smallness. He can change the world through shopkeepers who serve tea without sugar.
