When a 26-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Montgomery, Alabama, fresh from Boston University School of Theology, he was looking forward to quietly serving in his first church and taking time to finish his dissertation. But within a few months of his arrival, it became clear that God had other plans. With the arrest of Rosa Parks, the Montgomery bus boycott erupted around him, and God called upon him to risk it all to serve as the public voice of the movement. King spoke of the decisive moment when he heard God’s call. He had received a harassing phone call several days after the bus boycott began. The caller shouted into the phone, “If you aren’t out of this town in three days, we’re going to blow your brains out and blow up your house.” King describes his response, “I’d heard these things before, but for some reason that night it got to me. I turned over and I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t sleep. I was frustrated, bewildered.”  He goes on to describe his fears for himself and his family, and his sense of isolation. He began praying aloud in his kitchen, asking God what to do. He says, “It seemed at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, ‘Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness, stand up for justice, stand up for truth. And lo, I will be with you, even until the end of the world.’ I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on.”  God’s call to King urged him to risk it all in order to challenge the status quo of segregation and racial discrimination.

The stories in our scriptures for today are also stories of call, when God calls someone to risk and sacrifice in order to challenge the status quo. You are probably familiar with the story of the boy Samuel living in the temple, hearing God’s voice in the night and mistaking it for his beloved mentor Eli. But the lectionary and discussion of this story often stops after verse 10, when the confusion is resolved and Samuel says to God, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” We don’t often remember exactly what it was that God called Samuel to do—did you pick up on it this morning as Lisa read the story? God calls Samuel to go back and condemn his caretaker Eli. Eli, the man who had been like a father to him, who provided him with food and shelter, the man who had taught him to know God in the first place. Now God charged Samuel to speak out against this beloved man, to rebuke him for the blasphemy of his sons. And the story is reminiscent of King, telling us Samuel laid awake all night, afraid—afraid of Eli’s reaction, afraid of being expelled from the temple and only home he’d ever known, afraid of losing his privileged place in the religious community, and most of all afraid of losing his beloved friend and mentor Eli. God called Samuel to risk everything to challenge the status quo of blasphemy by Eli’s sons.

And what about the familiar passage from Mark, about Jesus calling the disciples? Jesus goes to the seaside and stands before the fishermen who are completing their daily work, mending the nets that provided their livelihood. He says, “Come, and I will you make you fish for people.” And they dropped their nets and followed. In the words of Mark, James and John “left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.” I picture in my mind a stunned father loosely holding the fishing nets, staring, unbelieving, as his sons turn and leave him behind, abandoning the family business and all the expectations they ever had for their lives. Jesus called the disciples to cease the status quo of fishing for daily sustenance and begin “fishing for people”—exchanging the task of surviving for a chance at really thriving.

You might’ve picked up on it by now—we’ve clearly got a common theme among these three stories. And that theme is that God doesn’t seem particularly interested in maintaining the status quo. God is not showing a lot of skill at exercising caution. When God calls, it requires risk and sacrifice for the sake of transformation. God does not call us to “hold the course.” God does not call us to “keep on keeping on.” God does not call us to “business as usual.” God does not call us to tread water or just maintain the comfortable and familiar patterns of daily life. That’s because the status quo, whether in the time of Samuel, the time of Jesus, the time of Martin Luther King, or in our own time, the status quo does not even come close to God’s vision of loving kindness, justice and peace among all people. And transforming the status quo into the reign of God requires sacrifice and risk—the sacrifice of what’s comfortable, familiar and safe, and the risk of alienation, unpopularity, discomfort, awkwardness at the very least, and perhaps even the risk of losing one’s home, family or one’s own life.

In an essay published posthumously, Martin Luther King writes, “All too many Americans believe justice will unfold painlessly … White America must realize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society. The comfortable, the entrenched, the privileged cannot continue to tremble at the prospect of change in the status quo.”  Justice will not unfold painlessly, because the status quo does not give way easily. Agreeing to the idea of racial equality, economic justice and world peace does not make it happen. We, who qualify as the comfortable, the entrenched, the privileged, must be willing to risk sacrificing our comfort and our privilege, because God’s call is not just to disagree with the status quo, but to put our lives on the line to transform it. King stated this clearly in a sermon delivered at the National Cathedral just a week before his death. He says, “Nothing will be done until people of goodwill put their bodies and their souls in motion. And it will be the kind of soul force brought into being as a result of this confrontation that I believe will make the difference.”  Our goodwill must put our bodies and souls in motion, because only that kind of confrontation will make a difference..
 
Let me share with you an example. As many of you know, through our participation in the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, this congregation was a supporter of the Justice for Janitors campaign here in Boston this past fall. One of the things we learned from that effort was just how much it takes to actually change the status quo. The janitors’ efforts to win healthcare for their families and a living wage created a huge public response of goodwill—people supported the campaign, the media gave it favorable coverage, and local CEO’s and government officials even spoke out in public saying that they agreed that the demands of these immigrant janitors were fair, and they deserved to be met. But all that goodwill amounted to very little—the only way the janitors got even portion of their demands was to go on strike for close to four weeks, and to threaten a day of massive civil disobedience to bring pressure on those same local CEO’s and government officials that had such goodwill. Despite overwhelming goodwill, it took courageous women and men willing to risk losing their jobs and sacrificing their wages while on strike to create enough pressure to change the status quo even a little bit.

Goodwill was not nearly enough to bring about a transformation. “Nothing will be done until people of goodwill put their bodies and their souls in motion.” Imagine how it might have gone differently if all those people of goodwill had actually ventured out to join the janitors in a march down Boylston Street. Imagine if all those supporters refused to cross picket lines and go to work in downtown buildings until the janitors that worked beside them were treated fairly. Imagine if those well-wishers took the same courageous step as the janitors, sacrificing a paycheck or two now in order to earn a better future for everyone. As those long four weeks of strike stretched out, I came to understand King’s words: “nothing will be done until people of goodwill put their bodies and their souls in motion.”

Our goodwill is not enough. No amount of goodwill will ever move the status quo unless it is accompanied by real and concrete sacrifice and risk on behalf of change. Being “liberal” is not enough. While we must continue our right thinking, it must be accompanied by right action. And that action will inevitably involve risk and sacrifice if we have any hope of challenging the status quo. If the stories from the Bible and the faithful witness of Dr. King tell us anything, it is that God’s call challenges the status quo. God’s call moves us beyond goodwill and into right action, even at great risk to our own life and livelihood. And those stories promise us that God be with us no matter how risky it gets.

As I look out over this congregation this morning, I can say with confidence that I believe we are people of goodwill. This is a place of caring, and I know by our presence here we are trying to live a good and decent life.  I can also say with relative confidence that we share a conviction that the world as it is, the status quo, is not the world as it should be. I have had many conversations with people in this congregation expressing their concerns about the potential war with Iraq, or their opposition to the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. I have heard so many times, “It breaks my heart that there are so many people sleeping out in the streets.” “It’s a shame that homeless families are forced to live in such appalling conditions.” I know based upon the statement of inclusive welcome on the back of our Sunday bulletin that we share a goodwill toward people of all kinds. But the status quo of a seemingly inevitable march toward war, setbacks in affirmative action, resegregation of public schools, lack of health care and housing for our neighbors, none of that will not change based solely on our goodwill. Neither will it change based on our good intentions, our right-thinking, our liberal ideas. So how can our goodwill be transformed into actions that undo the legacy of racism and discrimination, that forcefully break apart the privileges of race, class and education that many of us in this congregation share? How does our care and concern become sacrificial action and risk-taking?

God calls each and every one of us to challenge the status quo as part of our life of faith. It is a question of conscience. Each of us must assess where in our workplaces, our families, and our social circles we must challenge the status quo in service of God’s vision of loving kindness, justice and peace. Together as a community of faith, we must determine how God calls us to challenge the status quo and be a witness for transformation.

So in remembrance of God’s call to King, Samuel, and the disciples, I raise these difficult questions of conscience that we all must wrestle with. Where is God’s call in your life? How is your goodwill not enough to change the status quo? What might God be calling you to risk or sacrifice in order to build a more just community? Remembering Samuel, whose temple are you content to sleep in, even with knowledge of their blasphemy? Remembering the fishermen turned disciples, what familiar nets of security and privilege are still clutched in your fist despite having heard Jesus’ call? Remembering Martin Luther King, where are you still hesitant to speak out for what is right? As a person of goodwill, will you set your body and soul in motion in order to change the status quo?
“Nothing will be done until people of goodwill put their bodies and their souls in motion.” King’s sermon continues, “One day we will have to stand before the God of history and we will talk in terms of what we’ve done. It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, ‘That was not enough! But I was hungry, and ye fed me not. I was naked, and ye clothed me not. I was devoid of a decent, sanitary house to live in, and ye provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. If ye do it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto me.’ That is the question facing America today.”

Thirty-five years later, that is still the question facing us today.

Let us pray.

Transforming God, we hear you calling to us still today, to challenge the status quo, to risk and sacrifice our comfort for the sake of the building up of your reign of justice and peace. Work in our hearts, give us the courage to answer your call. We know that you promise never to leave us alone. Amen.