Today’s story begins immediately after the feeding of the multitudes, and Jesus sends the disciples on into the boat, to travel across the sea of Galilee – really a small lake – while he again retreats to pray.  But the disciples get caught in a storm.

I’ve been in one sea storm – in the Atlantic – and it wasn’t a very big one – and I was on a really big boat.  The waves were splashing over the porthole of our cabin, and the boat was rolling at a rather alarming angle, in my opinion.  It was not a bad storm, by Atlantic Ocean standards, I don’t suppose, but it made me wish I’d paid more attention to the life boat drill.  I am not a lover of the water, particularly, and this scene in the gospels easily translates for me as fear.

On one level, certainly, this is a story about what we can expect from Jesus when the storms of life are raging - as they will - and we are fearful and uncertain about the future.   As a story that has long held meaning for those navigating difficult times, it is a rich resource for prayer.   To contemplate Jesus, coming across the raging water, and calming the storm, gives the assurance that all is well, that survival is ensured.

On another level, it is a gospel story, and it is therefore never a personal story only, but also a story meant for the church – for the community of disciples Jesus built and whose hands he left his ministry of healing, feeding, and calming storms.

These first disciples were fishermen.  Presumably this was not the first storm they had been in on the sea of Galilee, but this one was about to teach them something remarkable – not about fishing, and not about the weather, but about their new vocation of discipleship and the one whom they had decided to follow.

The disciples are reported to be terrified – but not because of the storm.  They are reported to be terrified only when Jesus came walking toward them through the storm, across the water, outside the boat.  But Peter (of course, Peter!) as soon as he is reasonably sure that Jesus is over there, across the water, outside the boat, in the storm – Peter wants to go there, too.  And so Jesus calls to him, and he goes toward Jesus, and all of sudden, Peter is outside the boat, on the water, in the storm.

If we want to come to Jesus, at least in this story, we are compelled to notice that he is not in the boat.  He is out in the storm.  And a church that wants to be where Jesus is will, at least from time to time, have to take some risks, step out of the sanctuary of safety and be in the places where the storms are.

One of the best ministries to come from the ecumenical movement has been Church World Service.  They are incredibly capable, along with UMCOR and Mennonite Central Committee and other denominational relief agencies, in the aftermath of storms.  They go where the storm is, and board the storm tossed boat, and work to calm the storm.  One such effort has been underway in Haiti, and was reported this week in the United Methodist “Newscope.”

After tropical storm Jeanne hit Haiti in 2005, CWS transitioned their relief efforts into long term sustainable recovery efforts.  As a result of their work, the remote Northwest region of Haiti is developing sustainable agricultural practices.  Families in this co-op food program are producing larger, more sustainable crops by learning to use crop rotation, fertilizer and other methods.  Micro loan and micro enterprise programs are operating.  While many Haitians are rioting over food shortage, this remote area is becoming self sufficient.  The church has literally walked into the storm with them through these expensive, risky, foreign mission initiatives and is building them a boat that is more likely to sustain them when the next big storm comes.  Calming the storm, and providing safety, just like Jesus.

We don’t have to take the full burden of the risk ourselves.  That’s what God made missionaries and humanitarian aid workers for.   They will leave home, learn another language, live at a subsistence level and work for little or no pay.  We can help them do that from the comfort of our own boat.  But not without risk.  It is risky to give a percentage of your income to an institution like the church.  But many of us do it.  Because discipleship is risky.

Some of you may have received a letter this week that explains that the Administrative Board here at North Broadway is behaving like Peter.  That is to say, they have made a decision that feels a little risky, and that has enough questions surrounding it to make it appear as though the wind might be a little strong, and the outcome a little hard to see from here.

Most older urban congregations have been beaten and battered by the shifting winds of cultural changes, and by sociological and demographic shifts that have sent people away from the city and into the suburbs.  Our mother congregation, the Como Avenue church, has fallen on particularly difficult times.  Their faithful congregation, though small, has held together in worship, and has worked hard to keep the building operating.  But their resources are few - and the forces against them mighty.  Still, they have stepped out from their place of safety, and have begun conversation with the Clintonville Beechwold Community Resource Center about their building.  At the same time, they no longer have adequate resources to pay for pastoral leadership.

Here at North Broadway, we’ve got abundant provisions on board, so to speak.  We have lots of staff, and some highly capable folks at that.  And so we have been asked to step out of our boat, and walk on over, across the windy seas of change, to the folks at Como, and see what we can do to help them navigate their way into a new future.  Right now, Carlene Triplett, who is trained in small congregational leadership and as a church and community worker, is working on a covenant agreement between us and Como Avenue.  We expect that agreement to be adopted at the August Administrative Board meeting.  And so, in preparation for that, we have begun to align our staff in such a way that we can be ready and equipped with faith to be where Jesus is, and be about the work of calming storms.

I’m excited about Carlene’s new job description, which is going to help North Broadway get out of the boat, and go where Jesus is, into the stormy places where radical, risk taking, mission and justice ministries can make a difference to our neighbors.

A lot of people are out there in the storm with no lifeboat in sight.  Their jobs are lost.  The schools aren’t working for their children.  Poverty is intractable in their communities.  They are refugees from war and genocide, or undocumented workers upon whom we depend, but whose safety is always in jeopardy.  They are out there, in the storm.

Peter had a little faith, and when he saw that Jesus was there, too, he stepped right off the boat onto the water and into the storm.   But Peter is Peter, he is not Jesus, though he is learning more quickly than the others.  And when he really notices what is happening, “Gee, the wind is really strong, and I am outside the boat, on the water!”

He begins to sink so that he is about to be where one might reasonably expect to be.  He is about to be in the water.

But Peter knows that the one who called him out of the boat can save him, so he cries out to Jesus, “Lord, save me.”

And as Jesus saves him, he says to Peter, “Ye of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Now I’ve always heard this as a rebuke to Peter.  It is as though Jesus is saying that if Peter had more faith, he could have done it.  It could easily sound as though Jesus is scolding Peter.

But listen, now, just a little while ago in Matthew’s gospel, how much faith did Jesus teach was enough?

That’s right! Faith as much as a mustard seed.  Only a little tiny bit of faith would be enough.

So I want to imagine a little different reading of this exchange between Peter and Jesus.  Imagine that it’s really Jesus affirming and congratulating Peter for what he has just done.

“Oh, Peter, you had a little faith.  There, just for a minute you had it! You got out of the boat into the storm with me.  You stayed on the water.  You did it a little tonight, you can do it again.”

Faith is not belief.  Peter didn’t shout across the water, “Lord, I believe in you.” He got out of the boat! The little faith that he had finally gotten, that would carry him, in fits and starts to be the rock on which Jesus founded the church, that faith was displayed by action.

All the rest of the disciples stayed on the boat.  But Peter had gotten it – a little faith – enough to risk stepping out of the safety of the boat into the storm, where Jesus was.

It is one of the paradoxes of how I experience my faith.  Church is my safe place…it is where I go for sanctuary.  Its serene atmosphere, beautiful music, traditional prayers and warm fellowship shelter me.   A church sanctuary can easily become for me a place of gently lapping waves, lulling me into peacefulness.  At the same time, nothing I read in the gospels suggests to me that sanctuary is the permanent residence of disciples.  It is a place for gathering enough faith, enough courage to step out into the storms of the world in the name and presence of Jesus, who not only calls us, but sends us.  I’m afraid of storms.  But I’m more afraid of losing my faith, and choosing security over discipleship.

Jesus sent the disciples – out onto the sea – into the storm.   And Peter, God bless him, Peter got out of the boat.  And while all the others stayed behind, terrified not of the storm – but of Jesus out in it – Peter got out and went to Jesus.  Yeah, Peter! Way to use a little faith!  I want to be like that, because I want to have a little faith, and be where Jesus is.

Even when we are like Peter, and we find the courage to step out of the boat, we, like him, can lose focus.  We feel the wind blowing against us.  We calculate that the surface tension of the water will not support our weight.  We focus on impossible.  Peter loses his focus on Jesus, and starts focusing on the storm, and he’s going down.

But we know what going into the water means for Christians.  It means we’re baptized.  Into risk taking ministry.  And life saving faith.  It means that we become like Jesus, who goes all the way down to the depths of every failure so that we are saved – not safe – but saved.

And that’s how disciples learn from this story who Jesus is: the Messiah, the Son of God.  The one who saves.   And if we have a little faith in him – what is it, really, to step out of sanctuary into the places where Jesus is already at work, calming storms?