August 9,.2026

I've recently been obsessed with a 30-year-old man named Luke McFadden, who was raised up out of Pasadena, Maryland, over near Glen Burnie. He's a native of the western shore of the Chesapeake. And he is, at 30 years old, one of a dying breed. He is a waterman and a crabber. When he was growing up in Pasadena, he noted that there were only about six men still in the community who were actively crabbing on the water. And so there was very little prospect that he could ever make a life doing that kind of work, even as he had a great passion and love for it. But Luke's threaded that needle and he's found a way to sustain success in that industry.

It's interesting because he's not only a waterman and a crabber, but like many in his generation—that kind of transitional zone between being a younger millennial and an elder zoomer—he is very much online. And he lives his life as a social media personality. It's fascinating because you almost would assume those two things to be diametrically opposed to one another: living your life constantly outdoors, on the water, this kind of hardscrabble life of a waterman, and being perpetually what they call terminally online, constantly present to social media and the digital influence sphere. But he brings those things together in this kind of beautiful synergy that shows the importance of the work he's doing, but also communicates that to a new generation and connects them to the things of sort of substance and physical reality in the world around us.

And I was thinking a lot about him this week too for this admonition that Jesus offers in this story of walking on the water. In all three occurrences of this story, in Matthew and Mark and John, there's some form of this admonition: "Do not be afraid." This encouragement to not fear. And I think Luke embodies this in many ways because there's a lot to fear in what he does. Being a waterman in and of itself is quite a dangerous occupation. But not only that, he's surrounded by forces that constantly and perpetually threaten his livelihood: the diminishing return of crabs on the bay, impacts of climate change, the health and quality of the water in the Chesapeake. All of these things he's very aware of and is actually very honest about in communicating the complexity of what it is that he does. And yet he steps out with a form of faithfulness in continuing to pursue this work that he is so passionate about, that he, in a very real way, has this sort of sense of call to.

And I was chewing on that this week because I think it's so very interesting to encounter the disciples in their fearfulness in this moment. Many of them are lifelong watermen themselves, fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. And to be fair, the Sea of Galilee is smaller than many of our lakes and waterways here in the United States, and so it's not a dramatically large body of water. But even if you're in a relatively contained, confined context like they would have been, it's not an easy life. It's a life filled with lots of uncertainty and the tragedy of danger, of the possibility of no return on your work and investment and labor. It's a very fickle and kind of moment-by-moment existence. And yet, even as we have this group of men who mostly have been shaped and formed by that experience, here in this moment on the water, they are filled with some sense of terror, some sense of uncertainty.

I want to explore that a little bit today because the gospel passage we encounter in St. Matthew's gospel is unique in their response to Jesus showing up. It's not unique in their expression of fearfulness. But in Mark's gospel, fascinatingly, what we hear at the very end is that Jesus gets in the boat, the sea is calmed, and it says they were utterly astounded. But not only does it say they were utterly astounded, it says in verse 52 of chapter 6: "For they did not understand about the loaves"—remember this is right on the heels of the feeding of the 5,000—"but their hearts were hardened."

That's so very odd, that in today's gospel passage they are compelled to this great proclamation that is unique to Saint Matthew: "Truly you are the Son of God." But in Mark, they seem to have the exact opposite reaction. Their hearts are not inflamed, but instead hardened. And so I want to think about this experience in Matthew. This experience of encountering the unknown, the uncertain, the fraughtfulness and challenge of difficulties and storms that rage around us in our lives, but the possibility of finding, knowing, and proclaiming the truth of Jesus in the midst of all of that. What does it mean to fear not? Especially in this context. How does not fearing lead us to this place of proclamation?

Well, as I chewed on that and pondered it, I began to wonder about what it was that brought forth this proclamation. Because, and I didn't go back and look at the Greek specifically, but just in the English rendering, it occurred to me that it's not precisely clear that they proclaim this truth of Jesus simply based on the storm dying down. It could have been any number or combination of numbers of events and movements that had occurred in these preceding verses.

So just before in chapter 14, like we heard last week, we had the great miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. That alone could be a reason to proclaim Christ's divinity. But then today, in the moment of this encounter upon the Sea of Galilee, we kind of have three different moments here. We have the sea rising up and developing this kind of choppiness and this weather pattern coming in, creating some instability with them in the boat in the middle of the night. So we have this moment of kind of storminess and challenge that the disciples are facing. And then we have Jesus showing up in the midst of that, showing up in this miraculous way, walking on the water towards them. And then we have this experience of Peter calling out to Jesus, asking to come to him. And Jesus says, "Come." And Peter himself miraculously walks on the water. But then in this moment of doubt begins to sink, and Jesus saves him.

So we have the reality of storminess. And I think for many of us, we can reflect on times in our lives of challenge and difficulty when we have cried out, we have sought the deliverance of God in the midst of that storminess. And then we have the experience of presence: the storm has not abated, but Christ is among us in the moment of that difficulty and we feel that presence. And then sometimes, like Peter, we may be compelled to enter the raging waves, compelled to draw nearer to Christ in the midst of the difficulty, to step out of the comfort of the boat—whatever little comfort it provided—to draw near to the source of true stability. But then many of us may find those moments, even after taking that leap of faith, that step of faith, having a moment of panic, a moment of questioning, uncertainty, in finding Jesus' hand there, catching us in the moment of that doubt. And then, in the course of life, sometimes—maybe less frequently than we would like—we do have those moments of cessation, those moments of calm, those moments when things have kind of ceased in their turmoil and tumult, and we have a sense of peace, a sense of stability.

And I wonder what of those experiences compelled the disciples to proclaim this great truth of who Jesus is. Maybe it's a mixture of all of them. But also I invite us to think about what it is that calls forth our proclamation of Christ in our own time, in our own contexts. Because sometimes, when we're in the thick of the storm, we don't think to cry out. We don't think to ask for Christ's presence. We don't consider the call to bring God into the midst of the storm. We keep our heads down. We try to fix things ourselves. We try to navigate the course as best we can.

But then in the midst of the storm, sometimes we find Jesus showing up for us. We find ourselves in the presence of our Creator. And things haven't gotten better. There's not a light at the end of the tunnel. But we have nevertheless that sense that God is among us and alongside of us in the thick of it. And sometimes we are called to be in the thick of it even more completely with the fraughtness, the uncertainty, the challenge that that might bring.

And then, blessedly, at times and at places, we feel that saving hand when—not if, but when—we have those moments of doubt. The moments all of us face when the uncertainties become so overwhelming that we find our strength waning, our grip loosening, our sinking into the depths of despair, of darkness, in the rough waves of life. And then, blessedly, there are those times of peacefulness when we can look back after the storm has ebbed and we can sense the presence of God among us in the calm and in the peace.

And I wonder what it is that we confess when we confess that Christ is truly the Son of God? When, in the language of St. Paul, the word is near to us, on our lips and in our hearts, how is it that we find the strength to profess Christ in the fullness of his being? Are we the folks who are kind of keeping our heads down, trying to navigate through the storms of life and find that proclamation welling up when we feel Christ present among us? Even as the storm still rages, we feel that sense of nearness.

Are we the ones who find that profession in the moments of taking that leap of faith and stepping into the storm to serve or to help or to be nearer even as it's a fearful approach with an uncertain outcome? Or are we the ones who feel that presence most fully when we have had that moment of salvation—being pulled up from the darkness, being saved from the impending doom that surrounds us? Or are we the ones who find that true profession in the moments of the calm and the peace when we are on the other side of the storm and sense the goodness and the stability that can come in that moment of restoration and return?

And I don't think the answer is one of those exclusively. It's often all of those things kind of operative at the same time. It's all of those complexities and uncertainties in life. It's all of those moments where we find that presence, whether it's in a time of turmoil or in a time of peace. Whether we are the ones actively seeking, thinking, or the observer watching a loved one or someone close to us who is struggling and in a difficult place. It is sometimes a little bit of all of this in a complex, mixed-up world that we live in.

And I go back again to the example of Luke and what he does, and how he does it. Because we live in a world today of kind of black and white thinking, where we want to bifurcate and categorize things. And his lived experience disrupts so many of our paradigms. It shows that one can be connected in with the global world, with digital technology, with all of the abundant positives that that can bring forth, while also having a grounding, a lived experience in the physical world of his community and place. It can aid and support the work he does to care for his community and the environment around it.

And for us, we can so often bifurcate our lived faith experience into these buckets: these times of calm and sustaining peace where we feel that presence and that ease of proclamation that God is here and among us because things are good, things are easy. And then we can sometimes dismiss or shy away from the difficulty of making that proclamation in the times of trial, in the storms, and in the raging seas when everything is so much more fraught and uncertain.

And yet, what we hear today, what we experience in this call, is an opportunity to bear witness to Christ's presence, Christ's power, Christ's true divinity in the midst of all of that, across all of those varieties of life experience. And we are invited again in a culture, in a world, and in a time that dictates this need to sort of divide and to categorize and to bifurcate. This invitation to not be afraid in our own time. This invitation to step out in faith. To affirm the work that Christ is doing amongst us. To acknowledge the perils and the difficulties that are around us. But to take that step of faith. To take that trust. To lean in more fully and not be afraid.

And to come ultimately to that same place of acknowledgement that truly you, Christ, are the Son of God. And that you will see us through. You will be alongside of us. And you will save us from the mire of death, of destruction, and ultimately give us that sustaining peace of ceaseless joy in the kingdom to come. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.