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Gospel: Matthew 13: 47-53
Jesus said to the disciples:
“The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea,
which collects fish of every kind.
When it is full they haul it ashore
and sit down to put what is good into buckets.
What is bad they throw away.
Thus it will be at the end of the age.
The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous
and throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”
“Do you understand all these things?”
They answered, “Yes.”
And he replied,
“Then every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven
is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom
both the new and the old.”
When Jesus finished these parables, he went away from there.
The Gospel of the Lord.
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There were two different kinds of nets the Apostles used as fishermen. One was a casting net. The other was a drag net.
A casting net was tied to a fisherman’s arm while standing along the shoreline and thrown into the sea. It collected a minimal number of fish with minimal effort.
A drag net was capable of collecting a far greater number of fish, as it was released from the back of a fisherman’s boat.
Once he started accelerating, the drag net would slowly sink into the water, gathering whatever was in its path. After the net was hauled ashore, the fisherman would separate what was good from what was rotten.
This is the word Jesus uses to describe the Kingdom of God, and by extension, the Church. It’s like a drag net thrown into the sea, “which collects fish of every kind. When it is full, they haul it ashore.”
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Until Christ returns, the Church remains at sea.
It is not our mission to judge or to separate those caught in our drag nets; rather, to continue collecting people of every kind.
At the end of time, the Lord will haul the Church ashore, allowing his angels to separate those who belong from those who don’t – if any.
Such an image may leave some feeling comforted while leaving others feeling uncomfortable. But this is, perhaps, what is needed most in our age:
Mercy.
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“The kingdom of heaven… collects fish of every kind,” Jesus says.
Until the end of time, may we cast our drag nets far and wide.
And sail onward.
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Image credits: (1) First Mission Church of Clemmons (2) Shutterstock (3) Peter Brueghel the Elder, Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee