Stories that Stick: Nets

Matthew 13:47-53

“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away.

“This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

“Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked. “Yes,” they replied.

He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”

I’m four iterations into this new experience we call the COVID Bubble, vetting and quarantining and hyper-communicating with a small, select group of people for the sake of our childcare logistics, mental health and relationships. 

If you told me six months ago we’d be having these complex conversations about who’s in and what’s controllable and how we manage exposure to everyone from cashiers to grandparents, I would have looked at you with pity and tried to give you a hug. (These days, a hug feels pretty extreme.) 

The first time I tried to navigate this conversation back in May, I was itching to leave my house but also terrified about turning the dial wrong. I’m guessing you, too, have needed to weigh the cost/benefit of who’s in and what’s controllable and how exposure works — for the sake of essential work, social connections, and your deep abiding love for others. 

A few months into these conversations, they are feeling more natural. (At least natural in the turbulent matrix that is 2020.) I’m able to advocate for my boundaries, honor what others need to feel safe, listen to the science, and keep plugging along. 

The people in my COVID Bubble are currently watching the same TV show, so even when we’re not physically together, we’re engrossed in the same characters. “Alone” is the extreme wilderness survival experience. Move over Bear Gryllis and “Survivor” — you’ve got nothing on these folks. They do their own filming and, left with a limited supply of tools and resources, they are truly, completely alone. 

I’ve never had the patience or interest in fishing, but I am captivated by the methods these contestants use to catch fish in extreme conditions, their strategies for staying alive at the edge of cold and hunger. They’re always one fish away from hope. And life.

These folks get creative with their hooks, their line, and their NETS. They pray for a fish to find their way to the bait, to come near enough to the shore, to get snagged in the net that looks so small in the deep, wide waters. But no matter how many they catch, they admit they cannot do it alone forever. The pull to be near other human beings is strong. And the challenge of being alone eventually proves too harsh to handle. 

Today’s parable of the net is another brief story, a quick image, to spark our imagination about the kingdom of heaven. I’ll admit that the plot line and character development of this parable could use some work. Just a net. But this parable does some good work on my heart every single time I hear it because I wander off in the short story looking to be all the characters I’m most definitely not. 

You see, I want to be the fishermen who cast this incredible net, who catch everything, who must have bulging biceps if they can haul it up onto shore. I want to be the fishermen because they sit down to sort — and I am very good at sitting down to sort. 

But I am not the fishermen.

I want to be the basket that gets to hold the fish, all the good stuff. The collector of delicious success and on the move from shoreline to table where people are satisfied and I am satisfied because I got to be in the room where it all happened.

But I am not the basket.

I want to be the angels who swoop in like superheroes to decide what’s good and what’s not, what’s necessary and what can be burned. They sound important and fancy. 

But I am not the angels.

I want to be the blazing furnace, hot with righteous rage and destroying every evil. This is where justice is served and I could take some satisfaction in the sounds of weeping and gnashing of teeth if I knew it was for the best.

But I am not the blazing furnace.

Then I remember the net, one of the only characters left and think, “Ugh. Fine. I’ll be the net. But I can’t hold my breath for very long and I don’t like to get cold and the weight of this catch sounds like it would stretch me to my breaking point.”

But I am not the net either. The kingdom of God is like a net. 

I am a fish. 

And in this water, with this net, I don’t have to find the cove to be caught or go for the bait to be gathered in. This net will come find me wherever I am. 

It catches all kinds of fish until it is full. And then it is hauled up.

You guys. You know what I realized this time, in this context, reading this parable? I’m concerned about the lack of social distancing in this net. Most of these other fish are not in my COVID Bubble. I have not had a conversation with them about their exposure or their rules or their boundaries, and none of these fish are wearing a mask. And we’re all squished together like it’s 2019 at a concert or a stadium!

I mean, this net is a little like a concert or a stadium because we’re all kinds from different places who just happen to have one thing in common that brought us together. And yet, this net is not at all like a concert or a stadium 

because this net does not sell tickets or make us park downtown. It comes and finds us and gathers us up together whether we like it or not — because the one thing we all have in common is this net — and it wants to be full. 

These COVID Bubbles. 
This healthcare crisis. 
These decisions about school. 
These politics.

They are really important. And also they can trick us into thinking we are fishermen or angels or baskets or a blazing furnace or a net when we are actually fish. We are all kinds of fish. It smells and it’s crowded and we didn’t ask for this. And we don’t get to sort each other or decide who’s worthy of the table.

Friends, our worlds are getting smaller. Our bubbles are tight and cautious. We are seeing fewer people in three dimensions these days.

This is really important. This is life on earth in 2020. 

But do not mistake the tight circle of a COVID Bubble for the wide mercy of heaven’s net. Even though we are tempted to haul like a fisherman, manage like a basket, sort like an angel, condemn like a fire, and cast like a net — we are the fish. 

The world needs a witness to this net, for the church to believe and act like we are all being sought out along with every other fish in the water, gathered and claimed by better sorters we could ever hope to be. The world needs us to be who will testify with our whole lives that this net is never finished — still gathering, still claiming the beauty and bounty of these waters, sorting according to a system we cannot yet know. 

The world needs us to who remember we are creatures meant to be caught up together, proximate to each other even while we’re apart, seeing every single neighbor as part of the catch, trusting that the fishermen and angels will figure out what to do with all of us, so that the table is set with satisfaction and life and life abundant. 

It feels like our worlds are getting smaller, but they’re not really. Look around and see all kinds of fish being gathered into this net from daycare centers and playgrounds, nursing homes and hospitals, refugee camps and palaces, unemployment lines and corporate headquarters, airports and truck stops, prisons and pharmacies, vacation homes and zoom calls, trailer parks and farms.

We can divide each other up with borders and tax codes, by categories of race or party politics or school choice. We can delete the Facebook friends we don’t agree with and evict our unhoused neighbors from the parks — and we can justify these lines we draw all day.

But let’s be clear — when we sort each other for the sake of ourselves, it is not the kingdom of God. It does not bear witness to the wide mercy of this net and this sacred story we love to tell.

Beloved Ones, we are all in the same net and God never tires of casting it, far and wide, letting it fill to the brim, right up to heaven’s breaking point (not ours) so the bounty of creation can be received, a creation that cries out for connection we cannot muster all alone.

If hearing you are a fish in a crowded net does not feel like super good news today, then trust — you are in good company. I still want to be all the other characters instead. I still struggle against the net and the other fish and my sense of self in the Kingdom Story. I still fight being caught by a God I did not go looking for, who probably doesn’t keep and toss as I would have it.

But that means it’s a good parable, right? It gives us a glimpse. It helps us imagine. It needles at something hard and true about living in this world and then it gives us back to our creator and our creature selves. 

“First Lesson”
by Philip Booth

Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man’s float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.