THE PARABLE OF THE NET
Text: Matthew 13:47 - 50
Have any of you ever auditioned for a role or a part in a school play? How about applying for a job? How many of you have tried out for a sport, hoping that you would make the team? For those of you who auditioned for a position or applied for a job, or tried out for a sporting team you went there because you wanted that part in a play or production, or that job and position, or to make the team.
This parable illustrates a lot about God’s grace. This parable also illustrates just how wide God’s grace reaches. It is one thing for us to be attracted to God’s grace which this net symbolizes. It is another thing to be changed by God’s grace. In an audition, tryout or interview, we are the ones seeking a position. Through His grace, God reaches out to us through the prompting of the Holy Spirit. God catches all kinds of people---people from all walks of life. God is not willing for anyone to perish (II Pet. 3:9) which is why God gives us the free gift of His grace. God chooses us but not everyone chooses to have a relationship with God. God also wants us to choose Him.
CASTING THE NET
The Gospel net not selective. The two styles of fishing that were common in the Palestinian culture of the days of Jesus’s earthly ministry were fishing by a small 1) casting net or by a larger 2) dragnet. The casting net was a net that was cast from the shore whereas the dragnet that was drawn by a boat or two boats rather than by hand. (William Barclay. The Daily Study Bible Series: The Gospel Of Matthew. Volume 2. Revised Edition. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975, pp. 88 – 89). The net in this parable is a dragnet. The dragnet is not selective because it catches all kinds of fish.
Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet because it was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind (Matthew 13:47). 1) John Wesley said that “… the Gospel preached, … is like a net gathering of every kind”. (Wesley’s Notes.). 2) We as modern day fishers of men preach the Gospel in our words as well as in our deeds. 3) We also have to remember that our actions sometimes speak louder than our words. So how well do we preach the Gospel in our words and deeds?
The fishermen in the audience of this parable would have a really good grasp of what Jesus was talking about. 1) Jesus had four disciples that we know beyond a doubt were fishermen because He was walking by the sea of Galilee when he called them to become disciples. Andrew and Peter were casting their nets while James and John were on the shore mending their nets. 2 ) Herbert Lockyer called them the “consecrated fishermen”. (Herbert Lockyer. All The Parables Of The Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1963, p. 206). What does it mean to call someone or something consecrated? Something or someone that has been consecrated has been set apart as sacred for a purpose. 3) Our consecration is for the purpose of preaching the Gospel. They were consecrated fishermen to fish for men in that day. We are the consecrated fishers of men in this day. Just as the fishermen were taken out of the sea of sin, they had the privileged task of rescuing others. (Herbert Lockyer. p. 206). Today we are His privileged fishers of men who rescue others just as our Lord rescued us.
Everyone who is a fisherman wants to know where the fish are being caught. In this parable, the sea is where the fish are being caught in the sea. We have to remember that the sea is symbolic. 1) As someone (Lockyer) has said, “The sea represents the whole mass of fallen humanity in this parable.” (Herbert Lockyer. All The Parables Of The Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1963, p. 205). We live in a world where people are hungry for the Gospel.
2) A good many of them try to find in a substitute only what they can find in the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 3) Just as the sea is deep, people, like fish, can get lost in the depth of the sea. Again, the sea is a metaphor for the world and all that is within in it. The sea is a metaphor for the world, its sins, deception and its wide paths that lead to destruction (Matthew 7:13). 4) There is hope because of the Gospel net!
CATCHTING THE FISH
We live in a world where everything or almost everything is selective. 1) Everyone has or will encounter some sort of system of selectiveness. 2) For those of you who auditioned for a position in a play or applied for a job, or tried out for a sporting team, you know what I am talking about. 3) We do not like to think so, but even the church is selective from time to time. Jesus teaches that we are to love our neighbors as well as our enemies (Matthew 5:43 - 48). Jesus also taught us that we are called to love through hospitality even strangers (Matthew 25:38). We would rather love those that are just like us, but Jesus questioned the kind of love that selective among believers (Matthew 5:46). Jesus asked what good is a love that is selective among God’s people who are called to reflect God’s character (Matthew 5:48) when He said that we are called to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. Luke 6:36 seems to compliment Matthew 5:48 when Jesus said, that we need to be merciful just as God is merciful.
The good news of the Gospel---the Gospel Net is that it is inclusive because it does not discriminate. As someone (Lockyer) put it, “There are none so deep that it [the net] does not descend to them, none so high that it does not reach them, none so bad that they are cast out, none so good that they are cast by”. (p. 205). Through the Gospel, God invites all to come to repentance and receive the gift of salvation in the here-and-now and the gift of eternal life with Him in the life-hereafter. God’s love for us goes the distance and Jesus demonstrated the distance the God’s love will go to on the cross as He came to seek and to save the lost. God loves us beyond our ability to comprehend--- in width, length, height and depth of God’s love which not only passes our knowledge but also has the capacity to fill us with the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19 paraphrased). The redeemed and regenerated believers will coexist among the unbelieving and unregenerated.
There are obviously only two kinds of fish among all the gathered species of all kinds of fish. Some say this parable is a twin to the parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13: 24 - 30, 36 – 43). There are some similarities. Both describe the work of angels at the end of the age who will separate the redeemed from the lost. Both have one atmosphere (the field and the sea) where the good and the bad---the righteous and the unrighteous coexist. Both remind us of the reality of eternity. As someone (Lockyer) has put it, “There was a Ham in… [Noah’s] Ark, a Judas among the Apostles. …. People may be religious yet not regenerated, baptized yet never washed in the blood of Christ: professors yet not possessors.” (Lockyer, p. 207). In Matthew 7:21 -23 Jesus addresses that lack of devotion:
21 "Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? 23 And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” (NKJKV).
What it all boils down to is that God will judge both believers and unbelievers.
CONSUMMATION OF THE KINGDOM
Every fisherman likes to see the success of going fishing and having a productive day. In modern day, fishermen use a rod and reel. Commercial fisherman, on the other hand, use a net. Commercial fishermen, like Jesus’s disciples Andrew, Peter, James and John would sort out their “catch” for the day. I remember a time when we “sorted our catch” for the day. I remember going to a place they call the “Jetties” in Georgetown SC, when I was in junior high school. Our family had been invited to fishing with some of my dad’s church members, the Leland family. We used the net method of fishing as two of us walked on each side of an area that was not much wider than a creek. When we drew the net, we took it to the boat and empty its content into an ice chest that at least a foot wide and two and a half feet long. You name it, we had caught it, shrimp, catfish, flounder, squid, crabs. We did not keep what we could not eat as we threw the unusable content back in the water. I was looking over the shoulder of one of the Leland boys as they were using pliers to do some sorting. A tiny crab used its pinchers as it started to go after him. He took the pliers, grabbed it by its pinchers and tossed it as I felt it go sliding across the top of my head as it fell back in the water. For the most part we had a great catch that day.
What was good for the market they kept, what was not marketable (clean) they discarded. According to the law (Leviticus 11:10 -12, Deuteronomy 14:9 - 10), all fish without scales and fins were discarded as unclean. This would mean, that they had to discard, clams, squid, crabs, catfish, sharks because the criteria was that the fish had to have scales and fins. Fish that did not have both were considered scavengers and might have parasites. (Kenneth L. Barker & John R. Kohlenberger III, ed. The Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary. Volume 1. Old Testament. R Laird Harris. Leviticus. Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House, 1994, p. 138). Some of you are probably thinking, “What about shrimp?” For them probably not. For us we would say “Bring on the Creole and rice and lets eat”.
There is a big difference between our way of sorting and the sorting that the angels will do. Someone (Herbert Locker) once said that this parable is not about the net that is used for fishing. It its about the consummation of the age”. (204). This parable reminds us that the net is wide just as God’s grace is far-reaching. When it is time for the angels to sort us among all the Gospel net has gathered, they will sort the good from the bad for eternity. All who are gathered in the Gospel not have a response to make. Consider what some have said about the response we make.
1)William Barclay said this about our response: “When a man is faced with Jesus Christ that is the supreme crisis; his reaction is his judgment on himself, the supreme krisis. Therefore, the judgment is not delayed until eternity for we are judging ourselves in every action every day. We are deciding whether we are the good who are gathered in or the bad who are cast away.” (William Barclay. And Jesus Said. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970, p. 51). We have a daily decision to make.
2)Someone (Douglas R. A. Hare) makes this point concerning our response: “The intention of these verses is not to assure good Christians of their predestined salvation as good fish but to warn them that they must persevere in doing what Jesus teaches. Not lip service but lived faith is required of Jesus’ followers.” (Douglas R. A. Hare. Interpretation: Matthew. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993, p. 156). We have to persevere in our discipleship, because it does not happen by default.
3)Someone else (John R. Donahue) put it this way: “The ultimate separation of good from evil is reserved for the end time, and the criterion will be whether one is truly just or not. Prior to that time the community should be more concerned with their own response to Jesus than with separating the good from the evil”. (John R. Donahue. S. J. The Gospel In Parable. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1990, p. 70). We are accountable as Christians in the world community.
When all is said and done, we have to remember that our response will determine the response that the angels will make at the end of the age. We also have to remember how our daily response will influence for good or bad those around us. The underlying point is very clear and that point seems to be don’t be a cast away!
