Amy and What’s in your net?
What’s in your net?
Jesus said to his disciples, “The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad.” Matthew 13: 47-48
What is in your net? Is it full? What’s in there?
Have you ever noticed how dirty our waterways are? Our nets can get full of all kinds of things that aren’t fish.
Do you find yourself in this pandemic time maybe even a little bit more than usual taking in so much – too much – absorbing so much –too much –so that you may find yourself like the ancient Greek God Atlas whose punishment includes bearing the weight of the world for eternity?
Jesus’ parable of the net reminds me of those images I’ve seen of Atlas carrying the weight of the world on his back. Bent over, he can hardly move. With a full net, we, too are hardly free.
We are given hearts, minds, ears, eyes and all our senses to take in God’s creation and to tune into one another. To care and steward all that God has given us, to love one another as God loves us.
All that openness – that huge net that we throw out into the sea each day and bring back onto shore each evening – gets full quickly, with the good and the bad. With joy and happiness, and also worry and concern. With celebration and hope, and also fear and loneliness. We may take into our nets things that are not ours to carry – the pain, fear, sorrow of others. We may take into our nets things that others have thrown out but our nets pick up because they are open. Maybe we then keep someone else’s trash in our nets out of guilt, or shame, or anxiety and we don’t even realize how much we’re carrying.
Jesus’ parable today invites us into the practice of clearing out our nets. Make it a habit to sort through what’s in your net, look carefully at what you’ve been carrying around, and take out the good and throw out the bad. Store away, savor, cherish all that you experience that brings you hope and peace, and let go all that weighs you down, that isn’t yours to carry. Let God take care of that.
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