I love cast nets.
Or more accurately I love the idea of cast nets.
I even own one. I’ve always had trouble with basic geometry. I have a hard time remembering the difference between radius and diameter, the result is that I have a cast net that is twice the size of what I intended to buy. It’s huge.
I’ve watched videos and practiced in the back yard and in salt marshes and in lakes and in the ocean, tidal creeks. It is an ugly tangled mess that catches me more than it catches fish. One time I threw it without holding on to the rope and the whole thing just disappeared into alligator infested water. Unfortunately someone was able to snag it with their fishing rod so I’m still entangled with that giant net.
We see Jesus going fishing today and he catches his first disciples, his first followers.
He casts the net of belief, belief in the Gospel, the Good news of God’s kingdom coming near, of being at hand, like a net.
The disciples are caught, snatched up and away from the familiar waters of their lives and they are released into the new waters of a vast and strange ocean.
Jesus is poaching on King Herod’s fishery. He is fishing without a license, trespassing on the empires exclusive fishing rights.
We try to romanticize the fisherman imagery, but make no mistake, Jesus is a thief.
He is emptying Herod’s fishery and filling up the ocean of God’s kingdom.
This is much more than saving souls, it is a threat to the financial and political economies of the empire, it is a threat to the loyalties and claims that the empire demands.
At first the disciples are helpless and clueless, not so much acquired assets as burdensome liabilities as they slowly learn the ways of the new body of water that is the Gospel.
What is this belief that catches and releases us into strange waters?
What is the good news that ensnares our loyalty and challenges all that claims to own us?
To be clear Jesus isn’t so much stealing as he is stealing back what was always his.
What does it mean to believe in that mission?
How we live our lives tells us what we really believe.
What do we really believe? Our lives tell us.
What does a life look like that believes the good news that God’s kingdom is near?
It is revealing that Jesus proclaims believing in the good news of God’s kingdom come near, then immediately the story continues with Jesus coming near, walking along the shore, pulling in God’s catch.
The good news is a person. The nearness of the kingdom is a person.
We believe in a person, not so much a set of abstract principles and virtues, but a person.
A life that believes in Jesus, ensnared by the person who is God’s kingdom, God’s cast net.
We are snatched up and cast into the waters of baptism.
Our baptism asks us to accept, trust, follow and obey Jesus.
What does a life of belief in Jesus look like?
Mark’s Gospel shows us what that belief looks like, lives that are caught up and released.
Don’t let anybody or anything own you.
Only God is big enough to catch us and set us free.
Despite our best efforts to measure the radius and diameter of God’s cast net, God’s grace exceeds our capacity. God pays no attention to our catch limits.
The good news is bigger than we want to believe. Believe it.