They haul the net up onto the shore. All kinds of fish writhe in it. The good ones are gathered, the bad ones thrown away. Christian tradition usually reads this as the story of humanity: the sea is the world, the net is preaching or the Church, the fish are people. Augustine reminds us that the good and the wicked are still together. Chrysostom warns: being caught in the net is not the same as being saved. You can hear Jesus and go on living as if you heard nothing.
This reading has a direct basis: in Matthew the parable is followed by an explanation about the end of the age and the separation of the wicked and the righteous. You can’t simply erase that for the sake of a pretty guess. But that explanation of the final judgment leaves today’s question open: how does a person become the one who will one day be carried ashore? What happens to them while the net is still under the water?
Jesus’ parable, it seems, is not as simple as it looks and has a double depth. On one level it shows a multitude of people. On another — a multitude of movements inside a single person. The first reading shows the outcome; the second helps us see the path to it. A person does not arrive at the final shore ready-made. They are formed from what they give space to in themselves every day.
Let’s read the parable again, more closely. Before us is the catch and the fishermen’s act: to accept some things, to reject others. Try to look at what happens from the inside. Beneath the surface of consciousness lies dark water. There are no words there yet, only currents: long-ago pain, forgotten joy, a hunger for love, someone’s voice from childhood. Something in the depths turns its silver side. A moment ago there was no thought, and now it is flapping right before your face: answer him, pity her, take what’s yours, ask for forgiveness. We notice the fish when it rises toward the light, but we rarely see where it was born.
Thought comes from what we have heard and lived through, from the secret work of memory. Sometimes it’s brought by another person’s word; sometimes it rises from the bottom of one’s own wound. The net of attention gathers everything indiscriminately. In it end up the desire to help and the desire to humiliate, gratitude and envy. The catch itself does not yet define the person. What matters is what they do with it next.
Here is a small grievance. You can notice it and not let it become a command. Or you can make it a comfortable place, recall it before sleep, feed it with new proofs of the other’s guilt. A year later it no longer fits in the palm. It swims under the ribs and bites anyone who comes near. Nearby, almost motionless, lies a kindly thought: call before it’s too late. It’s easy to throw away as an unnecessary trifle.
Sometimes the sorting goes the other way. A person keeps suspicion because they call it discernment. They preserve contempt, labeling it fidelity to truth. And they let go of compassion: it’s too soft, inconvenient, unprofitable. Their inner holding-pen is full of predators. Later they wonder why everyone around them feels cold. The bad fish has become the favorite.
This reading accords with how Jesus talks about the human heart. He places the source of defiling thoughts inside, in the heart. A good person brings good from the store of good treasures they have accumulated; an evil person brings evil from evil. Here we already have the store, its contents, and the link between what has been accumulated and the deed. The heart gradually begins to give the world what it has been filled with.
Consider the neighboring parable about the merchant and the pearl. We do not take it as advice to invest wisely in jewelry. The merchant’s movement reveals an inner revolution: a person recognizes a supreme value and for its sake changes their former life. Why, then, with the net should we see only other people’s fates? The image of commerce can tell us about the soul; the image of fishing can do the same.
There is one more test. Jesus calls blessed the pure in heart. He compares doing his words to building on rock. That means what is heard must become the ordering of life: a way of seeing, choosing, responding. Understanding the inner catch is not enough. One must consent to let go of a beloved malice and keep an inconvenient mercy. The fisherman really sorts the fish — he doesn’t just debate the merits of sorting.
In this reading, Jesus’ teaching demands that we learn to recognize and accept these inner regularities, and to live by them. Mere assent to a theory of redemption is not enough for this work: by itself it does not turn revenge into forgiveness. We can argue about how to explain salvation and keep feeding the same predators.
In the evening the net is laid ashore again. It holds everything the day brought: grievance flashing, gratitude breathing faintly, timid love still alive. How much time a person has before the distant judgment is unknown. Before their own choice — one movement of the hand.
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