In today’s Gospel Jesus continues to teach us about the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God. He has been teachings about the Kingdom using different concrete examples from everyday life such as Sowing and Fishing. So, in today’s Gospel he begins his teaching with the words, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind.” This parable is like the previous parable of the Weeds Among Wheat (13:24-30). In fact, Jesus gives the same interpretation to both of these parables:
“so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” (13:40-43).
“Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” (13:49)
Jesus teaches that the “separation” of the weeds and the wheat or the “separation” of the fish of every kind, that is the “separation” of the “wicked from the righteous” will not take place until the “end of the age.”
Until the end of the age Jesus’ vision of church is that it will be filled of both saints and sinners, no one is excluded, all are welcomed. Jesus alone as the Son of Man is the one who judges and separates but not until the end of the ages. Jesus refers to these “parables of separation” again in the great judgement scene at the end of the ages:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” (Matthew 25:31-32).
The criterion of judgement is simply and challengingly social justice: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least of mine, you did for me.”
In today’s Gospel while Jesus seems to be talking about “Goin’ fishing” he is really giving us his vision of what we are and what we are called to be as his church: we are to welcome “fish” people of every kind, saints and sinners.
Image: “Christ appears to St Peter at the Sea of Tiberias” by Lawrence OP is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.