In the gospel readings chosen for liturgy this past week were a number of parables. The thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is a collection of some of Jesus’ well-known teaching stories. Before looking at one of these parables, it helps to remember how the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures came into being, and what is their main purpose. The First and Second Testaments are theological documents, grounded in the faith of their authors, editors, and communities, meant to help us to learn something about who God is and how God does. The Scriptures invite us to grow in understanding of, and in living out, what God desires of us, in the way God desires us to live – with God’s help, of course.

The Bible (the word in Greek means a library), an amazing collection of books, is not meant to be taken literally. The individual books were written, rewritten and compiled across decades, and in some cases, across centuries.These writings are not primarily history, science, biography, geography, even though they have elements of all these in them. They are God-inspired documents composed by human beings at particular moments in time. Our Scriptures come with all the gifts and limitations of insight, knowledge, experience available to the era, or eras, in which they came to be in the form we have them today.

 Jesus used parables as a teaching tool. They are open-ended bits of wisdom drawn from nature and from human experience. Because they are open-ended, they can seem to end very abruptly, leaving us to reflect on and to wonder about God and our life. The impact or lesson of a parable is meant to reach, to touch, to move each individual just where they are at the time they hear the story. Unlike fables, parables don’t come with a moral, or stated conclusion. Unlike allegories, parables don’t give symbolic meaning to every aspect or detail of the story. Any moralizing, allegorizing or conclusions were added at a later time in the process.

Back to the Gospel of Matthew’s “Parabolic Discourse.” The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea. It took in fish of every size and kind. When it was full they dragged the net ashore, sat down, put the good fish into buckets, but threw the less than good fish away” (Matthew 13:47-48). This is a story taken from the lives of those who worked in the fishing industry on the Sea of Galilee. It’s about recognizing and sorting. Because of the apocalyptic ending added later (Matthew 13:49-50), the focus of this parable has been turned toward judgement at the end of days. The annexed conclusion draws us away from Jesus’ original meaning.

The original parable directs our attention to how important it is to sift through, to see, to recognize, and to choose what is truly good. Jesus trusts that we, if we are paying attention and with practice, like those Galilean fisherfolk, can sort out what is good from what is unloving, hurtful, dishonest, self-serving… This is what discernment is about. Yes, we can fool ourselves into believing that what is good is bad, or what is bad is really good. Usually we do this when we are feeling rushed or afraid. That’s why we need to “sit down” and focus on the choice at hand in order to recognize and to choose the good before us and discard all that is not from God.

Some scholars like to point out that Matthew’s Gospel is divided into five sections (or “books”). Matthew almost universally is acknowledged to be shaping his gospel for a Jewish audience. So this gospel presents Jesus as the new Moses (the liberator and lawgiver), and the gospel is the new Pentateuch (five books of the Law). One whole section in the proclamation of the Kingdom is made up of seven (number representing completion or fullness) parables. 

The final parable of the seven is about casting a dragnet into the sea (Matthew 13:47-50). A dragnet had weights along its edges so that it would sink to the depths. You would throw the net out in a way that it would open up as wide as possible, it would gently sink in the water, when the net reached bottom you would slowly drag it back in. This way of fishing was very good at collecting all kinds of fish who feed and dwell at different levels in a larger body of water. It also would haul in plenty of other debris off the floor of the lake or sea. 

Now it’s easy to imagine that not all the fish dragged in were good for eating, and most of the junk was good for nothing. As happens with many of Jesus’ sayings, and especially his parables, the final editing of the gospels added in commentary trying to explain and defend the faith to the particular community addressed by each gospel. So here someone later added to the straightforward story of Jesus a reference to angels, the end of time, judgement and a fiery furnace for whoever they saw as unfaithful, or other “bad guys.” This was not from Jesus.

Jesus is not talking about judgement. In the Gospels of Matthew (Matthew 7:1-2), Luke (Luke 6:37-39) and John (John 7:24) explicitly, and in Mark (Mark 4:24) implicitly, Jesus emphatically states, “Stop Judging!” By judging he was referring to our tendency to place people in heaven or hell based on our point of view, or on how they appear to us. Jesus is saying, “Look, we don’t have God’s vision or perspective. Deciding our or anyone else’s condemnation or final reward is none of our business.” Besides God is incredibly (literally), infinitely merciful, according to Jesus.

Rather, this parable is about discernment. Our eyes, minds, hearts are like dragnets. In our lives we take in, experience, run into all kinds of people and events. Jesus is asking us to discern – to carefully evaluate which of these help us to grow in awareness, love, compassion, forgiveness. Which help us to open up, become freer, more fully alive, more human? And, on the other hand, which close us in on ourselves, on our pre-formed ideas and opinions, on what feels safe and secure? Which are like slow-acting poison for us?

As always, Jesus is inviting us to be transformed, using the gift of discernment to help us to grow each day a bit more fully into who God knows us to be. Leave the role of judge to the all-loving God, who knows us humans much better than we know ourselves. With Jesus, it’s just the facts.