“Once again, The Kingdom of Heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13:47-50 NIV)

While on the topic of religion and fishing, I started thinking about religion as a sort of construct that people use to try and catch god - a net, in other words. The net that is cast to try to reduce god into a particular mesh of stories, rituals and theological principles. But god isn’t religion; he is just the object of religion. And if he is anything, then I’d wager that he is infinitely mutable. Catching god with religion is like trying to catch the sea with a net. Reasoning from this analogy of nets then, god will always slip through the nets of religion, and the only thing which will truly be caught at the end of the day are people.

Mark 1:16-18 says:

As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him.

Also, if God “slips through the nets” no matter how many are thrown over him, it would stand to reason that in order to truly be like god and seek after him, you would have to try and do the same thing. Maybe god is trying to teach us to slip through the nets along behind him. How would you do that? You would look for the holes in religion. You would look for things you don’t understand, and that you doubt, and which don’t make sense to you, and you would question them. You would wriggle, and question and wriggle until you slip through the net into whatever is beyond.

[The whole thing also reminds me of the famous Rutherford gold foil experiment. This is the guy who was trying to experiment with the nature of the atom. He fired alpha particles at a piece of gold foil, and was surprised when most of the particles passed completely through the foil uninterrupted, suggesting that atoms consisted primarily of empty space. God slipped through the nets here too…]

For rather more orthodox interpretations of nets and fishing in the Bible, check out these resources:

1. They left their nets behind
2. Fishing at the time of Jesus

PS. When I talk about “religion” in this sort of context, I’m also including “secular” religions, like science, ideologies, whatever. Just so you know.