One net at a time; Matthew 4:12-25; January 25, 2026
Scripture Matthew 4:12-25
“Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles—
the people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned.”
From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishers. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, people possessed by demons or having epilepsy or afflicted with paralysis, and he cured them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.”
Sermon One Net at a Time Rev. Anne Nelson
Last night I was driving through Minneapolis. On one street corner after another were little groups of people holding candles, gathered around small fires, holding lanterns, remembering the life of Alex Pretti. I saw dozens of vigils, neighbors bundled against the cold, flames trembling bravely, and I thought of today’s opening words:
The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light; and for the people who sat in the region and shadow of death the light has dawned.
The darkness that Matthew identifies could refer to a variety of circumstances. The people of Israel were living under Roman occupation, a violent, oppressive and exploitative cloud. Their ways of governance and worship and commerce were cramped and curtailed. And of course, their lives contained the ordinary griefs and grievances that best our own ordinary lives - the pain and despair of loss, devastating illness, disappointment and heartache.
Our own darkness is thick and pressing right now. We too, are variously beset by grief and loss, anxiety and illness, heartache and confusion. For being normal, they are no less wearisome.
And in this particular moment, for us as Minnesotans, each news cycle is too brief and too small to contain the amount of violence and injustice being visited upon our cities. Each new report feels like a blow to the soul, a grievous wound to one’s life force. A new manifestation of darkness and cruelty that we would not have thought was possible even moments before. The reports of evil deeds amount to a fog or weight, tempting us to come to a halt – to go into hiding; or tempting us to let the flames of fury burn out of control, or to burn us up in the helplessness we may be feeling.
Many of us in this room are used to being protected from exposure to state violence because of layers of fortunate circumstance - for some of us, it may feel brand new to be imminently confronted with government-sponsored injustice. It may be that we are acclimating to the darkness for the first time.
This morning I would like to suggest to you that to acclimate to darkness, is in fact, to become aware of light.
Matthew, is referring to - is speaking to - people who are still sitting in darkness, still living in the region of the shadow of death. It is within the darkness that light shines most bravely. It is within darkness that light is most welcome. This is not the light of noon. This is candlelight. This is the first welcome blush of dawn.
We know that the full light of Jesus’s ministry is coming. We know the stories of healing and wholeness that will take place. We know the teachings of peace and love that Jesus will preach on mountaintops and lakeshores. We know the hungry will be fed and the sick will be healed. The fullness of Jesus’s ministry is bubbling with hope, bubbling with impossible newness.
But that bright day is far away right now. What do we do in between dawn and noon? How do we persist under the dark skies of ongoing winter?
Here are the two actions that sit in the space in between: Jesus says - “Repent! The kingdom of heaven is near!” And he says, “Follow me - become fishers of people.”
First, repent means, in the Greek – “Change your mind!” It’s like - “Look! You can perceive the world differently! In this wearisome life, amidst daunting circumstances, there are meanings and solutions you have not yet laid hold of!”
Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven - the will of God on earth – is like the moment in a dark room where a candle light flickers to life and suddenly you see the edges and planes of objects that were obscured a moment before. What was an impenetrable mass of looming danger is not gently but meaningfully illumined. The darkness is not gone, but the way is perceptible.
Jesus also says - “follow me.” You remember Andrew and Peter from last week, in the scripture from John, the brothers met Jesus and began to learn about him, to learn from him. This week, features a much more decisive moment of call. In this moment, Jesus demands action. He says - “follow me,” and he adds a promise: “I will make you fishers of people.”
These disciples have been fishing all their lives - side by side with brothers and neighbors, casting nets into the water, hauling out life-sustaining catches, just a relative few at a time.
Of course the metaphor of fishing isn’t perfect - we aren’t trying to get anyone tangled up, or require others to provide substance for us, Jesus isn’t saying that - it’s more like - think about the process of fishing, that patience it requires, the way you have to repeat small actions, stay hopeful, stick together.
This is what it means to be fishers of people. We belong to teams of hopeful people who hold onto, and hold out, a stubborn commitment to the generous, peaceable, creative ways of God. These fisherpeople cast out the good news, over, and over, for the few who always need to hear the call to relief and hope: God is a god of healing, the kingdom is here in the darkness, you can perceive it too.
There are two calls to action that bridge the promise of God’s coming toward the concrete realization of it:
One - change your mind - do not agree to hatred or apathy or ignorance or despair.
Two - gather around the flickering flame of hope and keep it alive together. Keep casting that net of belonging out into the darkness, catching those who are adrift and drawing them to shore, to the warmth of hope.
Remember that these small, repeated gestures add up, and they matter greatly.
No one strategy accomplishes the building of the bridge from death’s shadow to God’s wholeness of life.
We must pay attention, we must rest. We must mourn and rejoice. We must act and we must process. We must find our own internal rhythms of giving and receiving, of engaging and recovering. We must not do this work alone. We must do this work.
I close this sermon with a quote by Lutheran pastor and public theologian Nadia Bolz-Weber. After all, being a light in the darkness does not mean that we light up the entire night sky alone. Instead, Bolz-Weber says, shining brightly may mean: “Setting down what isn’t ours, and lifting the one small, specific thing that is. Tending a body. Telling the truth. Making enough soup to feed yourself—and pouring the extra into a jar to drop off for a neighbor. Showing up to a demonstration even if you’ve never been to one. Loving fiercely where your feet actually are. Taking a video of anything you see that’s unjust, even if your hands are shaking. Resisting despair and all its empty promises. That won’t save everything. But it will save something. And that is how we keep going.”
