Third Sunday after the Epiphany
Year A
RCL
Shadows, Fractures, and the Net
By +Brian Ernest Brown, CWC
If we are honest with ourselves, it is incredibly easy to look at the world around us, and sometimes even the world inside our own hearts, and feel like we are navigating a landscape of shadows.
We find that exact landscape in our Gospel today. The story begins on a heavy note: “When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee.” John the Baptist, the fiery prophet of the wilderness, has been locked away by a corrupt empire. The shadow of political violence and fear is looming.
So what does Jesus do? He doesn’t retreat to the desert to hide. He moves right into the heart of the territory that Isaiah spoke about centuries earlier, the land of Zebulun and Naphtali.
Historically, this wasn’t the glamorous center of religious or cultural power. Galilee of the Gentiles was a borderland. It was a place that had been trampled by invading armies, a place of mixed cultures, heavy taxation, and deep weariness. It was a place, as the scriptures say, where people “sat in darkness… in the region and shadow of death.”
But notice the verb there: they sat in it. When darkness lasts long enough, you stop walking. You sit down in it. You get paralyzed by the weight of it.
And it is precisely there, into the middle of that frozen, weary darkness, that Jesus shows up. He doesn’t wait for the people to find their way out of the fog; He brings the dawn to them.
But darkness doesn’t just look like external oppression or grief. Sometimes, the darkness we live in is the division we create among ourselves.
Look at Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Paul is writing to a church that is completely fractured. He has heard from “Chloe’s people”, and I love that detail because it reminds us how human the early church was; people were gossiping and complaining to the leadership, that there are bitter quarrels.
The believers are breaking off into teams, holding up their favorite leaders like flags. “I belong to Paul,” one says. “I belong to Apollos,” says another. “Well, I belong to Christ,” says the smug group in the corner.
Paul looks at this and asks a devastatingly simple question: “Has Christ been divided?”
When we spend our energy building walls, drawing lines in the sand, and insisting on being right at the expense of community, we empty the cross of its power. We trade the brilliant, unifying light of Christ for the dim, flickering lanterns of our own tribalism. We get trapped in the dark of our own making.
So, how does Jesus pull us out of these shadows and fractures? He does it by walking right into our ordinary, everyday routine and calling us by name.
As Jesus walks along the Sea of Galilee, He sees Simon, Andrew, James, and John. They aren’t in a temple praying. They aren’t doing anything explicitly “holy.” They are working. They are smelling like fish, casting nets, and mending gear with their dad. They are just trying to make a living.
And Jesus doesn’t give them a theological lecture. He gives them a command and a promise: “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” The text says they immediately left their nets and followed Him.
Think about what those nets represented. A net is security. It’s your livelihood. It’s the way you’ve always done things. But a net is also something that tangles you up. It binds you to the ground, keeps you stuck in the same old patterns, and limits how far you can go.
To see the great light, to step out of the darkness and into the kingdom, we have to be willing to drop our nets. We have to leave behind the things we use to protect ourselves, the old grudges we hold onto, and the false security of our divisions.
This radical step of trust is what the Psalmist is talking about when they sing:
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?… You speak in my heart and say, ‘Seek my face.’ Your face, Lord, will I seek.”
When Jesus calls the disciples, He is inviting them to look away from their nets and look into His face. He is offering them a new baseline for their lives, not their job performance, not their political team, not their religious perfection, but their proximity to Him.
So, where does this leave us this week?
First, if you are sitting in a shadow right now, whether it’s the shadow of a difficult diagnosis, a fractured relationship, or just a heavy blanket of anxiety, remember that Jesus specializes in borderlands. He doesn’t demand that you clean up your darkness before He arrives. He comes right into the messy, weary places of your life and says, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Let Him dawn on you today.
Second, look at your nets. What are the things you are holding onto that keep you tangled up? What are the old arguments, the political labels, or the resentments that keep you divided from the people in your own home or community? Hear Jesus inviting you to drop those nets, because what He has for you on the open road is vastly greater than whatever you are clinging to in the boat.
Jesus is still walking the shorelines of our ordinary lives, teaching, preaching, and curing every disease and sickness among us. Let’s pray for the courage to leave our nets behind, to seek His face, and to walk together as people who have truly seen a great light.
Amen.