ascent

 

Some of my friends go for a run on Sunday mornings, from the pub carpark across the street from St Nic’s, and I’m usually done taking the first service and setting up for the second in time to go across and chat with them before they set off. But I am on holiday, back home yesterday but not back to work until tomorrow, so this morning I ran with them.

At 15 kilometres, or 9 miles, it was fully 50% further than my distance-of-choice, but it was the relentless hour-long ascent that really got me—and got me thinking theologically. (You can take the boy out of church, but you can’t take the church out of the boy...)

In the imagination of the Bible, mountains (which can be actual mountains, or hills, or high places) are places of encounter with gods. Moses encounters Yahweh on Mount Sinai. Elijah encounters Yahweh on Mount Horeb. Centuries, millennia even, later, Moses and Elijah return, encountering Jesus on Mount Tabor. Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. The composer of Psalm 121 looks around at the high places where people went to encounter Canaanite gods, and asks, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord. This particular psalm is a Psalm of Ascents, a psalm sung by pilgrims on the 1000 metre, or 3500 foot, climb from Jericho up to Jerusalem.

It is on a mountain where Jesus delivers the Sermon on the Mount, and on a mountain where he feeds five thousand men, plus women and children.

And Jesus said to his disciples that faith can move a mountain and throw it into the sea. Somewhere along the line, we have got muddled as to what that means. We have reframed mountains as seemingly immovable obstacles, that can be overcome by faith. We sing songs on this theme. This misses the point, entirely. Mountains are places of divine encounter. In the same biblical imagination, the sea represents chaos, the dwelling-place of chaos demons such as Rahab, Yam, Tiamat, Leviathan, and Behemoth. Yahweh is depicted walking the ocean depths, while Jesus walks on (top of) the water of the Sea of Galilee. Both images speak of mastery over chaos.

Jesus says, faith can bring the mountain-top experience of encounter with God—experiencing the divine glory, or felt weight of God’s presence—to bear in the places of chaos.

Elsewhere, Jesus also said that faith can replant a ‘mulberry’ tree in the sea. Again, in biblical imagination, trees represent people; and the ‘mulberry’ tree was associated with healing properties. Jesus’ claim is that faith should cause us to transplant ourselves into the places of chaos, as healing presences.

So today, I ran. Today, I climbed, up, up. Today, I pushed through the strong urge to Regret My Life Choices, and thought about the places where we experience chaos, and the encounter with the divine that faith can bring to bear there, because encounter with the divine is meant to transform us in some ‘visible’—visibly different—way.

Tomorrow, when I return to the valley—to the place where people live within the shadow of death; to the places of bitter tears, which might just be transformed into a place of joy—may my encounter with God on a rain-soaked hill today make all the difference. May the mountain be levelled so that the valley can be raised up. May the mountain be moved into the sea.

 

139

 

In a couple of weeks’ time, I shall be preaching on Psalm 139 (text below). The psalm—or song—rejoices in life lived in intimate nearness to God’s presence, from the womb to the grave. In the experience of being known, and loved, by One whose love for us causes them to want to know us fully. Of discovering that God is alongside us in the highs and lows of life, in ecstatic joy and in the depths of despair. And that this God, who is beyond our capacity to know, is nonetheless knowable.

For Christians, this God does not only know us from the outside, from beyond human life, as we might study and learn about the way of life of other species with whom we share this planet. We proclaim that in the man Jesus, born of the woman Mary, the eternal Word of God took on human nature, becoming what God loved. The God who is with us from our mother’s womb and will be with us in our grave, or urn, has known both womb and tomb firsthand, as one of us. And has broken out of both.

Ignatian spirituality invites us to take time each day to ask ourselves, where have we been attentive to, aware of, the presence of God with us, in the joy and sorrows of our hours? And where has that presence been hidden from us?

The psalm takes a turn towards the end, the psalmist crying out to God to bring an end to the wicked. It is a raw and heartfelt prayer, and one that God chooses to answer in a stunning way. Rather than slaying the wicked, God allows the wicked to slay the innocent One—God’s very self in our midst, become one of us—and as they do so, from the executioners’ scaffold, proclaims, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ And forgiveness is so disarming that the power of the bloodthirsty, which is their ability to draw us into their own game, is broken. Forgiveness does not proclaim, ‘what you did is okay,’ but, ‘what you did has no hold over me.’

The psalm concludes with a declaration of perfect hatred against God’s enemies. As Paul will write to the church in Ephesus (Ephesians 6.12) our enemies are not flesh and blood—not other human beings—but spiritual realities that hold us captive and obscure our vision of God. To hate such things is to desire to have nothing whatsoever to do with them, to distance ourselves from them.

Such enemies include:

For the older generation in particular:

Pervasive sadness—grief is an appropriate response to loss, but pervasive sadness chokes gratitude and wonder.

The belief that we are responsible for providing for ourselves in our old age—which fosters a scarcity mindset, causes us to hoard our resources, and prevents generosity.

For people of any age:

Chronic pain—which can turn us in on ourselves, and away from the source of life that sustains us even in our pain.

Among younger people in particular:

Anxiety—which pulls us in every which way at once, away from the present moment, the moment, whether high or low, where we might discover again God with us; where we might find stillness, rest, peace, wholeness.

P*rn*graphy—available from every mobile phone, desensitizing is towards and dehumanising how we see others, into a commodity for consumption, and so desensitizing and dehumanising ourselves.

Distraction—whether the insatiable demand to be productive and never rest, or the exponential availability of entertainment, including the idol of social media. An idol is a good thing that has been accepted as an ultimate thing; a thing that promises what it cannot deliver, and demands more and more of ourselves without ever being sated in its appetite for consuming us.

If you want to be set free from any of these enemies of the soul, free to learn to be aware of God’s nearness, I would love to pray for you and with you.

If you would like to experience something of the pilgrimage through life, accompanied by God and God’s people, you are welcome to join us at St Nicholas’ church (other local churches are available).

Psalm 139

To the leader. Of David. A Psalm.

1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and night wraps itself around me,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
I come to the end—I am still with you.
19 O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
20 those who speak of you maliciously
and lift themselves up against you for evil!
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

(Psalm 139, NRSVue translation)

 

dis/enchanted

 

There are no gods in Christopher Nolan’s retelling of The Odyssey, only dis/belief in the Greek gods, expressed as attribution for (e.g.) storms, wishful thinking, or guilt-induced hallucinations.

One of the tensions of the film is that between those who still believe, those who don’t believe, and those who wrestle with a deconstruction of what they have believed (passing through disenchantment with the world, to disenchantment with the self, before, at the end, the hope of re-enchantment).

A central theme is how common belief in Zeus’ Law—the codified rules for hosts and guests—has actually held civilization together; and that with the loss of belief in the god who holds mortals to account on the basis of that code, so the code itself is defied, and so civilisation itself falls into a dark age.

A disenchanted world leads to disenchantment with the world. Though Nolan holds out the possibility of re-enchantment that may lie beyond first reaching the point of disenchantment with ourselves, our presumption.

At St Nicholas’ Church we are running through a summer sermon series on the Psalms, and today we are exploring Psalm 19 (text below).

It is a psalm that proclaims the world is, in fact, enchanted.

Beginning with an enchanted creation, which we may experience not as unbearable judgement but as gift, the bard goes on to extol God’s Law as the thing that sustains and renews all that we might enjoy—again, as gift—before turning to address the presumptuousness that so easily leads us into disenchantment.

This is a film, and a psalm, for our disenchanted times. The gift of the church to such a time as this is re-enchantment.

Psalm 19

God’s Glory in Creation and the Law

To the leader. A Psalm of David.

1 The heavens are telling the glory of God,
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
4 yet their voice goes out through all the earth
and their words to the end of the world.
In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
5 which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens
and its circuit to the end of them,
and nothing is hid from its heat.

7 The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the decrees of the Lord are sure,
making wise the simple;
8 the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is clear,
enlightening the eyes;
9 the fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.

11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
12 But who can detect one’s own errors?
Clear me from hidden faults.
13 Keep back your servant also from the insolent;
do not let them have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless
and innocent of great transgression.

14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

 

xenia

 

In the ancient world, hospitality towards strangers was incredibly important—and, therefore, highly codified, or ritualised. Such rituals provided a framework for transforming strangers into friends, created networks of shared resources, and helped to provide loose social cohesion (or alliances) between communities across significant geographic distances.

The Greek concept of ‘xenia’ placed certain obligations on both host and guest. If a stranger, on a journey, turned up at your door, you were obliged to offer them a bath; food and drink; to not ask too many questions about them, and none at all until they had eaten; perhaps to present them with gifts; and even to provide safe escort on the next leg of their journey. Guests were obliged not to be a burden to their host; not to repay hospitality with dishonour; to tell stories of the outside world (this was an important part of the code); and to reciprocate hospitality should their host turn up at their door at a future date. Indeed, this reciprocal obligation extended to the children and grandchildren of parties who had shared xenia.

Xenia was rooted in and upheld by the belief that Zeus, and also Athena, were patrons to all and any traveller on a journey—that travellers were under their protection —and that to treat a stranger badly would incur the wrath of the gods.

Any version or telling of ‘The Odyssey’ records several instances of Xenia, extended and received, and violated—by both hosts and guests. Much of what takes place is understood within this framework. For example, Aeolus, ruler of the winds, extends hospitality (as required and expected) to Odysseus and his men, which includes giving Odysseus the gift of a bag containing the wind that will carry him home (gift; safe escort to next destination). But when, within sight of Ithaca’s shore, Odysseus’ men open the bag, and the escaping wind blows them all the way back to Aeolus from whence they had come, he refuses to help them a second time, assuming that, in fact, Odysseus must have incurred the wrath of the gods (freeing Aeolus from obligation).

There is a parallel stranger-hospitality code in ancient Judaism, which dates back at least to Abraham (broadly-speaking a contemporary of Homer) who entertained three angels in human form—and perhaps even earlier to oral traditions of angels walking the earth and fathering giants and heroes by human women.

Both Jewish and Greek hospitality codes feed into early Christian hospitality codes. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds her recipients not to neglect showing hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some have entertained angels unawares. And, of course, all the letters that form much of the New Testament, such as the letters written by Paul and his travelling companions, were written, sent, and received under xenia expectations.

Jesus himself made the treatment of strangers, according to hospitality codes expectations, the basis on which the surrounding nations of the ancient world would be judged (the parable of the sheep and the goats).

My own society has lost sight of hospitality codes (perhaps because it has lost sight of a belief in any gods who might protect strangers and travellers) and has become fearful of strangers. Not only strangers who look different from ourselves, whose skin is dark, but indeed anyone not already personally known to us who might turn up at our door unannounced. We increasingly put signs on our doors saying that a long list of strangers are not welcome. And we have a now endemic health crisis of isolation, which takes a huge toll on our wellbeing. I live in a city where hospitality generally does not extend beyond the extended family, which leaves us exposed to isolation when extended family moves away.

What might a stranger-guest-hospitality code look like today?

 

mirror

 

Elon Musk has said that he will produce a telling of the Odyssey that is more historically accurate and better than Christopher Nolan’s. For this, he has been laughed out of court—how can a myth be historically accurate!? But the scorn misses the point, as much as Musk does, albeit for different reasons. A myth is a story that transcends its original context. It survives because we can employ it to explore the issues we are facing, in our time and place. And what we think those issues are depends on our perspective. Depends on how the story relates to other stories we have been told.

In Homer’s ‘The Odyssey,’ Odysseus undertakes no voyage of discovery, no soul-searching. He is utterly deceitful in his dealings with everyone, including the men he leads, every last one of whom died, sooner or later, on account of his hubris. He is serially unfaithful to his wife. He is vainglorious. He lacks wisdom and never learns any. He returns home, eventually, unchanged.

Whether we see Odysseus—in whatever telling of the story—as hero, villain, or antihero; as exemplar or dire warning; says little about the absent king of Ithaca, and a great deal about us. This has been the case at least since the Romans retold the Greek sources, if not from the beginning.

Whether you believe that Others are coming to steal what is rightfully yours, or wrestle with the guilt that your own actions have left a scar on the lives of Others, you will be able to fashion this story in your likeness.

The Odyssey of Musk is less problematised than that of Nolan, and in one historical sense less problematic. That we find ourselves at a stalemate fighting over the text is, perhaps, ironic. The battle may eventually be won, one way or another, by deception; and the victor will need to live with the consequences as much as the loser.

As with every myth, this is a story for our times.

 

happy ever after?

 

Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’ has a happy-ever-after ending, of sorts. But in ‘Theogany,’ Homer’s contemporary Hesiod gives Odysseus a different ending.

Here, Circe bears sons fathered by Odysseus. Eventually, after Odysseus has returned home to Ithaca and been reunited with his wife Penelope, and their son, Telemachus, Circe informs her youngest son, Telegonus, of his father’s identity. Telegonus travels to Ithaca in search of his father, who is away at war (again), but, on discovering this, Telegonus sets about in a rage. Odysseus returns, confronts him, and Telegonus, not knowing who stands before him, kills his father with a poison-tipped spear, given him by his mother for protection.

Telegonus goes on to reveal his identity to Penelope and his half-brother Telemachus. Together, they sail to Circe with Odysseus’ corpse, and he is buried on her island. Circe grants her son, her lover’s son, and her lover’s widow the gift of immortality. On the advice of Athena, Circe married her lover’s son, Telemachus; and Penelope marries Telegonus, her husband’s son by his lover.

It is messy.

And there is no happy-ever-after. Even immortality cannot secure that.

Whether we get a happy ending or not is, perhaps, always a matter of perspective, certainly rather than wish-fulfilment or rushing to wrap the narrative up.

We cannot escape the consequences of our actions. We can, perhaps, together, make and maintain peace. We can rebuild a life, though not one we can control as it impacts the lives of others.

Our stories—which may be told at our funeral if not before—can be told from a variety of perspectives; some more positive than others. We ought to try to listen to whatever story is offered, even those we find hard to hear—especially those we find hard to hear—as they contain an element of common ground we have fought over.

 

pigs

 

In ‘The Odyssey’ Book X, Odysseus lands on the island of the ‘polypharmakos’ (one who weaves many drugs into potions) Circe, who lives in exile without a father, or brother, or male guardian to protect her.

Seeing smoke rising from her chimney, some of Odysseus’ crew set out to investigate. Coming close to her hall, they are drawn by her singing, as she sits and weaves at her giant loom. All but one enter her hall, whereupon she bids them eat and drink drug-infused fare, and then transforms them into pigs, and corrals them in her sties.

This is a pre-emptive defence, based on years of ships’ crews landing, coming to her door, revealing in their eyes intention to take first her body, and then her treasured possessions, for themselves (see Virgil’s ‘Aeneid,’ Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’—and, for a beautiful modern retelling of Circe’s story, see Madeline Miller’s ‘Circe’).

Informed of their fate by the one more wary sailor, and both instructed and protected by the god Hermes, Odysseus confronts Circe and forces her to return his crew to human form.

In Christopher Nolan’s new big screen adaptation, she does so saying, hauntingly, ‘Return to your disguise, Return to your disguise.’

(For a contrasting view, Plutarch’s ‘Moralia’ (Book XII, 67) contains ‘Beasts are Rational’ (Bruta animalia ratione uti) in which Circe permits Odysseus to have a conversation with Gryllus, a fellow-Greek transformed into the body of a pig while retaining the mind of a man, in which Gryllus argues that his life is happier in his present state, and that pigs are more noble than men.)

(An aside: I have written elsewhere about the wider parallels between ‘Odyssey’ chapter X and ‘Luke’ chapter 8.)

In ‘Journey to the West’ the General of the Heavenly Navy-soldiers, or marine commandoes, is thrown out of heaven for drunkenly attempting to seduce the moon goddess. Falling to earth to be (re-)incarnated, he lands in a well for watering pigs, and takes on a monstrous half-human, half-pig form. Many years later, this lazy, gluttonous, lustful being encounters the personification of Mercy, and is given the name Zhu Bajie, or Pig Awakened to Abstinence—that is, to the power and ability to exercise self-control.

Both stories, one 3,000 years old from Greece, the other 500 years old from China (though each sits within traditions that weave them into both earlier and later texts) employ zoomorphism to explore the shadow personality we try to hide; the true, or noble, form of a healthily integrated life; and the possibility of transformation—in either direction. Neither story arises within a Christian context, but both speak to the Christian concepts of vices—including lust, gluttony, and laziness—and virtues—including chastity, temperance and diligence.

Appetite is common to humans and other animals. To become fully human is not to transcend appetite but to learn mastery—leadership, captaincy—over our appetites, which can make for good companions but sometimes make unwise choices (such as Odysseus’ men letting the wind that had carried them to within sight of home out of the bag, blowing them back from where they had come, before they arrive at Circe’s shore). There is a nobility to this, that does not arise from status among men (or pigs) but is inherent to every creature—human, pig, otherwise (so, at the end of the ‘Journey to the West,’ Zhu Bajie, who has not yet fully embraced the virtues of Abstinence, is not given back his divine form but remains half-human, half-pig, and is restored to the lower, earth-bound, rank of Cleaner of the Altars).

We are also more than capable of debasing ourselves and becoming what we are not (whether or not pigs are more noble than humans; whether or not men make very good pigs). Of needing to be saved from our own actions, or intentions—even unacted on—by Mercy intervening to protect others and to send us into an experience of desolation and of consolation—of coming to the full, terrible, consequences of our lostness, and to the re-orienting, re-conferring promise of grace, that points us towards the homecoming we long for, and strengthens us for the still-long and at times arduous journey it will take to get there.

Every culture has to wrestle with such things. And every tradition—including faith traditions—has a framework for this work.

Where have you seen yourself, with newfound clarity, for less-than fully human?

And where have you experienced the intervention of Mercy, to restore you to humanity?

What practices have you found helpful in engaging with this process?

 

zoomorphism

 

The west window at St Nicholas Church, Sunderland depicts Jesus on the throne of heaven, surrounded by the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who are traditionally depicted as a human, a lion, an ox, and an eagle.

I am thinking about the representation of human character, and of the transformation of character, through animals (zoomorphism.

In the sixteenth-century Chinese epic Journey to the West, the monk Tang Sanzang is accompanied on a pilgrimage by the Monkey King, Sun Wukong (Monkey awakened to Emptiness); the pig demon, Zhu Bajie (Pig awakened to Abstinence; also known as Zhu Wuneng, Pig awakened to Power, or Ability), formerly general of the Heavenly navy, disgraced for attempting to seduce the goddess of the Moon; the fish demon Sha Wujing (Sand awakened to Purity), formerly bodyguard and attendant to the Jade emperor, disgraced for breaking the Queen Mother’s crystal cup; and the dragon prince transformed into a white horse, Bai Longma, disgraced for setting fire to a pearl gifted by the Jade emperor.

These represent different shadow aspects of human character—avarice (the attempt to fill internal emptiness by hoarding knowledge) (I am a Monkey); lust, gluttony; anger; pride, ambition—which are transformed, through self-inflicted suffering (a desolating experience) and then being shown Mercy (a consoling experience), into enlightened characteristics of wisdom; companionship; purity; and service to others. Each character receives a measure of reward, though the pig demon remains a work-in-progress by the end of the tale.

In my own faith tradition, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John accompany Jesus in the forms of a human, a lion, an ox, and an eagle.

Matthew is also known as Levi, the tax collector. He has chosen a path in life that places him outside of the community, considered a sinner, one to be shunned. He has chosen to gamble on his own skills to survive, believing that he will get farther alone (or, at least, in the company of like-minded others) than in the matrix of community. When Jesus finds him, he is alone, sitting in his tax booth. Yet Jesus calls him out from there, back into community—into a community, the Twelve, that explicitly harks back to the family of Israel. It is only in community that our humanity is given form. So, Matthew composes his account of the life of Jesus in a five-fold structure that mirrors the five books of the Torah, the account of a people, often unfaithful to one another, shaped, together, by divine instruction.

Mark is cowardly. We first meet him as a young man (albeit unnamed) who wriggles out of his clothes to run away naked from the scene of Jesus’ arrest. We meet him again running away from accompanying Paul and Barnabas on a journey to carry the good news into Asia Minor. Yet, Barnabas, the Son of Encouragement, encourages him—literally, builds up his courage—until the scaredy-cat becomes a lion, who writes down Peter’s memoir in Rome, a stone’s throw from where Christians were fed to the lions.

Luke is a Greek, perhaps a sea-going captain of ships (traditionally identified as a doctor, but that may refer to another Luke; his knowledge of ships is informed as only an insider would know). Luke ploughs his furrow through the Great Sea, rudder in hand. And at some point—most likely through Paul—he encounters the story of Jesus, and is captivated. Drawn back to land. Searches out Mary, the mother of Jesus, living with John in Ephesus. Sits at her feet and listens as she takes out the treasured memories of her son’s birth and holds them up to the light. Luke becomes the ox whose manger becomes a crib for the incarnate Word. His words—the two-part work, Luke-Acts—will carry the story further, all around the world.

John is the youngest of Jesus’ disciples, his mother’s golden boy for whom (along with his brother, James) she wants special recognition. He is the one who shines like the noonday sun in response to love, but whose countenance darkens with anger when he perceives a sleight. John will remain at the foot of the cross; will outlive all his fellow companions; will have to hear news, again and again, of their untimely deaths by execution. John will endure; and be purified by love until he can gaze into the sun of love’s light without being blinded. John will write his good news of Jesus from a very different perspective, a sweeping overview. John will become an eagle.

And what of you? What animal represents you, and the transformation you have experienced through life, and the transformation you have yet to know?

 

Monkey King

Many of my friends are writing about Odyssey, but [1] I wrote extensively about the parallels between The Odyssey and the Acts of the Apostles—the voyage of Odysseus and the missionary journeys of Paul and his companions—last summer, and [2] I have yet to see Nolan’s Odyssey, so instead I will say something about the sixteenth-century Chinese epic Journey to the West (Book 1) and the enigmatic Monkey King, Sun Wukong, born from a stone egg nurtured by both heaven and earth.

Having been appointed Protector of the Heavenly Peaches of Immortality—the fruit by which the gods gained their longevity—the Monkey King eats them himself, and sets about a rebellion against heaven. When no one in the Heavenly realm can defeat him, the gods appeal directly to the Buddha, who entraps the vain Sun Wukong with a wager: if he can leap out of the Buddha’s palm, he will be given the throne of heaven.

The Monkey King accepts, for he can travel 34,000 miles in one leap, and also fly. And so, he jumps onto the Buddha’s open palm, and leaps out again, travelling to the very end of the universe. There he comes to the Five Pillars, writing ‘Great Sage, Equal of Heaven’ on one, and urinating against another, before returning all the way back to the Buddha...whose fingers bear a tiny inscription—‘Great Sage, Equal of Heaven’—and smell monkey urine...

Before he can escape, the Buddha slams his palm on the ground, transforming it into a mountain, under which the Monkey King is held captive for 500 years, until the personification of Mercy offers him an opportunity for growth and transformation of character, accompanying a monk on a pilgrimage, along with a pig demon and a fish demon as fellow disciples, and a dragon transformed into a white horse, on which the monk rides (each companion represents a human shadow side, that will be transformed: impulsiveness to wisdom; gluttony to faithfulness; hatred to purity; ambition to service).

There are obvious parallels here with both the heavenly rebellion of a third of the angels led by Lucifer, and of the taking and eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil by the first humans, Eve the Mother of all the Living, and Adam who is both animated earth and Keeper of the Heavenly Garden on earth. But there is also a parallel with Paul’s engagement with the philosophers of Athens.

Paul tells the Athenians that no one is far from God, for, as one of their own number had said (that is, a story from outside of Paul’s Jewish faith tradition; just as Journey to the West is outside of my Christian tradition) ‘in him we live and breathe and have our being.’

Just as the Monkey King cannot leap out of the Buddha’s palm, so no one is far from God.

‘Sin’ is the illusion of separation from God—and ‘hell’ is the awareness of that illusion, and disillusionment that necessarily precedes re-enchantment (Jesus tells a parable—a made-up story, an analogy—in which Abraham says that the gap between hell and heaven cannot be crossed. The point is not that the gap can never be closed, but that torah, the instructions given though Moses that includes the story of Abraham, the ‘father of faith,’ cannot bridge the gap. A different enlightenment is needed).

That is not to say that sin is of no consequence. An illusion can be deadly—think of the illusion of an oasis in the desert. Sin needs addressing, and in the person of Jesus, God does so address the problem of sin. But the nature of that problem was never separation from God.

If sin separates us from God, God could not have dwelt in the tabernacle in the camp of the Israelites who had come out of Egypt. Could not have dwelt in the temple in Jerusalem—nor risen up and departed from the temple to accompany God’s chosen people on their Exile into Babylon. Could not have taken on our humanity and dwelt among us in the person of Jesus. Yet our tradition insists that God did all these things.

Sin does not separate us from God. Indeed, Paul insists that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus—ours, before we recognise it, being under the illusion of separation.

And this love is key. Our not being able to remove ourselves from God’s presence is not to say that we are under constant surveillance, not that we do not possess genuine freedom. It is to say that we are held; that we are safe. Sometimes, even, kept safe—saved—from our own actions.

Jesus is the Light in whose light we are enlightened. In union with whose life our lives are transformed. Without him, much of reality is distorted to us. We see, but not with confidence. Chinese folk tales, as much as Greek—or any other culture; epic stories that belong to humanity—point to truth. Jesus is the truth to which they point.

You are not far from God. Never far from God. Nothing, good or ill, can keep you apart. This is good news. And it can be your story, your journey, your transformation.