Imagine you and a friend standing on one side of a tall brick wall. Your friend peers through a tiny, narrow hole and is able to see what’s on the other side. Your friend notices water cascading down like the way water streams off a roof in a downpour.

“It’s raining,” your friend declares with conviction while looking through his very narrow hole.

“Is it really?” you ask, “Is that the truth?” There’s a ladder leaning against the wall nearby, so you climb up to look over the wall. And what you see paints another picture.

A water pipeline runs along the side of a building and has ruptured just in front of, and slightly above, the tiny hole your friend was peering through. Alas, it isn’t raining after all. But you can understand why your friend thought it was.

It’s now up to you to help your friend understand the truth for themself. Will your friend be willing to change their mind and consider another point of view? Will you help them climb the ladder to see for themself? What will you do if your friend continues to insist and persist in believing it is raining on the other side of the wall?

Now, switch roles. Now, you are the one peering through the hole. You are convinced it is raining. What do you say and what do you do when your friend says otherwise?

I’ve just used a metaphor. What is a metaphor? In the context of faith talk, it is something we encounter in our daily lives that lifts up a meaning for us in relation to the story of faith we receive from the Gospel, the bible and what we have learned in the church. We encounter during the course of daily life people, events, experiences and we observe in nature something that reminds us of the faith story.

Using metaphors in faith talk is appropriate. Jesus taught using parables, talking about mustard seeds, fig trees, lost coins and sheep. Abraham and Joseph dreamt. God told Abraham his descendants would number the stars in the sky. In the Gospel today from John 6, Jesus talks about flesh and bread and blood. Of course, we can’t take any of these metaphors literally. They are images that embody meaning for each of us. Metaphors offer us a way to discover fresh perspectives and new learning to renew our faith. So, here is another metaphor ….

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) is a post-apocalyptic film, the fourth movie in the Planet of the Apes franchise. All four movies revolve around the character named Caesar, who is an ape.

Early in the days after a virus wiped out most of humanity, Caesar was instrumental in leading the movement to help apes and humans coexist in peace, living together, sharing the land they inhabited.

Of the humans that survived the virus, most had lost the ability to speak and think intelligently. There were exceptions. One of the main characters in this film, May, is able to speak and is very smart.

The virus had another, unexpected effect: It gave apes the ability to speak, matching an intelligence comparable to what humans once had. Apes are now high functioning communicators.

In this latest film it is Caesar’s legacy which is at stake among the apes who now dominate the world. This movie begins with a dramatic scene of the ape clans burning Caesar’s lifeless body on the funeral pyre. Caesar is now dead. And how will his legacy be preserved?

Proximus Caesar is the tyrannical king of the Coastal Ape Colony, a rogue clan of apes that claim to follow the ways and teachings of the late Caesar. Proximus Caesar is the bad guy, who justifies his lust for power by calling on Caesar’s name and words to rally his troops to dominate all other apes and species on the planet. He twists and distorts Caesar’s words, interpreting Caesar in a way that is not true to Caesar and what Caesar originally stood for and valued.

Our main character, a young ape called Noah is on a journey to find his own clan which was attacked and enslaved by Proximus Caesar. On his way he encounters an old ape who was learned in the ways of Caesar and his time. His older friend maintains an interpretation of Caesar that is truer, and insists Noah keep Caesar’s memory in its rightful place.

Eventually both Noah and May are captured by Proximus. An important scene in the movie has Proximus invite his special human guest and Noah to a table for a feast. A private audience with Proximus Caesar appears on the surface a privilege and an honour. That’s the pretence.

But this meal has another sinister purpose, not fundamentally to show hospitality and generosity but to elicit vital information Proximus needs in order to secure the power he craves.

Here is not a table of grace, of communion. Here is not a table celebrating the bond of friendships crossing the boundaries of race and species. Are their tables like this in your life where the pretence of love is overshadowed by unholy intentions?

It seems both our main characters, Noah the ape and May the human girl, are caught in between divided loyalties despite the friendship growing between them. The conflict is heightened around that meal scene, as Proximus tries to drive a wedge of mistrust between them. Proximus entices Noah to be more suspicious of May’s intentions.

Proximus is not altogether wrong, as May relentlessly pursues her secret mission to retrieve a small computer from a fortified facility along the coast into which Proximus tries to gain entrance. May had earlier deceived Noah, pretending she like most other humans couldn’t speak. In the end, she confesses this to Noah and pleads forgiveness. But the damage has been done, and Noah never fully trusts her.

Jesus invites his disciples to another kind of table — the table of wisdom, of communion, of divine love. Jesus tells his disciples that he is the bread in which we find our true sustenance (John 6:55-56) to live out God’s legacy, which is the Gospel of God’s unconditional grace and love in Jesus’ name.

But so many voices compete in the religious landscape. Whose voice is truer? How can we tell? How is Christianity being interpreted?

Right up until almost the end of the movie, we are left wondering if May and Noah, humans and apes, will ever be able to live together in trust and peace. It doesn’t look good by the end of the movie.

Until the very last sequence of scenes. Because the last scenes depict both May and Noah looking up.

Earlier in the movie, Noah had discovered an observatory with a huge telescope still operational aimed at the night sky. After liberating his clan from Proximus’ enslavement, Noah brings his clan back to the telescope. The last scene shows Noah’s face and eyes open wide as he looks up and into the expanse of the heavens above with curiosity, and wonder.

Then we switch to May who is also looking up. But she, now, far away from Noah, is looking at the giant satellite dishes. The computer she found was able to activate them so her tiny group of humans could communicate with other humans around the planet. May is looking up into what is now beyond her capability and efforts thus far. Her mission is over. May is looking up at the forces beyond her control now.

Both May and Noah leave us hopeful at the end. Both, separated by divisions still rife, turn their gaze upward and beyond who and where they are. Their open eyes and looks of wonder leave us hopeful that something bigger than either of them will guide them into a better tomorrow.

Whether or not we are aware, despite all our good intentions and efforts, and in the midst of all that separates Christians, Jews and Muslims, God is there. The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a metaphor for how it is among creatures who share this earth, how we often don’t get along and sometimes get along. But there is always hope and a way forward when all of us look up towards what is bigger and larger than each one of us.

I started with a metaphor which involved a ladder. There’s a famous ladder in the bible as well. I love the scene at the end of Jacob’s encounter with God through the night (Genesis 28, 32). He has dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven, and he has also struggled while he slept. When Jacob finally awakes and changes his thinking at the dawn of a new day, he discovers who has been with him all along. He says to God, “You were here all the time, and I never knew it!” (Genesis 28:16).

That’s grace.