Sermon: The Myth of the Fisher King

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The Myth of the Fisher King -- Father's Day

By Rev. Tom Reiber

June 16, 2002

the church picnic was winding down last week I joined Joy Rock and Cal Robertson, who were in the midst of a conversation about the creation accounts in Genesis and the tension between science and religion. Cal remarked that the mytho-poetic creation accounts in the Bible were never meant to be taken literally. At which point Joy exclaimed, “That's what I love about this church, we've got the freedom to invoke common sense and a modern viewpoint.” And I have to say, I agree with Joy one hundred percent. It's a wonderful thing to be part of a church that nurtures a lively interface between science and religion and one that is willing to explore the manifold meanings of myth.

An appreciation for The Power of Myth has helped correct the over-emphasis on reason by reminding us that some of the most penetrating insights into the human condition come through ancient stories that have evolved over long periods of time. The ancient Israelites were closer to this wisdom than we are today, which is why in the first scripture reading Joseph is eager to hear the dreams of his cellmates. Knowing that dreams are meaningful, he exclaims “Tell me your dreams.” The ancient wisdom of our tradition reminds us that the way out of the dungeon involves opening up to the wisdom of the unconscious.

The myth of the Fisher King has a similar message. I'd like to explore this myth today, since it's Father's Day and the myth of the Fisher King has so much to say about the plight of modern men and the path toward healing. It came into existence in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a time when some of the major building blocks of the western worldview were settling into place. And much like an outcropping of rock reveals the hidden layers of geological development, these foundational myths offer a glimpse into the formation of the modern mind.

The myth starts out with the soon-to-be-King as an adolescent. He comes across an abandoned campsite, though the fire is still burning. There's a salmon roasting above the fire and the prince takes a bite. This produces a wounding that plagues him the rest of his life. The wounding comes about in various ways as the myth got retold and reinterpreted. In one version he is injured in battle with another knight. But the outcome is always the same, the King is wounded and as a result the whole kingdom suffers. The malaise affecting the whole kingdom reflects the basic truth that one's entire spiritual and psychological life is affected when a major wounding has taken place.

Every night there's a processional through the Grail Castle that culminates in communion served from the Holy Grail, the cup used by Christ at the last supper. But the King's woundedness prevents him from participating. His only hope is an ancient prophecy that someday an innocent fool is going to wander into the castle and ask the magic question: “Whom does the Grail serve?”

The innocent fool is Parsifal. And sure enough one day Parsifal does indeed wander near the Grail Castle. Lost, he asks a lone fisherman for directions, not realizing it's the wounded Fisher King. The King gives him a simple set of instructions that contain within it a vital message for us all. He says “Continue down the road, veer to the left, and cross the bridge into the castle.”

Jungian analyst Robert Johnson explains the meaning of these instructions in his book, The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden.[1] He says that continuing down the road means that you go forward with the life you are living; each obstacle and challenge is uniquely yours and we must all face our specific life circumstances. It's not by fleeing the challenges, but by facing them that transformation occurs. Johnson says turning to the left is indicative of turning toward the irrational, unconscious dimensions of life. This is the realm of dreams and myth, the realm of art and feeling that Joseph knew so well.

Johnson also notes the peculiar detail that the only solace the wounded Fisher King experiences is the brief reprieve he enjoys while fishing. Johnson says this is true of modern men as well: trapped by the pressures of our overly rational, technological world, we find solace in poetry and music, which offer glimpses of the inner world. We see here too a very intentional allusion to the Christ symbolism inherent in fishing (and in the salmon the wounds the young Fisher King at the start of the story). On a symbolic level, the act of fishing represents the process whereby we enter the dark waters of the unconscious in search of wholeness, which is the ultimate psychological meaning of the fish/Christ.

As enthralling as the Arthurian legends are, their language and conceptual categories tend to be outside our daily experience. These days we look to movies for our mythological sustenance. In the recent film, Life as a House, we see many of the themes from the Fisher King at work. The main Kevin Klein plays George, a middle-aged archetect living in a small house situated on a beautiful bluff overlooking the ocean somewhere in California. His house is really more like a shack, something that's painfully obvious in comparison to the homes on either side of him. He's always dreamed of building a new house on the lot, but he's deeply bogged down in a painful family history that has all but paralyzed him.

The film opens with George waking up, walking to the edge of the bluff and relieving himself. You quickly get the message that this is a guy who has really let himself go. George's teenage son is living with his ex-wife and her new husband in a nearby suburb, leaving him to slog through his daily routine alone. It's a powerful image of the wounded Fisher King, a modern man who is suffering and as a result his entire kingdom is suffering.

All this changes when Klein gets diagnosed with cancer. He's told he doesn't have long to live, which, ironically, is the kick in the pants he needs to really start living. He tells his son that like it or not, the two of them are going to tear down the shack and build a new house over the upcoming summer. The son of course doesn't want to spend all summer working with his dad, so they battle it out. But as they do, they begin to open up to each other's life. The transformation of their relationship is reflected in the transformation of the house, as the old is torn down and the new is raised up. Even Klein's estranged relationship with his ex-wife is restored—symbolizing that part of the healing of the wounded Fisher King is the integration of the feminine side. Gradually everyone in the vicinity of the building project begins to feel the energy and wants to be part of it—such is the power of love once it is freed into the world.

As these filmmakers clearly understood, a house makes for a powerful metaphor. Martin Luther King, Jr. liked it to. He told a story about an author who died, leaving an unfinished manuscript about a house that all people could live in. In these modern, multi-cultural times marked by all manner of globalization, we clearly are coming to see that all of humanity truly is one family and that, like it or not, we're going to have to learn to treat others as ourselves. Seen from the vantage point of systems theory and the new cosmology, we can see that this isn't simply some kind of well-intentioned platitude; rather, it's an ethic that honors the deep interdependence of all living things. What we do to another, we to do ourselves. What we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves.

I believe this is the meaning of today's Gospel reading. Jesus is not offering a trendy new seven steps to success; he is in possession of an entirely new way of seeing the world. The amazing thing about it is that it's only now, standing as we are on the cusp of the 21st century, that we are really beginning to grasp the profundity of Jesus' vision. Building on all those things about Christ Church that Joy Rock Huston loves, we can glean from science the appreciation for the vast unfolding of not only life on Earth, but of the entire cosmos. We can appreciate that we humans are in a marvelous position to reflect back on this vast evolution of life with awe and reverence.

The myth of the Fisher King suggests that path toward healing resides in the willingness to open up to the possibility that all life is here for a reason, no doubt for many reasons, most of which exceed our powers of comprehension. But as Robert Johnson points out, Parsifal doesn't have to answer the question; he only has to ask it. He only has to begin to imagine that there's an underlying meaning to all that is and that it just might be possible to begin to open to that meaning. Jesus has a deep grasp of this truth and is on the verge of setting out to share his vision of what that meaning is.

In the conclusion of Life is a House, the Klein character has healed himself of his Fisher King wound so that his death is seamlessly woven into the drama of life. The film could have easily ended there, but they had one more thing they wanted to say. The son goes to a trailer park and for a second you're asking yourself, “What's going on here?” Then you recall that George's father had died in a DWI accident that killed the woman driving the other car and paralyzed her daughter. You realize George's son, having inherited the just-completed house, is there to offer the house to the girl—now a young woman, who was injured many years ago.

Hollywood? Definitely. But there's a profound message here. When we open to the healing powers of the cosmos, we are in a position to work through the wounds of the past and, at the same time, to work toward a better future.

Asking ultimate questions about why we're here and how best to harmonize with life's ultimate meanings takes us out to deep water. But that's what Jesus told the disciples to do: go out to deep water and cast your nets. I don't know about you all, but I feel like doing some fishing this summer.

Amen.

[1] I am indebted to Johnson's masterful analysis of the Fisher King myth and have borrowed heavily from it.