These lockdown days I have plenty of time to listen to the stories of my Chinese fellow-residents.
It seems there was one young man in North China who liked gambling and to ensure his good luck kept a statue of every god he heard of in his room.
One of his neighbours came back from the city with a present of a new god, named Jesus. There was only one problem, there was no space left in his room so he decided to find out which ones he could do without. He put a small cup of wine in front of all the statues, including that of Jesus which was sitting on his bed.
He called out to them, ‘Drink up the wine. If you cup is empty I will keep you and throw out the rest.’ He then shut the door and waited an hour.
When he went back in all the cups were empty except that of Jesus. He immediately threw out the other statues and just kept the one of Jesus.
When his friend asked him why he changed his mind he replied, ‘How could I trust any god who obeyed a human?’ From then on he did not need extra luck when picking winners.