Fiction: Jesus Outed at Megachurch Part 2
The service was letting out. I led him out and shut the cleaning room door.
“Where now?” I asked. “Your agenda.”
“I don’t know what do you want to do?” he asked looking up.
“What is this?… like being 10 years old in the Summer with nothing to do kinda-thingy? I mean I just got into my first service in three years and then you start talking in my head and then I find you tied up in a broom closet. It’s a bit much.”
“Okay…okay,” he said shaking his head. “Boy you had some pretty lame ideas when you were ten.”
“Yeah, well some things never change.” I said quietly whispering. “Look do you want to get out of here? I’d like to talk a bit more if you do not mind.”
“Sure,” he said. “Hey one cool thing was when you and Paul Standing made that model airplane and ran it down the wire on fire. That wasn’t lame at all.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Look, duck in here under my coat.”
The throngs came pouring out in thick waves as I hid the Son of Man under my big coat.
We had two floors to traverse and then make for the exit.
We got some looks. I mean the medium income of most of these folks is around $63,000 a year. I walking around with a scruffy looking Jewish guy in a robe under my coat.
One usher stopped me. “Can I help you?” he asked warily.
“I’m just taking this sweet man to the homeless ministry,” I said.
“I wasn’t aware that we had one?” he asked suspicious.
“Oh yeah…It’s great,” I feigned. “Pastor White’s wife chairs it,” I lied.
“You don’t have to do that Mac” he whispered from my armpit. “Things are better in the light of day. Besides. what are they gonna do, kick us out?”
“What if they tie you up again?”
“Oh they will do that again later.”
“What a life you have,” I said.
“Yeah, but it’s all there really is. Life.”
We got more furtive looks as we made our way through the crowd. One man stopped us to explain about various ministries, one of which was to help those with homosexual issues deal with them in a healthy fashion.
“I’ve just come out of the closet” the Son of Man said directly to the man.
He sputtered a bit.
“Yeah,” I said, giving him a quick wink, “and I really love this guy.”
We moved on.
“That was wicked,” I said.
“Not at all,” he said.
From there we made our way into the sanctuary because it was almost vacant except for the choir/band-thingy whatever.
They were practicing for the next three services.
We sat down in the thick padded movie theater chairs and were quiet for awhile.
“So, does your love endure forever?” I asked as the band sang.
“Sure does.”
“Then why do so many bad things happen to people?”
“Who does those things…I mean generally?” he asked plainly.
“Us.”
“You all have so much more freedom than you know.”
“Doesn’t feel that way,” I said sadly.
“That’s because you impinge on each other’s freedom instead of choosing love.”
I sat silent.
“You know you could have left me in that closet, but you chose to come,” he said.
“Well, there is less choice when God is speaking to you.”
“You would be surprised. Ears to hear, eyes to see.”
“Okay, I admit, I did come here to see and hear you today.”
“Disappointed?”
“No. No, it’s actually kinda fun.”
He grinned and so did I.
“Let’s go” he said.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see, trust me.”
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We walked out into the sunshine and he divested himself of my protective coat.
He got some stares, but five kids came over immediate-like and started to dance with him.
I just decided to relax.
Then security came and they wanted him to leave.
“I’m with him,” he said pointing at me.
“Yes, well, actually I am with him, but we’re leaving” I said.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” I said and we walked to lot 47.
“You want lunch?”
“Yeah sure.”
I stopped at the local quicky mart and picked up some cheese, bread and wine.
At the park we stretched out on the salsa blanket.
“Why do you call it that?” he asked.
“You know perfectly well.”
He grinned.
“You know stuff about your kids, yet you ask them and like to hear, no?”
“True.”
“Let me ask you some questions, okay?”
“Sure as long as they are not ones that have been answered 62,000-hunded million times.”
“Why do you let them lock you in the closet all the time.”
“I’m being consistent.”
“Huh?”
“Freewill.”
“That sucks,” I said.
“Yeah, well tell me about it. I still reek of Pinesol.”
“What is going to happen to us?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well everything else is so fucked up…er, sorry.”
“I spend three days in hell and you think the word fuck is going to offend me? Dang. Maugham is right, you are a wuss.”
“Well what is gonna happen to Maugham?” I asked. “He thinks you are a myth. He’ll never believe this story even though he’ll want to.”
“Maugham will get what he wants most dear. It may be utter autonomy, it maybe others, it may be me…it’s hard to say.”
“How can it be hard to say?” I asked. “You know everything right?”
“Yes, I do, but my knowing changes as all things move and breath and change at all times and all places.”
“So you are saying it is not static?”
“I am saying that you are not asking the right questions. The only thing static is your laundry because you keep forgetting to buy dryer sheets.” he said “you should look into that.”
“But you know everything ahead of time, and thus you make it so.”
“Amoeba, Abacus, Aborigines and Air Force One Mac.”
“My paradigm is too small and limited is what you are saying,” I asked.
“Yes, just as I am too small for your liking.”
I shook my head down for a moment.
“So do you know and make it happen, or not?”
“Well remember I exist in relationships that are so multi-dimesional and faceted that it’s hard to really explain it to a guy who can barely sustain 9 major relationships, 15 mediocre ones, and maybe 30 acquaintances.” he said. “No offense, but it’s the old “when pigs fly thingy”.
“When pigs fly?”
“Yeah…actually that would have been a fun one. We should have done that the same week we did the platypus and the manatee.”
“Point is,” he said. “The answer is yes-yes and no-no.”
“So let your yes be yes and your no be no?”
“That and more,” he said. “Actually I said quite a bit more that day on that, but Matthew felt that was enough.
“Is your yes, yes and your no, no?”
“Always,” he said. “Anything else is, well bad news.”
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Part THREE
