Sunday Service

At seven-thirty this morning, I walk up to the church. I do not walk past it like I do every other day. It’s Sunday. Me and Jesus, we go way back. 

I wink at him while he dangles from the cross, gaunt chest bleached white by the sun. Thin rays of dawn filter through the clouds and shine directly into his eyes. Poor guy’s all strung up; he’s got no way to shield himself. I always found it a bit tasteless how they nailed him up here on the peeling front cladding of the chapel, day and night, rain or shine. He is the savior, after all. They couldn’t have spared him a gazebo? An awning, even? I plant myself on the bench directly across from him-- the one least covered in bird shit from the sparrows that nest in the rafters. That’s another thing poor Jesus has to deal with: the fecal matter of hundreds of birds, new ones every year, that like to nest right above his cross.

I’m half an hour late to the morning service, but that doesn’t matter to me. I prefer to take my conversations directly to the big man himself. The last time I entered the building, I was escorted out by two men in tweed pullovers that smelled kind of like the back corner of an underfunded library. I can take the hint. 

 As I settle back into my seat, cold dew soaking into the seat of my pants, I hear him sigh a heavy sigh that can only come from men who have been nailed up to crosses for the better part of the last half-century. 

I start the conversation, like always. “J-dog. How are you today?” 

“Fall’s just about here and I’m freezing my ass off, that’s how I’m doing.” He shivers, his cracked ceramic lips curling into a frown. 

“I should bring you a blanket one of these days.” 

“No. You know them.” Jesus juts his chin in the direction of the chapel, rolling his eyes. “They’d take it off of me and toss it. No respect for their elders these days. Two millennia ago, they would’ve been whipped for their insolence.”

I shake my head in pity. “The modern day just ain’t so forgiving. I’m sorry.” 

“It is what it is. How are you doing?” 

“I’ve been alright. I don’t do so well when the days get short and cold, y’know? Gets hard to find things to do.” I chew the cuticles off of my thumb and pointer finger. “I don’t have many friends, and the ones I do have don’t seem to want to go out with me.” 

“I don’t blame them. You do spend every Sunday morning sitting on a bench across from a decorative effigy of Jesus Christ, speaking to it like it’s real.” 

A long, silent moment passes between the two of us.

Jesus erupts into laughter. “I’m just pullin’ your leg. You know how I am.”

“Always a jokester, you,” I say through a fond grin. “That’s what I love about you. I’m so glad we get to have these conversations.” 

“Me too, man. Me too.” He smiles warmly, drops his head to his chest to rest for a moment. I just now realize his nipples have disappeared, finally bleached to nothingness by the unforgiving summer sun. “You should visit more often.” 

“I would, but the people running this church don’t seem to be too fond of me. Last time I tried coming on a weekday, there was some kind of event going on. Lots of kids around, moms screaming at the sight of me, dads shoving me back out onto the street. Not a great feeling.”

“Don’t I know it. People weren’t so fond of me back in my day. That’s why I’m up here on this big ol’ thing.” Jesus grimaces. “You and me, we aren’t so different! I got crucified because people thought I was blaspheming, y’know. I was talking to someone they didn’t think was real.”

“Just like me.”

“Just like you.”

The two of us share a hearty chuckle and I recline on the bench, trying my hardest to find a comfortable position on the cold, hard wood. Sounds of the choir float from partially opened windows. They’re belting out Amazing Grace for the third time this month and I can’t say they’re getting any better at it. Churchgoers erupt into applause and cheers as soon as the last off-key singer shuts their mouth. They’re all either really tone deaf or just too nice to care. Maybe both. 

This is my signal to leave. Usually, when people see me sitting out here, minding my own business, they call the tweed pullover library guys to sternly order me off the property. I don’t put up a fight. It isn’t worth arguing against a coterie of Bible thumpers just to prove that I’m not crazy and that they should maybe sit out here and talk to Jesus themselves. 

“Have they tried talking to you at all?” I murmur, glancing worriedly at the doorway. 

“Not once. I don’t think these people want to look me in the eyes and admit that they really don’t care I died for their sins. Half these men have mistresses and their wives are none the wiser.” Jesus clicks his tongue. “Mary Sue? Got knocked up at seventeen, God forbid she tell me or anyone else. Andy? He hit a dog with his car and didn’t let up off the gas until he was in the next county over.” 

I nod gravely, but don’t say anything. When Jesus waxes poetic like this, it means he wants things off of his chest. 

“Nobody wants to take accountability for the suffering they cause themselves and others. They’d rather get on their knees and beg the son of God for mercy without having to hear a word he says. It’s sad, really.”

Before I can respond, the pastor bursts from the front door. He regards me with a face that can’t settle between anger or pity, his lips pursed into a tight, straight line on his face. 

His voice is gentle when he speaks to me. “You need to go.” 

I shrug and put my hands up in surrender, hopping to my feet. “Alright, alright. I get it. I’ll leave.” 

From the corner of my eye I nod to Jesus and give him a polite wave goodbye. He offers me a sympathetic smile, but neither of us exchange any more words. The pastor and the congregation won’t ever listen to me, no matter how hard I beg and plead. They just can’t take the truth, can’t know it’s there. 

Now me and Jesus, we like to feel pain.