Imaginary Jesus Read online

  I choked on my chili. “You can see him?”

  Pete cracked his enormous knuckles. “Sure. Just like anybody who’s paying attention.” He scratched behind his head with one big hand, the other resting lightly on the table. “Can I ask you a question?”

  I sighed and closed my Bible. “Yeah.”

  “Why does your Jesus still wear a robe?”

  “What do you mean?” I looked at Jesus, who had reentered the café. He flashed me a quick grin, which I took to mean he had taken care of the parking ticket, and sat down at a table across the café, by the window. Meaning I was stuck here with Pete the Christian.

  “What I mean is, here’s God, the creator of the universe. He becomes a human being and lives on Earth for thirty-three years. He completely assimilates to human culture. Wears our clothes. Wears a body like ours. Eats our food. But here he is, two thousand years later, and he’s still wearing robes and a sash. Seems like he might put on a pair of jeans every once in a while. They’re a great invention, jeans.”

  I watched Jesus thoughtfully. “That is weird. I guess I never thought about it.”

  Pete leaned in close, and I could smell the overpowering aroma on his breath when he said, “Let’s go ask him about it.”

  I sighed. “Okay.” We stood and walked over to him. Jesus smiled and offered me the chair across from him, and Pete towered over us, his arms crossed over his barrel chest. “This is Pete,” I said.

  “We’ve met.” Jesus nodded.

  “I don’t recall,” Pete said.

  “We were just talking,” I said, “and Pete asked me why you still wear two-thousand-year-old clothing. We were talking about the innovation of jeans, and we thought you might like them.”

  Jesus laughed. “It’s just that these robes are so comfortable.”

  Pete looked outside. “Pretty rainy out there. You’re wearing desert clothes. Aren’t you cold?”

  “Ha ha,” Jesus said. “You need to read your Bible more, Pete. You may recall where it says, ‘I, the Lord, do not change.’”

  An excellent point, and straight out of the Bible. Score one for Jesus. I looked to Pete, who was scowling. “That verse doesn’t refer to changing clothes,” Pete said.

  Jesus studied his fingernails, pretending to look for dirt. “Why don’t you let me do the Scripture interpretation, Pete.”

  “Matt, let me ask you something,” Pete said. “Is this guy better than you at anything?”

  I thought carefully. “He’s certainly nicer than me. And he has this way of expressing disapproval without actually saying anything. I’ve never been able to do that.” I examined Jesus’ face for a minute, his blue eyes shining merrily. “He has better hair. Mine is so fine and thin, and his is thick and silky.”

  “You’re not the real Jesus.” Pete grabbed a chair from another table and scooted in close, practically in Jesus’ face. I put a hand on his arm and told him to calm down, but he ignored me and said, “What exactly do you want from my friend Matt here?”

  Jesus stared at him. “I have plans to prosper him, plans for peace. I want him to be happy and rich. If he follows my instructions, that’s exactly what will—”

  Pete punched Jesus hard, in the face, causing his head to snap to the right and bounce off the window. I jumped up to intervene. Pete dragged Jesus from the table, and Jesus kicked over his chair, feet flailing. Pete had him in a bear hug, and Jesus elbowed him in the stomach. Pete lost his grip, grabbed Jesus by the hair, and slammed him to the ground. I shoved Pete with all my strength and he stumbled backward, flipping over a table and shattering a chair on the way down.

  I helped Jesus up. “Are you okay? You should have called down some angels to protect you.”

  With a guttural roar, Pete launched himself across the table, straight for Jesus’ head. Jesus sidestepped, turned, and ran out the door. Pete shook himself off and rose to go after him, but before he could leave, I picked up a leg from the broken chair and clocked him as hard as I could right in the back of the head. That didn’t stop him, but it did slow him down enough for Jesus to get a good head start. I watched as he gathered his robes in his hands and ran like crazy, his white legs flashing out, his sandals eating the pavement like a dog licking ice cream.

  Pete stood up, rubbing his head. He glared at me and then at the rapidly retreating Jesus. “Damn it,” he said and kicked the table.

  “You shouldn’t curse.”

  “Sometimes a curse is called for. That—” Pete pointed out the window at the racing back of my Lord—“that was an imaginary Jesus, my friend. I choose my words carefully, and I said what I meant. And now that we’re onto him, he’s going to run.”

  I crossed my arms and frowned. “I’ve known Jesus for a long time. What makes you think that you know him better than I do?”

  “Because,” Pete said, headed for the door, “I’m the apostle Peter.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Following Jesus

  I jumped in the truck and the so-called apostle slid in on the passenger side. I know I should have been stunned to have some wacko in my car who claimed to be from the first century, but there just wasn’t time to think about it because Jesus was running north on Twelfth. It’s a one-way street and I had parked facing the wrong way. It’s a long story and it involved a great deal of fist shaking at various fellow Portlanders. Suffice it to say, I had slammed the truck into gear and was now headed west on Stark.

  “Not that way!” Pete yelled. “He’s headed north!”

  “I know, but I’ll head him off by going up Eleventh.” Eleventh is a one-way street, too, headed south. I forgot about that. So I sped through the intersection and turned north on Tenth. I punched the gas and nearly ran over a cyclist. The streets of Portland are narrow, and the cyclist only survived by running into a parked car and flying up and over it onto the sidewalk.

  “Where is he going?”

  “You’re the one who’s been following him for two thousand years, you tell me.”

  “I’ve been following the real Jesus,” Pete said. “I have no idea what your imaginary one will do.”

  We passed Ankeny Street, and Pete yelled out, “There he is, still headed north!”

  “There’s no way. No human being can run that fast.” Then I thought about what I was saying, and I slowed the car down. “No human being. Pete, are you sure that’s not the real Jesus?”

  Pete hit the dashboard in frustration. “Would the real Jesus run away from a fight?”

  I pulled the car over. I needed to think. “I guess he would turn the other cheek.” But wait. “Maybe he would have a sword that comes out of his mouth and smites people.”

  Pete groaned. “Do you remember that part in the Bible where it says, ‘Jesus girded his loins and ran’?”

  “No.”

  “Can you think of any moment in which Jesus ran?”

  “Hmm. You know in the Prodigal Son story, where the father runs to his see his son?”

  Pete snorted. “Is Jesus running toward you right now?”

  “No.”

  “That ain’t Jesus. And if you want to hang out with the real thing, we need to deal with that faker.”

  I thought about this. I loved Jesus. Not the fake one. At least, I didn’t think it was the fake one I was in love with. And if I had been hanging out with some imposter, I wanted to catch him and make him pay. I looked down at the dash. A thin pink piece of paper sat under my windshield wiper. A parking ticket. I jumped out of the car and snatched it. Fifty bucks. I lifted it toward the sky and waved it in a clenched fist. “IMAGINARY JESUS! He can’t even fix my parking tickets!”

  I leaped into the cab and tires squealed as I turned onto Burnside. Jesus looked back and his eyes widened in terror. He could see the angry burn in my eyes and the parking ticket clenched against the steering wheel. Jesus ran up alongside a cyclist, grabbed him by the spandex, and yanked him off his bike. The bike didn’t even fall. Jesus leaped onto it while it was still wobbling, and the distance betw
een us doubled in seconds.

  “He’s headed for the bridge,” Pete said. The Burnside Bridge is over a thousand feet long, flat, simple, no tolls. No pretension in Portland. So Jesus was headed downtown, no doubt to try to lose us in the warren of one-way streets, MAX trains, and pedestrians angry at the fossil fuel I was burning. If he was lucky, they would swarm my truck like zombies to protest my gas guzzling. Our best bet was to stop him now, but he was too fast. He wove in and out of the cars on Burnside like a needle through cloth.

  As we sped toward downtown, we caught a sudden break. The bridge was in motion, the counterweights dropping. I stopped in the line of cars. For the first time ever, I was thankful to miss the bridge. The drop from the bridge to the water is about sixty feet, and they sometimes have to lift it so that boats headed up the Willamette River can get past. Jesus sped past the flashing barriers. Pete jumped out of the car and shouted at me to follow. I paused at the flashing lights and debated, but Pete’s lumbering form was already halfway to Jesus.

  Jesus turned, trapped against the rising ramp of the bridge. He settled into a kung fu stance as Pete waded toward him. Without warning, Jesus turned and ran up the ramp. Pete tried to follow him, but the incline was getting too steep. Jesus managed to make it all the way to the lamppost sticking out of the bridge just as Pete slid back to the bottom. Jesus held on to the lamppost as it went horizontal.

  “We’ll catch him when the bridge lowers again,” Pete said.

  Jesus looked down at me, his smile replaced with a stern glare. “You shouldn’t doubt me. You’ll regret this. You should respect me as your master!”

  “We’ll talk all about it when the bridge lowers,” I yelled. “And about this parking ticket!” I shook my fist at him.

  Jesus laughed. And then he let go of the lamppost and fell. Pete and I surged toward him. He fell like a rock past the deck of the bridge and into the water below. Pete and I ran to the edge, and we could see his blue sash floating away with the current. We ran to the other side of the bridge and saw him pop out of the water like a float. He stepped up on top of the water and turned around to wave at us, laughing. “See you later, Apostle Paul!”

  Pete growled. “PETER! I’M PETER!”

  Jesus turned and walked south against the flow of the river. We watched him until he walked up on the far shore and climbed onto one of the faux docks for the downtown apartment complexes. Pete’s shoulders slumped. Traffic had started again behind us, and people honked enthusiastically at my truck, doors thrown open, empty, the engine running but useless.

  “He totally walked on water,” I said. “That was cool.”

  Pete shook his head. “Have you even met Jesus before? That guy wasn’t even close.”

  “Of course I have,” I snapped. To be honest, Pete had hurt my feelings. “I’ve been going to church since I was a kid. I’ve been trying to follow Jesus for as long as I can remember.”

  Pete sighed. “I guess I didn’t know him very well either. Not at the beginning.” He looked at me. “I think we need to have a talk if we’re going to be able to catch this guy. I’m going to need to tell you my story, and I’ll need to hear yours, too.”

  We got into the truck, and Pete slammed his door. “And if you see a liquor store, pull over,” he said. “I have the feeling we’re going to need some alcohol.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, and Pete

  I’ve never been a drinker. I mean never. I’ve always told people, “Alcoholism runs in my family.” But the fact is, I’ve never been sure whether Jesus would approve or not. And I get sick of alcoholic Christians trying to convince me that I should guzzle beer with them because we’re all “free in Christ.” Their insecurity turns them into Bible-thumpers when it comes to the question of alcohol. Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine, they say. Paul told Timothy to drink wine at night for his stomach. Lot got drunk and had sex with his daughters. Compelling arguments. I find it a lot easier to sit back and say, “Hey, I don’t care if you drink. No problem. I abstain for genetic reasons, not religious reasons.” Saves time, saves face. And let’s be honest, here in Portland several bars are kept in business by Christians with tiny goatees and C. S. Lewis pipes. I guess they feel like they’re getting away with something.

  Pete made me stop at Trader Joe’s on the way home, and he bought a bottle of wine and some flatbread. I live in Vancouver, just north of Portland. As you cross the Columbia River, an inexplicable transformation takes place. Crazy, liberal, free-spirited Portland becomes reasonable, conservative, uptight Vancouver. All the organic restaurants with tiny servings and sidewalk gardens are replaced with “quantity restaurants.” I have two restaurants within walking distance of my house with the word fat in them: Fatty Patty’s and Fat Dave’s. Fatty Patty’s has a breakfast called the Barnyard that’s so huge it has to be served on a cookie sheet. I am not kidding.

  We got home, and my wife and daughters were out somewhere. It was Thursday, so that would argue for ballet lessons, I think. I was glad because I wasn’t sure how to explain what was going on. “Hi, honey, this is someone claiming to be the apostle Peter. I met him when he was fighting Jesus at our favorite communist café.”

  We live in a typical two-story tract home on a tenth of an acre. We have a master bathroom smaller than most people’s closets, and the kids share the bonus room. But there’s more than enough space, about five hundred square feet per person. I parked on the side of the house. As we walked through the grass toward the front porch, Pete stepped in something.

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “One of the neighbors’ dogs has been sneaking into our yard. Sometimes into our backyard, even when the fence is locked. I call him Houdini Dog because I haven’t seen him yet, not once. But I often find evidence of his presence.” I had spent hours trying to catch this dog in the act, but I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of him. He was my canine nemesis.

  “No problem,” Pete grunted, wiping his shoes in the grass.

  When we got into the house, Pete walked into the kitchen and started rummaging through cabinets until he came up with two glasses and a platter. He poured the wine and threw the flatbread onto the plate. Pete took a big drink of the wine, and we sat at the kitchen table. “Nice chairs,” he said.

  “My father-in-law made them. Windsor chairs, they’re called. He cuts down the trees, steams the wood, uses milk paint on them, the whole deal. Pretty amazing.”

  “I can respect that. Jesus is like that. Loves to work with his hands.”

  “How can you say that?” I asked. “Because Joseph was a carpenter? How do you come up with that?”

  Pete snorted and broke a piece of flatbread in half. “How do you know your sister’s favorite flavor of cake?”

  “Funfetti, it’s called. I just remember it. From when we were kids, I guess.”

  Chewing on his bread, Pete said, “Jesus is a real person. He has real likes and dislikes. Likes fish, not as fond of lamb. Likes some colors better than others. It happens that he likes to work with his hands. Clay, wood, whatever. I don’t ‘come up with it.’ I know him and I know what he likes.”

  He pushed a glass of wine in front of me and told me to drink. “I don’t,” I said.

  “Fine with me. Now. If we’re going to find your imaginary Jesus, I’ll need to ask you a question or two to figure out if you even know the real Jesus.”

  I sighed. “It seems to me that you could just show me the real one and the fake one would disappear.”

  Pete looked at me steadily. “If you never confront the imaginary Jesus, he’ll keep popping up, perverting what you know about the real Jesus. You need to look him in the face, recognize that he’s fake, and renounce him.”

  I shrugged. “Okay, fine. Ask your questions.”

  Pete smiled. “If you were sitting down with someone and had five minutes to explain how to follow Jesus, what would you say?”

  I sat back in my chair. Believe it or not, this was a pretty easy
question for me. “First, I’d tell them that God loves them. And Jesus is God.”

  Pete nodded. “Go on.”

  “Then I’d explain how we’re all sinful, and we can’t get to God.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d tell them how Jesus is the only way to God. And that he died so we could be with God.” Pete had set his cup down and was watching me with strange, unblinking eyes. “And he came back to life,” I added hurriedly.

  “Okay,” Pete said. One of his huge hands wandered aimlessly in front of him on the table, picking at the tablecloth.

  “And you have to pray to Jesus to say that you believe all this and you want to follow him.”

  Pete stood and walked to the sliding glass door. He was staring out at our garden. Krista loves to garden, and she tends the most amazing explosion of color and vegetables in one corner of our yard every year. Dahlias, sunflowers, tomatoes, purple snap beans. But now that winter was coming, the sunflowers were falling and we had culled the beans. You could see the hard work we’d put into it, but it had a tired look, like the life was leeching out of it.

  Pete leaned against the glass, resting his forehead on one bent arm. “I don’t disagree with anything you say,” he said. “But do you know what it looks like when Jesus walks up to someone and says, ‘Follow me’? When I first started to follow him, I didn’t know that he was God. I didn’t know he was the only way to God. I didn’t pray to say that I believed it with all my heart. None of that.”

  I cleared my throat and turned the wineglass in front of me. “You weren’t a Christian yet, that’s all.”

  Pete turned, a broad grin on his face. “I disagree, my friend. I strongly disagree.” He picked up his glass and took a drink. “I want to show you something. Take a sip of your wine.”