I felt terrible for feedin' Jesus that breakfast burrito. How was I s'posed to remember Jews ain't allowed to eat bacon. I mean I didn't do it on purpose. After all, I didn't eat the bread he pulled outta thin air without askin' him first if he made sure to pray for gluten-free loaves. You gotta let people know if you got dietary restrictions; that's all I'm sayin'.
All day long after that, Jesus kept sulkin' and givin' me the stink-eye. He didn't say one word to me the whole ride up to the hotel, and he just kept on goin' with the silent treatment till, finally at dinner, I had to say somethin'.
"Your father ain't gonna send you to hell on account o' me accidentally feeding you some bacon, is he?" I asked.
"I thought I told you not to ask stupid questions," he said. I know it sounds weird, but you get used to Jesus sayin' that kinda thing when he's around and, pretty soon, it starts bouncin' right off you. It took a while gettin' Jesus to talk without hidin' behind all the put downs, what with him sayin' stuff like it'll be worse for me than it was for Sodom on the day o' judgement and all that, but he finally came around to tellin' me it wasn't the bacon he was mad at. He just couldn't believe I forgot he's a Jew. Said he never meant to spread the gospel to gentiles in the first place, and now he comes to a world where people "literally" swear by his name and they don't even know what it's like to be a good Jew.
What happened next was somethin' I shoulda saw comin from the time I picked him up back at that truck stop out near Boulder. I asked Jesus a simple question just like I do every time right before he makes me feel like I should'na opened my dang fool mouth... Well, let me back up a smidge.
All I did was ask him why he'd even bother if he couldn't get the chosen people to follow him. First he tells me, "You gotta take what you can get," and I was fine with that. But then he went into some stuff I never heard before.
"That's why they call me the Bridegroom," he said, and he stopped talkin' right when he saw the look on my face. It was prob'ly pretty obvious I did have a dang clue what the hell he was talkin' about. Then he said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a wedding party?" But he said it like he was testin' me or something. "The people who were originally invited pulled a no-show? Does any of this ring a bell?"
"That makes perfect sense," I told him, and I just knew I was in for it 'cause I could tell I was lookin' at him all bug eyed, like when you get lost in the Mexican side of town and and you stop and ask for directions just to have some little dark-skinned fella speak to you all fast and mumbly, and you just wish to high heaven that you could understand one word they was sayin' to you. Anyway, it goes without sayin, he wasn't satisfied with my answer.
"This shouldn't be anything new to you. You say you're a Christian?"
I just couldn't let Jesus down. I had to let him know I'm a believer and ain't no two ways about it. "Yes, sir," I said. "A Christian through and through. Born and bred. Yes, sir." But that didn't make no nevermind to him. He went right on like a drill sergeant, askin' me how much I read of the holy scriptures and how much I knew about the law and the gospels and I told him what I knew, which I thought was plenty. I said to Jesus that I knew about the creation, the commandments, and the patience of Job...
"The patience of Job?" he said, and now I just felt like I'd been talkin' straight outta my ass. Which, according to him, I guess I was. "Job didn't have a choice. Job was given the option to sink or swim; Job was persistent." Then he went and slapped a Bible in my hand and told me to get busy reading.
I don't know what kinda time he thinks I got to spare, but I've got ground to cover and cargo to deliver. Still though, it'd seem pretty ungrateful on my part to tell the ever-lovin' Messiah that I'm too busy to learn how to be a good Christian. I mean, after he died for the sins of the world and everything. Although, I gotta say, after reading a little outta this here book, I'm gettin' a real fuzzy picture o' what that's s'posed to mean.
