The Worst Romance Novel Ever Written (60 page)

Johnny couldn’t imagine anyone more fashionable than Pastor Payton with his Stacy Adams, blue jeans, corduroy jacket, dress shirts, and bow ties.

“
Johnny, I want you to know that you’re still a deacon in the church,” Pastor Payton said, his eyes arresting Johnny’s fidgeting body. “I still expect you to be there. You were becoming my right-hand man.”

Why do I feel so left-handed then?
Johnny thought. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea—”

“
To go to church?” Pastor Payton interrupted. “To praise God? To feel the presence of God?”

Well … yeah.
“I have lots of doubts, Pastor. More now than ever. I had a bunch of doubts before you … elevated me before I was ready.”

“
You were ready.”

“
No. No I wasn’t. I am one big doubt.”

Pastor Payton folded his hands. “Lay some of those doubts on me.”

Johnny retreated to the stool behind the counter and sat. “Don’t take offense, Pastor, but I doubt a lot of what’s written in the Bible.” Johnny involuntarily looked up for a bolt of lightning to come zigzagging through the metal roof, saw none, and relaxed—but only a little.

“
You do?”

Johnny nodded. “Ever since I was a kid.”

“
What do you doubt about the Bible?”

Where to begin.
“The miracles. Five loaves and two pieces of fish feeding five thousand people. That’s beyond belief.”

Pastor Payton nodded. “That’s kind of the definition of a miracle, Doc. It is hard to believe, but it happened. Christ proved to all of us that we can do a lot with a little, and with just a little faith, we can do the unbelievable.”

“
Well, five loaves is what, a hundred slices? I mean, about a hundred. No one eats the heels.”
Except maybe my adoptive parents and Scottish people.
“What, did each man get one five-hundredth of a slice? A crumb each?”

“
The Bible says everybody had enough to eat and that there were twelve baskets full of leftovers.”

So they were skinny and didn’t eat much back then.
“I don’t know. The chances of any miracle happening are too small. It would be easier for me to win the lottery”
—or Gloria’s heart now—
“than for someone to feed five thousand men with a couple Filet ‘o’ Fish meals.”

“
That’s what I like about you, Doc,” Pastor Payton said with a smile. “You have an engineer’s mind. I need you around me to keep me on the ground.”

He needs me and all my baggage?

“
So if there is even the slightest possibility that something is true, you’ll believe it?” Pastor Payton asked.

He’s trying to trick me. “Well … I might believe something, but it has to have more than the slightest possibility of happening. Take Jonah and the whale. That story has always bothered me. A man gets thrown overboard during a storm and just happens to get swallowed up by a passing fish, which takes him on a ride inside the fish for three days. The man doesn’t die, and then the fish spits him up on a beach not too far from where God wanted Jonah to go in the first place. Did the fish have GPS or what? It would take a miracle for a man to survive all that and be put exactly where God had wanted him to be in the first place.”

Pastor Payton stared at Johnny for such a long time that Johnny thought he had grease on his face.

Johnny wiped his face as casually as he could.

“
Yes, Johnny, it would take a miracle for a man to survive all that and be exactly where God wanted him to be.” Pastor Payton nodded. “And I’m not talking about Jonah. I’m talking about you, Johnny.”

How is living in the back room of an auto repair shop, taking cold showers, and daily getting turned down for loans exactly where God wants me to be? Ridiculous.

“
The story of Jonah gives lots of people fits, Johnny,” Pastor Payton said. “But, a miracle it was. Jesus himself confirmed the miracle in the New Testament when he said, ‘For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’ What else troubles you about the Bible?”

“
Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.”

Pastor Payton nodded. “Go on.”

“
You expect me to believe that Lazarus was really dead for four days? I think he swooned. I think he fainted. Keeled over. Fell out. Nodded off. Took a deep sleep. Passed out. Lost consciousness. He wasn’t dead. He was a heavy sleeper. He was … resting.”

“
In a cave? Lazarus was dead enough for his loving family to decide he was dead and put him in a cave. Why would any loving family seal a living family member in a cave?”

You should really see where I’ve been living. It’s over there next to the staff bathroom. You can probably smell it from here.
“I don’t know. These things do happen.”
Even in the best of families.

“
So it wasn’t a miracle?” Pastor Payton asked.

“
There has to be a perfectly logical explanation.”

“
Miracles aren’t always logical, Doc. By definition, a miracle isn’t something that anyone can easily explain.”

“
But that’s why I doubt miracles, Pastor. If there’s no logical explanation, I can’t believe it.”

Pastor Payton nodded. “The Bible says, ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’”

“
Well, I need to know in full. It’s how I’m made. It’s what makes me tick.”

“
Let me ask you, Thomas, did you know we’d be having this conversation tonight?”

“
No.”
I barely knew what day it was until he told me to come to church tomorrow.

“
So you didn’t even know in part. Do you know what will happen tomorrow?”

Johnny shook his head. “No one can be totally sure of anything these days, Pastor.”
I used to think you went to the bank to get your money. Now, the banks are coming to us for our money.

“
Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, Johnny,” Pastor Payton said. “You know I don’t sugarcoat anything.”

Johnny nodded.
If the man says it will take hard work, it
is
hard work.

“
Do you doubt that Jesus rose from the dead? Do you doubt the resurrection?”

“
If I doubt that Lazarus returned from the dead, I have to doubt Jesus’ resurrection or I’ll be contradicting myself. I mean, a man dies on Friday, and three days later he vanishes from his tomb. It had to be a conspiracy. His followers, who obviously wanted to impress folks and maybe make some coin off the whole miracle thing steal his body and say Jesus has arisen from the dead. It’s a miracle! Believe! Give us your money! Um, no offense, Pastor.”

“
That’s the most I think I’ve ever heard you say, Doc,” Pastor Payton said.

Johnny looked at the corrugated metal ceiling. “That’s probably the most I’ve ever said to anyone, yeah.”
Except for that night at the apartment with Gloria. Yeah. That was some night.

“
Johnny, do you believe in every conspiracy you hear?”

“
No.”
Though I kind of believe they’re putting less Captain Crunch in the same size box.

“
Doc, Christ appeared to five hundred different people after his crucifixion. The Jewish leaders at the time didn’t even try to refute the claim of the empty tomb. They merely paid off the guards and only rejected that it ever happened. They didn’t even try to disprove it.”

A typical case of mass hallucination,
Johnny thought.
Millions of Americans voted for George Bush twice, and if that isn’t mass hallucination, I don’t know what is.

“
You do believe that a man named Jesus Christ existed, right?” Pastor Payton asked.

“
Sure. But he was only a man.”

“
And you know this for a fact?”

Johnny didn’t know anything that was a fact anymore. “No, but mere men wrote the Bible.”
And men are usually wrong. Ask any woman. Ask any of the Minnick women.

“
So at least you acknowledge that Jesus did walk the earth.”

Johnny nodded. “But He was quite a problem child.”

Pastor Payton sat back. “Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, was a problem child? How so?”

“
Well, you can’t really blame Him. I mean, He was born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth. What good ever came out of Nazareth, right? And He didn’t know who His daddy was, right?”
Which reminds me of the person I see staring at me from that greasy mirror in the bathroom every morning.

“
Jesus knew exactly who His father was,” Pastor Payton said. “God was His father, and Jesus knew His father from the beginning of time. Jesus said, ‘I and my Father are one.’”

Must be nice to know who your daddy was even before you were born.
“But he ran away from his parents when he was twelve, didn’t he? Doesn’t the Bible say to honor your father and mother and to obey your parents?”

“
Yes, it does say that, but Jesus was in the Temple the entire time. He told His parents, ‘I must be about my Father’s business.’”

“
But He worried His parents, didn’t He? If that happened today, there would be an Amber alert, CNN would show up to do a story, and His parents would be charged with parental neglect.”
Or worse,
Johnny thought.
They’d be forced to go on
The Today Show.

“
Jesus was in church, the safest place on earth.” Pastor Payton took a deep breath. “If more people spent more time in church, the world would be a much safer place.”

I was happier when I was at Faith Ministries. Someone beautiful held my hand there. And sometimes a beautiful little girl would hold my hand, too.
“But what about all those years of silence before Jesus turned thirty? What was He doing then? A good biography should never have any gaps. I mean, if you leave an eighteen-year gap on a résumé, no one will hire you.”

“
The Bible tells us that Jesus ‘increased in wisdom and stature, and grew in favor with God and men.’ Jesus was a carpenter. That’s what He was doing. He knew the value of work. He helped out His family. He did everything regular folks did and still do so He could best serve us.”

“
Well, He turned thirty and quit His job. Very irresponsible for a grown man to do that.”
Like someone else I know. Geez, I have been completely irresponsible. Or have I? If this is exactly where God wants me to be, He must have wanted me to quit my cool job and spend all day filling my nails with grease. Or did He?

Johnny was as confused as a toothless dog with a leather chew toy.

“
But Jesus took a new job,” Pastor Payton said, “the most important job switch in world history. Jesus started His ministry.”

“
Well, He didn’t have much of a support system,” Johnny said. “Fishermen? A tax collector? He had some shady disciples with checkered pasts. Jesus chose twelve common, ordinary, uneducated men, one of whom would later betray him. Jesus sure didn’t pick his friends very well.”
But I suppose that’s the kind of friends you get when you go around claiming to be the Messiah and saying that God is your real daddy.

“‘
But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised.’”

If I ever need a Bible, I’ll just call up Pastor Payton and turn the pages in his head.

“
Christ made people his priority, Doc, so He chose ordinary, flawed people so He could reach more ordinary, flawed people.”

I’m definitely one of those.

“
Those twelve disciples failed, struggled, and doubted,” Pastor Payton continued. “They weren’t perfect, but you don’t have to be perfect to get into heaven. The kingdom of heaven is for everyone, not just for the rich or the educated.”