“Who is your Lord and Savior?” asked Jerry on communicants Sunday.

“Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior,” five boys answered back in one cherubic voice.

“Do you trust in him?”

“I do.”

“Do you intend to be his disciple, to obey his word and to show his love?”

“I do.”

“Hold on,” Jerry said, beads of sweat clung to his upper lip. Another sleepless night. His heart trilled.

The boys, all ties and jackets, stood side by side in the chancel, their varying heights attested to the vagaries of puberty: Jimmy, waving to his parents, happy pouring forth; Wilson, book serious, stolid, waiting for the next command; Peter, the price tag still hanging on his blazer, ready to return to his play clothes; Doug, towering over the other boys and shaving; and Chou, a mellow lad. There were no girls.

Over the school year, they had been a refreshing distraction. Despite all his ministerial shortcomings, he still loved working with kids. He got them, and they loved him. After class he would take them up the street for frozen yogurt, the new rage in town.

“Need a moment. Be right back,” he said to the boys. 

Jerry climbed into the pulpit. His sweaty palms slid across the smooth stone. He stared down at the embedded clock, stared at the second hand sliding across each second, so, so slowly. He gazed out at the expectant faces. He felt himself getting smaller and smaller.

“A long time ago I was one of them,” he motioned to the kids behind him,  “and I answered those same questions with ‘I do,’ but I really didn’t know, and, you know what?, here’s a little secret, shhhhhh, don’t tell, I still don’t know. ‘Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior?’ I’ve never met the guy, really.” 

 Faces, proud of their children’s advancement, now turned serious. 

“I’m your minister; I’m your rock of faith. You check in with me on Sundays making sure I’m holding up the God fort then return to your lives, faith insurance in your back pocket. But you know what? My faith? Sucks. Anyone? Anyone? Can I get an Amen?”

Stunned silence.

“This is my sermon folks, so stay with me.” His mouth was like a desert.

“What is belief? Can it be sustained by what others say or does it require personal encounter? I choose personal encounter; and that’s called Christian mysticism. We’ve left that behind. Nobody talks about that anymore. But that is a continuous essential vein of our faith about direct experience with the divine. All through seminary, while here as your minister, I yearned for that encounter, anything, some scrap, pacing my widow’s walk, straining to see some sign on the horizon. But ya know what? Nothing, nada, silence, crickets. Yet I keep postponing judgment day, and I’m not talking about the Biblical one. I’m talking about my judgment day, from my rational mind, when I judge God does not exist!”

Jimmy’s mother in the first row gasped. Jimmy stopped waving.

“My life’s in the toilet right now. Anyone? Anyone? Can I please get an amen?” Jerry’s tinnitus buzzed like a hive of bees. Fattening dark borders narrowed his peephole; the congregation looked shrunken and far away, like he was looking through the wrong side of binoculars.

“I went through an abortion. Well, I didn’t. My girlfriend did.”

More gasps. Helen shifted uncomfortably. Jack burrowed into the Sunday bulletin.

“Right. Ministers don’t get into situations like that. And if they do, they certainly don’t talk about it. But what is church, if not a place to harbor your broken vessel? You come to Jesus as you are, as you really are, or else this is all just a charade.

“Sometimes I look at the Presbyterian church, and I feel like everyone looks so goddamn (more audible gasps) perfect. Like no problems. I hate that. Ya know? We all got problems. And church is certainly not the place to hide them.

“I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking. And there’s this noise in my head, like static, like the end of a broadcasting day after the Star Spangled Banner.

“Whoa, getting off the track here, let’s see… 

“Anyone else feel this way? Like you’re just barely holding on?”

“Yes!” cried Jane, the Modigliani woman, as she rummaged through her bag for a cigarette. 

Tom, her husband, reached over to calm her.

“Don’t touch me,” she snapped. She spiked a smoke into the corner of her mouth and lit up. “Don’t judge me, “ she cried and waved her cigarette back and forth. 

“I appreciate you sharing, Jane,” said Jerry. 

“I mean, is this a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes? Through the ages, just one mass delusion? All these people at the top, the cardinals, the popes, the rectors, the ministers, enabling the delusion. J’accuse! All Wizards hiding what’s behind the celestial curtain.

“Well, I’m pulling the curtain back: There’s no one there!”

Jimmy’s mom put her hands over her daughter’s ears.

“But you know what? As silent and empty as it is, I still want to believe, I still yearn for God.

“The other day I had some kind of revelation. I got off the road of pretending to be me, or rather what others want me to be, and onto my own tiny, little path, so tiny no one else can see it, just me. Each of you has one of those roads, by the way.

Jerry’s head inside twirled. He saw flashes of bright white light.

 “That’s the road I wanna stay on, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll find me some God meat! And if I do, I’m gonna bring some back for all of you. I promise.

“As for now, I have no right to call myself a minister.”

He ripped off his stole and cast it on the communion table. He yanked off his robe and dropped it to the floor in a heap.

Jimmy asked, “So are we members now?”

Jerry turned around. “Oh, Jesus, I forgot about you guys, sure, be my guest, you’re all members now, thanks a bunch, go in peace.” And he loosely made the sign of the cross. 

He turned back to the congregation. “May you find your path, and may you find some blessed meat.” He made another sloppy sign of the cross.

He stumbled down the center aisle. No one moved. Jimmy yelled out, “Goodbye, Mr. Cradleman.”

“That’s Rev. Cradleman,” his father in the front pew corrected. “Well, no,” he said, confused.

Jerry staggered into the blinding sun. When he regained his balance, he spun around. He heard singing. Poking his head in, there was Helen in the chancel leading the congregation. Well, good for them.

He burned rubber out of the parking lot.