More Tea, Jesus?. James Lark

worry, I wasn’t planning on wearing vestments,’ he cheerfully informed Gerard, already wondering to himself what people did wear in gay clubs these days. He was already quite looking forward to the outing.

      Gerard may have felt less uneasy about the idea of going to a gay club had he known that Jesus had already visited quite a few. After all, the Christ wasn’t just lying in bed between his weekly visits to St Barnabas – had anybody noticed him, they would have seen Jesus visiting many of the area’s lesser attractions over the few weeks he had been back on earth. There are people who would find even the suggestion of Jesus going into a gay club shocking and unseemly, but it was Jesus’ habit of doing shocking and unseemly things that had got him into so much trouble with people the first time round. He had come to help the lonely and the helpless; the clubbing scene, not unlike the church, had proved a big source of both. If Jesus hadn’t been paid much attention there either, it’s because the clubbing scene, like church, is full of people largely interested in external appearances and Jesus had been too busy to spend time tarting himself up to meet people.

      But he had at least met some people. Even as Gerard was leaving the vicarage, Jesus was kneeling next to a young woman who was weeping into a gutter outside a noisy club on the outskirts of London. She had sobered up a fair amount in the time he had been talking to her, though if anything she was crying more than she had been when he had picked her up from the ground.

      ‘Can you tell me where you’re going?’ he asked her, provoking another burst of sobbing.