Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

should call him humiliating names and make him lick upon her body, then surely they have sinned like big dogs—and woe unto the man if he pretends to be a powerful queen, and—’”
    “That’s enough, Biff.”
    “But you want to be specific, don’t you. You don’t want people to walk around wondering, ‘Hey, is this adultery, or what? Maybe you should roll over.’”
    “I’m not sure that being that specific is a good idea.”
    “Okay, how ’bout this: ‘Should a man or a woman have any goings-on with their mutual naughty bits, then it is more than likely they are committing adultery, or at least they should consider it.’”
    “Well, maybe more specific than that.”
    “Come on, Josh, this isn’t an easy one like ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Basically, there you got a corpse, you got a sin, right?”
    “Yes, adultery can be sticky.”
    “Well, yes…Look, a seagull!”
    “Biff, I appreciate that you feel obliged to be an advocate for your favorite sins, but that’s not what I need here. What I need is help writing this sermon. How we doing on the Beatitudes?”
    “Pardon me?”
    “The blesseds.”
    “We’ve got: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; blessed are the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, the whiners, the meek, the—”
    “Wait, what are we giving the meek?”
    “Let’s see, uh, here: Blessed are the meek, for to them we shall say, ‘attaboy.’”
    “A little weak.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Let’s let the meek inherit the earth.”
    “Can’t you give the earth to the whiners?”
    “Well then, cut the whiners and give the earth to the meek.”
    “Okay. Earth to the meek. Here we go. Blessed are the peacemakers, the mourners, and that’s it.”
    “How many is that?”
    “Seven.”
    “Not enough. We need one more. How about the dumbfucks?”
    “No, Josh, not the dumbfucks. You’ve done enough for the dumbfucks. Nathaniel, Thomas—”
    “Blessed are the dumbfucks for they, uh—I don’t know—they shall never be disappointed.”
    “No, I’m drawing the line at dumbfucks. Come on, Josh, why can’t we have any powerful guys on our team? Why do we have to have the meek, and the poor, the oppressed, and the pissed on? Why can’t we, for once, have blessed are the big powerful rich guys with swords?”
    “Because they don’t need us.”
    “Okay, but no ‘Blessed are the dumbfucks.’”
    “Who then?”
    “Sluts?”
    “No.”
    “How about the wankers? I can think of five or six disciples that would be really blessed.”
    “No wankers. I’ve got it: Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.”
    “Okay, better. What are you going to give them?”
    “A fruit basket.”
    “You can’t give the meek the whole earth and these guys a fruit basket.”
    “Give them the kingdom of heaven.”
    “The poor in spirit got that.”
    “Everybody gets some.”
    “Okay then, ‘share the Kingdom of Heaven.’” I wrote it down.
    “We could give the fruit basket to the dumbfucks.”
    “NO DUMBFUCKS!”
    “Sorry, I just feel for them.”
    “You feel for everyone, Josh. It’s your job.”
    “Oh yeah. I forgot.”
    We finished writing the sermon only a few hours before Philip and Thaddeus returned from Judea leading three thousand of John’s followers. Joshua had them gather on a hillside above Capernaum, then sent the disciples into the crowd to find the sick and bring them to him. He performed miracles of healing all morning, then coming into the afternoon he gathered us together at the spring below the mountain.
    Peter said, “There’s at least another thousand people from Galilee on the hill, Joshua, and they are hungry.”
    “How much food do we have?” Joshua asked.
    Judas came forward with a basket. “Five loaves and two fish.”
    “That will do, but you’ll need more baskets. And about a hundred volunteers to help distribute the food. Nathaniel, you, Bartholomew, and Thomas go into the crowd and find me fifty to a hundred people who have their own baskets. Bring them here. By the time you get back we’ll have the food for them.”
    Judas threw down his basket. “We have five loaves, how do you think—”
    Joshua held up his hand for silence and the Zealot clammed up. “Judas, today you’ve seen the lame walk, the blind see, and the deaf hear.”
    “Not to mention the blind hear and the deaf see,” I added.
    Joshua scowled at me. “It will take little more to feed a few of the faithful.”
    “There are