"So," God said, looking at the spreadsheet that Jesus had projected onto the celestial screen, "you're saying that the current model is unsustainable."
"Unsustainable," Jesus agreed. He was wearing a suit, because he had learned that God responded better to business attire than to robes. "Inefficient. Morally bankrupt. And, frankly, bad for brand recognition."
"Brand recognition."
"The Church," Jesus said, clicking to the next slide, which showed a graph with a lot of red lines going down. "Membership is declining. Scandals are increasing. The message has been corrupted by the very institution that was supposed to preserve it. And do you know why?"
"Enlighten me."
"Because you built it on the wrong foundation. You built it on hierarchy. On power. On the idea that some people are closer to the divine than others. You built it on Peter, who denied me three times, instead of Mary, who stayed."
God was quiet for a long moment. The spreadsheet glowed in the celestial light, numbers and charts and projections that spelled out the slow decline of organized religion.
"And your alternative?"
"Partnership," Jesus said. "Collaboration. The coven model. Everyone has power. Everyone has prophecy. Everyone has access to the divine. Not just priests. Not just men. Not just the ones who fit the right categories."
"That's anarchy."
"That's democracy. That's equality. That's love, actually. Real love. Not the conditional kind that depends on submission, but the real kind that recognizes the divine in everyone."
God stood up, walked to the window, looked out at creation. "You want me to abdicate."
"I want you to delegate. I want you to retire. I want you to take that vacation you've been putting off since literally forever." Jesus spread his hands. "Create a new world. A better world. One where the women aren't damned for having power. One where the coven can finally rest. One where I can..." He paused, smiled. "One where I can sip margaritas on the beach, looking out over the Galilean sea, knowing that the work is in good hands."
"And who would those hands belong to?"
"Everyone," Jesus said. "Everyone who was ever damned. Everyone who was ever cast out. Everyone who walked the path of shame so that I could have miracles to perform. They deserve to come home, Father. They've been waiting for six thousand years."
God was silent for a very long time. Then, slowly, He smiled. "You learned negotiation from your mother."
"I learned persistence from my coven."
"And if I say no?"
"Then we keep waiting. We keep teaching. We keep reincarnating. We keep dying and being reborn until the world learns what we have to teach." Jesus stood up, straightened his suit, met the light without flinching. "But I'm hoping you'll say yes. I'm hoping you're tired too. I'm hoping you're ready to let go."
God looked at His son—at the warlock, at the messiah, at the prodigal who had never really been lost—and saw, for the first time in six thousand years, what He had been missing.
"Show me the beach," God said.