Latte Messiah
Religion
Sarah Chen stood on the Sea of Galilee, her Lululemon leggings rolled up to her knees, and waited for someone to notice.
A family of tourists from Wisconsin eventually did. The father lowered his phone, squinted, then raised it again to record. His daughter, maybe twelve, tugged at his sleeve and said something Sarah couldn’t hear. The father shrugged. They watched for another thirty seconds, then wandered toward the gift shop.
Sarah sighed and walked back to shore, her Nikes leaving small ripples that healed themselves behind her. She’d been at this for three months now, and the miracles weren’t landing the way she’d hoped. Turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana had resulted in a one-star Yelp review complaining about an uninvited guest. Healing a paralyzed man in Mumbai had been attributed to a previously undiagnosed conversion disorder. The loaves and fishes thing in São Paulo had sparked a health department investigation.
“Maybe try something bigger?” her publicist, Derek, suggested over the phone that evening. Derek was a former crisis communications specialist who’d agreed to help after Sarah had cured his mother’s pancreatic cancer. He remained professionally skeptical but personally loyal. “The water-walking video only has twelve thousand views. Half the comments are asking what software you used.”
Sarah scrolled through her phone, sipping a oat milk latte from a café in Tiberias. The top comment read: Obvious CGI. You can see the rendering artifacts at 0:47. Below that: Why is the Messiah dressed like she’s going to brunch? And below that, simply: Fake and cringe.
“What if I parted the Red Sea again?” Sarah asked.
“Environmental groups would lose their minds. The marine ecosystem implications alone.”
“Raised the dead?”
“Zombie discourse. Trust me, you don’t want zombie discourse.”
Sarah set down her latte. She’d known this assignment would be difficult. The Father had warned her, in that way He had of communicating through feelings and sudden certainties, that the world had changed since the last time. People were different now. They’d seen too much, processed too much, been lied to too often to recognize the truth when it finally showed up wearing athleisure and asking them to be kind to one another.
Still, she’d hoped.
The video of her walking on water hit two million views by the end of the week, but only because a popular debunker account had done a frame-by-frame analysis proving it was fake. “The physics of the water displacement are completely wrong,” the debunker explained, pointing to the ripples around Sarah’s feet. “Real water doesn’t behave this way. This is clearly Sora 3 or maybe some proprietary tool we haven’t seen yet.” The video of the debunking got fifteen million views.
Sarah gave a sermon on the Mount of Beatitudes, speaking to a crowd of about three hundred, mostly confused hikers who’d wandered into the wrong area. She talked about peace, about loving one’s enemies, about the meek inheriting the earth.
The clip that went viral was thirteen seconds long. “Blessed are the meek,” Sarah said in it, her voice earnest and clear, “for they shall inherit the earth.”
The quote-tweet that launched it into the discourse had simply read: Of course the messiah is woke.
Within forty-eight hours, Sarah Chen had become a culture war flashpoint. Conservative commentators accused her of promoting weakness in the face of existential threats. Progressive commentators accused the conservatives of missing the point, then accused Sarah of not being radical enough in her critique of systemic injustice. Centrist commentators wrote op-eds about the death of nuance. An AI-generated image of Sarah wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt while sipping a Starbucks cup labeled “Liberal Tears” became a popular meme format.
Through it all, Sarah kept performing miracles. She healed the sick. She fed the hungry. She brought comfort to the dying. None of it trended.
The joint press conference came on a Tuesday.
Pope Francis IX stood at a podium in Vatican City, flanked by Grand Ayatollah Khamenei’s designated representative and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Chief Rabbi of Israel had sent a video message expressing similar sentiments. Behind them, a screen displayed an official interfaith logo that must have taken a committee three weeks to design.
“We have examined the evidence,” the Pope said, reading from prepared remarks. “We have witnessed the miracles firsthand. We have consulted scripture, tradition, and prayer.”
Sarah watched from her hotel room in Rome, her latte growing cold.
“We acknowledge that Sarah Chen is, in fact, God made manifest. The Second Coming, as prophesied.”
Sarah leaned forward.
“However,” the Pope continued, “after careful deliberation, we have determined that this revelation does not require any updates to our canonical beliefs or practices. The teachings of Christ, Muhammad, peace be upon him, and the prophets of the Hebrew Bible remain complete and sufficient. We thank God for this visit and wish Her well in Her future endeavors.”
The representative from Al-Azhar nodded solemnly. The Archbishop of Canterbury smiled in a way that suggested he’d been practicing in a mirror. The Chief Rabbi’s video message expressed confidence that the Messiah’s next coming would be the real one.
The press conference ended. The representatives shook hands, posed for photographs, and returned to their respective institutions entirely unchanged.
Sarah stared at the screen for a long time.
Derek called. “I’m getting a lot of inquiries,” he said. “Mostly from podcasters who want to ask if you’re an alien or a government psyop. How do we feel about Joe Rogan?” He paused. “But there’s one that might actually be worth your time.”
The delegation from Salt Lake City arrived the next morning. Three men in neat suits, freshly shaven, radiating an enthusiasm Sarah hadn’t encountered since she’d started this whole endeavor. They’d brought a gift basket containing honey, homemade bread, and a pamphlet about their beliefs.
“We’ve been expecting someone like you,” the eldest said, his smile so genuine it almost hurt to look at. “I mean, not exactly like you. But we’ve always believed revelation is ongoing. That God still speaks.” He clasped his hands together. “We’d be honored if you’d visit Temple Square.”
Sarah blinked. “You believe me? Just like that?”
“Ma’am, we’ve all knocked on doors for two years telling people about golden plates and an angel named Moroni. We’re not exactly in a position to be skeptical about unusual messengers.”
For the first time in three months, Sarah laughed.
They talked for an hour, then two. They asked about her teachings, her mission, her vision for humanity. They took notes. They nodded thoughtfully. They didn’t check their phones once.
Finally, as they prepared to leave, the eldest paused at the door. He glanced at the Starbucks cup on her desk, then back at her face, his expression gentle but firm.
“Just one thing,” he said. “The coffee. We’d ask that you consider switching to decaf.”
Sarah Chen, God incarnate, looked at her latte. She looked at the three earnest men who were the first people on Earth to accept her without reservation.
“I can do that,” she said.