Note:  This was a sermon that I gave in the chapel here at seminary... so I didn't actually use the words 'bad ass' but it can certainly be inferred from the text.

I had this dream...

I was walking along in a land of rolling hills…  beautiful green grass… groves of trees here and there.  The air was crisp and cool.  And because the sun was setting, the sky was glorious in its technicolor pinks and oranges streaking against the pale blue sky.

It was quite beautiful.  Idyllic, even.

I had been walking toward the sun for quite a while… when I realized that that the sun wasn’t moving.  I was walking but time wasn’t passing.  It was like I was on a treadmill… going nowhere, and nothing new was happening… just this pretty scenery.  And still, I kept walking…. endlessly walking towards the sun.  Sun that never set.

Then suddenly, a man appeared in front of me, blocking out the sun… the light shining around him like an aura.  I stood there… stunned, curious.  I couldn’t see his face but I could hear his voice.  It was strong and clear and patient.

“I am the good shepherd and I lay down my life for my sheep.”

The words landed like a punch in my gut and I fell to my knees doubled over… I looked down to find this huge wound in my belly… and it was bleeding, weeping.

I looked up and all the pretty landscape had started to bleed too.  The pinks and oranges of the sky were running together with the green from the trees.  The colors raining down into this vat of swirling grey goo.

I looked down again to find that my wound had grown even bigger and I was melting along with everything else into the vat of greyness… the last thing I remember was going under.

Upon waking, the only word that would describe what I was feeling is… devastation.

Not exactly the effect one might hope for from the good shepherd.  It doesn’t really match with what we’ve been encouraged to think about the good shepherd.  Where do we get our image of the good shepherd from?

It’s interesting and perhaps appropriate that the first recorded image we have of Jesus, is that of the good shepherd… not the crucifixion, nor the risen Christ.  The earliest Christians saw Jesus as the good shepherd.

Our image of Jesus as the good shepherd is one that most likely comes in the form of a white-robed man sitting amongst children and sheep… all of them smiling sweetly, from the midst of the 23^rd psalm.

The poster in the Sunday school room perhaps?

Or the little prayer card that you received when you won the Bible drill in 2^nd grade?

There’s Jesus with the sheep around his neck… carrying it to safety.

There’s Jesus with the shepherd’s crook and the other arm outstretched saying, “take my hand, and everything will be alright.”… inviting us in from a cold, cruel world.

Appropriate images… but not the whole story.

… because the good shepherd’s voice is the one that must, by any means necessary, lead us home.

That means that the good shepherd is willing to die to give you life.

That means that he is willing to destroy your world to transform you.

That means he must be willing to tell you the truth… even the truth you don’t want to hear.

And we know when we hear the truth.  We know it.  We know the voice of the good shepherd.

We often don’t want to hear it… because it shatters our illusions…

the illusions we have of ourself.

Illusions like…

I am a bad person.

I am a complete idiot.

I am not safe.

I don’t know.

I’m a fake.

I don’t belong.

I am not lovable.

Those are the voices of the wolves… they scatter and they divide.  They tear down… they fragment the whole.  Yet, those are the voices we are prone to listen to the most.

And why is that?

Because we find some odd sense of comfort in voices that tell us what we already believe about ourself.  They are a part of the world we’ve created for ourselves… for some people, they are the entire world.

And even if our world is not a technicolor Disneyland… even if it’s a horrifying nightmare that no one else could fathom… we find some kind of comfort in it – because we know it – because we believe in it.

But the good shepherd will, by any means necessary, lead you home… even if that means destroying your world so that you can live.

The psalm tells us, “precious in the sight of the Lord are the deaths of his faithful ones”.

Indeed.

The good shepherd is the voice that invites us to

Put things down... Let things go... Allow ourselves to die

Can you hear him?  What does he say to you?

… stop trying to figure everyone out so that you can keep your guard up.

… stop struggling to be all things to all people so that no one is disappointed in you.

… stop wishing things were different so that you can live problem-free.

… stop striving to attain so that people don’t see your flaws.

… stop living in a beautiful Technicolor dream world so that you can come to know why you’re hurting.

These words are not comforting… they actually hurt, like a punch in the gut… but they speak the truth.  They are the words of the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.

And we know his voice… when we finally allow ourselves to hear it.

The Holy Spirit is always trying to find a way to get us to hear the voice of the good shepherd.  Sometimes, when we’re attentive enough, we hear her whisper to us in the voices of our friends or our loved ones.

But she can be hard to hear in those cases because humans are good at getting the truth tangled up with our own needs… especially when we love someone else and we are relying on them to help us maintain our world.

We can’t always hear it from others and we can’t always tell it to others… but we do try to tell the truth.  You know though… I don’t care how eloquent or poetic or clear we might be… humans just don’t have the words for the truth.

But if we did… if we really spoke with the voice of the good shepherd… maybe it would be something like…

“you are so utterly amazing, my love… why are you doing this to yourself?” 

But even that doesn’t completely do it.  Because there are no words that can quite express how specifically and particularly we each have a place in the kingdom of God.

Let us open our hearts to this voice… to this vision.

What is that piece that needs to be laid down?  What is that part of yourself that needs to die?  What is the good shepherd longing for you to hear?

Let him destroy your world.  If he’s done it once, let him do it again… and again… until the dream world that you’ve created cries its tears of mourning and takes a part of you with it down its rusty rain gutter.

Then resurrection can take place in our heart.

Then reign of God becomes real to us.

Then we will be led home.