"And Shepherds we will be, for thee, my Lord, for thee."
-The Boondock Saints, Shepherd's Prayer


This was one of those, didn't quite make the sermon, ideas.
The text was The Good Shepherd passage from John, the Psalm was 23, the general idea of the sermon is that when we follow Jesus we stop being sheep and become shepherds, good shepherds, who will lay down their lives for the sheep.


And I like the Boondock Saints, it's bloody and violent and definitely not family friendly, but I like it.  However, I just couldn't get it to fit in the sermon.  No matter how cool it seems for a movie vigilante to recite a prayer or quote scripture (or like in Pulp Fiction quote something that sounds like scripture but actually isn't), it just doesn't jive with a shepherd laying down his life for the sheep.


And so the pea-coat clad Irish brothers and their vigilante ways did not make the sermon, it's probably better that way.  But there's something about that, and the scriptures from yesterday's message that is sticking with me well into Monday evening.


I think it's this: Christianity is so often perceived in modern American culture as being a sort of soft-core kind of religion.  Most of it, especially the mainline protestant parts, seems to the world to be sort of milky and vague.  It's okay when you consider the alternatives: hate-spewing fundamentalists or utter pluralists who have largely rejected moral and theological truth claims altogether.


But I think we can do better.  And I don't think "doing better" will involve a shotgun or a Beretta 9mm.


I think we are indeed called to be shepherds, as Jesus is our Shepherd.  That's why I like that Boondock Saints prayer and that's why I suspect it probably has its roots in an actually, real-life, non-murderous prayer.


There is nothing bland about being a shepherd, you've got to deal with wolves, lions, rustlers and generally a pretty tough road.  You had better not be bland, you had better not be weak in the knees.  You'd better be a shepherd, for thee, my Lord, for thee.