Melchizedek

Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church

Auburn WA, March 29, 2009 – 5^th Sunday in Lent

by Gregory S. Kaurin, Senior Pastor

Texts: Genesis 14; Psalms 110:1-4;

Hebrews 5:1-10; 6:13-20; and 7:1-28

“Melchizedek”

Let me start with a great story about Abraham that rarely gets told, years before he and Sarah give birth to their miracle baby. Abraham is known as Abram then. He is living in Canaan, which in 500 years will become the Promised Land of Israel, but now it is ruled by little city and regional kings that often make alliances and war against each other over grudges or for slaves and booty.

Turns out that a group of these kings make an alliance, go to war and defeat another group which includes the kings of Gomorrah and Sodom. Abram’s nephew, Lot, and his family are caught up in the crossfire and taken captive. Abram hears about it and grabs 318 of his trained warriors. He routes the enemy, recaptures the stolen treasures, and rescues all the captives. Returning from victory, he’s stopped by two kings.

The first is the priest-king, Melchizedek, king of Salem. Abram’s descendants will someday make Salem their capital city, Jeru-salem. But out of all these pagan cities and kings, this priest king shows up and brings Abram bread and wine and blesses him in the name of El-Elyon, the God Most High.

King Melchizedek says, “Blest is Abram by El-Elyon, maker of heaven and earth, and blest is El-Elyon who delivered your enemies into your hands.” In response, gratitude, Abram gives a tithe, 10%, of everything he has to Melchizedek, not as a reward or payment for the bread or wine, or for his blessing; it was a worshipful sacrifice to Melchizedek’s El-Elyon, God Most High.

The second to meet Abram is King Bera of Sodom. He tells Abram to keep all the spoils, to just return his people. Sounds very generous, but Abram tells Bera that there’s no way he wants the king of Sodom to have anything over his head, no strings.

In this painting from the 1400’s you can see Melchizedek handing a flagon of wine and bread to Abraham, who looks like he is awestruck and humbled. That, or he has a terrible migraine. Off to the left is King Bera of Sodom figuring out how to charm Abraham.

Here’s another from the 1500’s. The painter has Melchizedek dressed like a cardinal priest and holding his fingers in a Trinitarian blessing over the chalice of grapes. Who appears greater in this painting, Melchizedek or young Abraham?

So what was it about this priest-king Melchizedek that brought Abraham to his knees for a blessing? It was first, his experience of Melchizedek’s God. Second, it was his offer of a blessing, and of bread and wine.

First, in this Land that God had lead him to, Canaan, Abraham finally found someone who had heard the voice and served the same God that he had been following all his life. Melchizedek gave Abraham a tangible connection to God, a blessing from a man just like him, but through human touch, he experienced his God for whom he had been longing, searching.

And second: hospitality, simple bread and wine. No accident, I think. These are elements steeped in Jewish and Christian tradition and meaning, fulfilled at Christ’s Table to be sure, but that aside, it was also simple hospitality, open kindness to a tired and hungry soldier.

Hospitality. Some think that the fall of Sodom with Gomorrah, that their biggest problem had something to do with their sexual perversion and idolatry. Really it was about hospitality, their extreme lack of hospitality, the way they mistreated and abused outsiders, the vulnerable men and women who came to their cities.

That’s what got to Abraham: the hospitality, and a tangible experience of God, through Melchizedek.

To be honest, I didn’t realize what I was getting into as I dug into this for today. His name, Melchizedek, seems to mean King of righteousness. Even before Jesus’ day, there were amazing traditions about Melchizedek. A tradition grew that he had no parents, that he suddenly appeared on the scene. Others said that Melchizedek was actually Shem, one of Noah’s sons, still alive in the time of Abraham.

In fact, there is the priesthood of Melchizedek into which some Mormon elders are consecrated. Here’s a statue from the Temple Grounds in Salt Lake City of Peter, James and John blessing Joseph Smith into the Priesthood of Melchizedek.

Other traditions through the centuries connected Melchizedek to the angel Michael. Some New Age religions still claim that Melchizedek is another mystic being or immortal creature of God, even greater than the angels.

Others suggest that Melchizedek is an early incarnation of Jesus Christ himself, that they even looked the same. Here’s a more New Age, Cabala version showing Melchizedek as a being of light. You see, it gets weird.

But let’s cut through the exotic flim-flam and stick to what’s in the Bible. What was so different or important about Melchizedek?

After the 14^th chapter of Genesis and before the Letter to the Hebrews, the only other time he’s mentioned is the 110^th Psalm which starts out with a line that Jesus quotes in his own ministry, “The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool’…” and then in the 4^th verse, “The Lord has sworn, and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek’” (cf. Matthew 22:41-46). Those lines become a prophecy about the Messiah.

It meant that the Messiah would be both in the line of David, and at the same time before and greater than David. He would be a priest-king of Jerusalem like Melchizedek who served El-Elyon, God Most High, long before David, long before the Temple and Moses, before the laws and Ten Commandments and the Levitical Priesthood. He would be a priest to whom even Father Abraham bowed and gave a tithe, not out of expectation or obligation but out of gratitude, joy and faith.

Finally, in the New Testament the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews spent nearly 3 chapters describing how Jesus was that High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 5:9-10 [Christ] became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, ¹⁰having been designated by God high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 6:19-20 We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters the inner shrine behind the curtain, ²⁰where Jesus, a forerunner on our behalf, has entered, having become high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrewx 7:1ff This "King Melchizedek of Salem, …7:4 See how great he is! Even Abraham the patriarch gave him a tenth of the spoils. …7:17 For it is attested of [our Lord Jesus], “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” …7:22-24 Accordingly, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. ²³Furthermore, the former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; ²⁴but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.

That’s a lot of time on this one prophecy, title, and image of Jesus, 3 chapters of the Bible, and most of us have barely noticed or heard of it!

If I stopped here, all you might walk away with today is a Bible study and better understanding of Melchizedek.

But there is so much more. For one, in the Letter to the Hebrews, this was a message given to Jewish Christians about an ancient Gentile Priest, outside of Abraham’s direct lineage, blessing the father of the three great faiths. When we are grafted into Christ, whenever we are baptized into this faith, we are grafted deeply into it. Sometimes we look at the Old Testament as if it’s not really our story, as if it was all just the precursor, the stories of the Jewish faith before we Gentiles get attached like an appendage at the end.

But if Christ’s priesthood goes that deep, and if we are the Body of Christ in the world, then when we talk about the priesthood of all believers, our faith, I now appreciate how very deeply Jesus Christ has grafted us into the story of the Bible, into the sacred stories, and the whole history of Salvation. This isn’t just their story, or His story. It’s ours. It’s your story, your family book.

Because, being the Body of Christ in the world, and together being the Priesthood of believers, Melchizedek’s faith and service has become ours.

When possible, face to face, our priesthood offers hospitality, food, and relationship with those that are tired, hungry. As Pastor Jon said last week, it is the same as giving it directly to Christ.

W

We are called to bless people, in silent and spoken prayers, in actions to be and bring Salem, peace, into our homes and workplaces, schools and neighborhoods. We are called to offer a place of worship, to offer this Table with Christ’s nourishment and blessings; to give people a reason, and a place to respond to God with tithes, gifts and song.

Cut through the mysticism, rituals, theology and confusion. Let’s make this simple. Like Melchizedek, who after all, was just a man like us, we are to feed and bless and worship. Amen.