ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
2 EPIPHANY, 2012 Sermon preached by the Vicar at Evensong
Readings: Isaiah 60.9-22; Hebrews 6.17-7.10
Forty years ago, I knew a dog called Melchizedek. He was a stray adopted by Fr. Columba Ryan, the Roman Catholic Chaplain at the University of Strathclyde, and named because of his uncertain pedigree.
Melchizedek appears only twice in the Old Testament: in that incident in Genesis and in Psalm 110 which speaks of "a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek"; a verse taken up by the Church as pointing to Christ.
The Letter to the Hebrews uses Melchizedek as it develops a theology of the priesthood of Christ. The author describes the death and exaltation of Jesus through images drawn from the ritual of Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement. But the cornerstone of this reflection comes from the priest-king Melchizedek, who blesses Abraham and is called a priest for ever by the Psalmist. This mysterious figure serves the purposes of Hebrews, by providing a figure who was both prior to and superior to the Levitical priesthood.
Since the Scriptures do not mention Melchizedek's ancestors, his birth or his death, he 'remains' a priest for ever, unlike the Levitical priests who all died and so could not continue in office for ever. Abraham gave Melchizedek a tenth of the spoils of victory and received a blessing from him. , thus showing that Melchizedek was greater than Abraham and his descendant Levi (the head of the priestly family). The method and style of argument seems strange to us, but it was not unusual at the time.
Hebrews then argues that, "being a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek", Christ was superior to any Levitical high priest. He "holds his priesthood permanently, "and always lives to make intercession" for those who approach God through him.
Hebrews throws in two other arguments to support the unique superiority of Christ's high priesthood.
Later, the author will add further details when contrasting the Jewish priests with Jesus. They stand day by day at their service, "offering again and again the same sacrifice that can never take away sins".. Christ, however, "offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins" that was effective, and then "sat down at the right hand of God" (10.100-12). There was a unique finality to the sacrifice of Christ, the High Priest who is seated for ever on the throne of God in heaven.
Because of the role of the temple priesthood in the death of Jesus, and later of medieval distortions which saw priesthood largely in terms of offering the sacrifice of the mass for the living and the dead, there has tended to be a rather negative and one-sided view of the role of the priesthood in the Old Testament: one concerned only with the offering of sacrifices.
It was indeed the duty of the priest to offer sacrifice in the temple on behalf of the people. But the Old Testament's understanding of the ministry of the priest is broader and richer. It included the teaching and interpretation of the Law. We tend to place priest and prophet over against each other: with prophets denouncing unworthy priests. This they do but to reform and purify the priesthood, not to abolish it: some of them were themselves priests.
There has been a tendency in Christianity to identify the ministry of the Word - preaching and teaching - with that of the prophet. In fact, most of the routine, week by week preaching and teaching of the parish clergy is more like that ministry of interpretation and application we see in the Old Testament priesthood.
A few years ago, the Dean of Durham, Michael Sadgrove, wrote a valuable book on the role Wisdom literature of the Old Testament in the Church's day-to-day ministry. He suggested that to see the ministry of the word solely in terms of prophetic utterance results in too much denunciation and not enough edification: congregations being beaten up from the pulpit rather than built up.
If we look at the New Testament for our understanding, first of the priesthood of Christ, then of the royal priesthood of the Church and of the ministerial priesthood which is ordained by God to build and sustain it, in the light of the Old, then we see that the priestly ministry of Jesus is not something confined to the final two days of his life: the Last Supper and the Cross. His whole ministry of teaching, of reconciliation and healing and blessing is a priestly one. Nor are these simply external rituals: they spring from the offering of a life dedicated utterly to the service of God and his people. That life of self-dedication is seen supremely in the Last Supper at which he consecrates himself as the sacrifice - he is both priest and victim and the perfection of both - and on the cross. His whole life is an offering of himself to the people in obedience to the will of God; in his self-giving love to the Father.
Jesus is then the one in whom the institutions of both priesthood and sacrifice find their fulfilment and completion. He is the one who, because of his perfect and loving obedience, is able to offer himself as the perfect priest and offering.
So how does this picture of the priesthood of Christ which we see in the New Testament form our understanding of the priesthood of the whole Church and of the ministerial priesthood which serves it? Scripture sees the role of the priest as being two-fold:
Jesus is able to represent both God and humankind in his priestly ministry because he is both divine and human. In order that it might represent God to the world, the Church needs those divine gifts of word and sacrament which God through the Holy Spirit has provided for its task.
The Church must have something of the divine about it, but it cannot forget its humanity. You might think that should not be difficult, given the all too obvious signs of human failure in its life. But it is sometimes when the Church is at its worst that it is given to exaggerating its divine pretensions and forgetting its human failings. The Church and its members need to see itself as human, frail and sinful and the Gospel as addressed to them before it is addressed to others.
St. Paul, who did not write Hebrews, saw his apostolic work, his mission, as being his priestly offering. The Church needs to see its priestly work as not confined to what happens in church buildings or at church services. This is a particular danger for those Christian traditions which emphasise "priestly" language: we can interpret it too narrowly so that it becomes a sort of "playing at church". Ever more exotic and elaborate devotions and rituals are invented. Worse still, we can assume that when we have performed the liturgy, according to our own canons of correctness, we have fulfilled all righteousness. We are called to share in Christ's priestly work of drawing all people in so that a perfect offering might be made. Evangelism is as much priestly work as celebrating the liturgy. Priesthood is about the whole of life.
If at the heart of Jesus' priestly ministry is his consecration of himself at the Last Supper, then the Eucharistic Sacrifice must be at the heart of our life as a Church and as Christians. But the Eucharist is not just something we do in church, it is what we do with life. Like Melchizedek, we bring bread and wine, the things of creation and the gifts of God, to offer to God in sacrifice, and then we receive them back as the gifts in which we share the life of Christ. As we say in the liturgy, we offer our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice.
If the Royal priesthood of the Church needs both the divine and the human, so does the ministerial priesthood which is its servant. The priesthood finds itself torn between an over-identification with the world as it is, often in the name of a superficial identification with the world, or a clericalism, so keen to protect itself from the world, to maintain its purity, that it is of no earthly use, being unable to sympathise with us in our weakness. We need to find a path between clericalism with its fear driven desire to control and monopolise power, and a view of ministry as therapy and self-fulfilment in which sacrifice is the unmentionable word; something which is an affront to our human rights rather than the answer to a call to serve Christ and his Church.