Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · October 04, 2009

  Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

World Communion Sunday

Litany of Praise and Invocation

From Psalm 26

We gather from north and south, east and west

And gather at the table of the Lord.

    Christ’s table is welcome to all who are hungry,

    who seek the bread of life and wine of the Spirit.

Vindicate us, O Lord, when we walk in right ways,

when we trust in you without wavering.

    Test us, heart and mind,

    for your steadfast love is always before us.

We flee from those who say one thing but do another,

    and turn our thoughts to giving thanks and,

    telling of the wondrous deeds of God.

Let us pray:

    With our feet on solid ground

    we bless your holy name,

    and celebrate the unity of the whole people of God

    gathered around one table in Christ. Amen.

New Testament Lesson

Genesis 14:14-20

When Abram heard that his nephew had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, three hundred eighteen of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. He divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and routed them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus. Then he brought back all the goods, and also brought back his nephew Lot with his goods, and the women and the people.

After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). And King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High. He blessed him and said,

            “Blessed be Abram by God Most High,

               Maker of heaven and earth;

            And blessed by God Most High,

               Who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”

And Abram gave him one-tenth of everything.

Message

Table in the Wilderness

Tim Carson

He appeared out of the fog of war, a character that slid into the story from the margins and went away as quickly as he came.  No one really knew who he was or where he came from.  They called him a king and high priest, but he had no priestly credentials, no Levite heritage, no royal lineage.  Even though he only starred in one episode, people have been talking about him ever since.  He surfaced like a great whale from the deeps, spouted, and then plunged beneath the surface before anyone could get a good look at him.  His name was Melchizedek, and if you don’t know much about him, you shouldn’t be surprised.  Neither does anyone else.

This is a strange part of Genesis, one that has caused more than one Jewish scholar to blink.  The story is about Abram, a.k.a., Abraham, and he is portrayed as a royal king of conquest, going about with his army laying siege to all comers.  Compared to all the other stories of Abram in the Torah, you can barely recognize him.  What we normally find is Abram the nomad, starting with his family that began their wandering at Ur of the Chaldeans, and ended up in Canaan tending their sheep.  But Abram the general?  Hardly.

Just as Abram was about to receive tribute from a competing king in Sodom, a surprise guest appeared from nowhere.  His name was Melchizedek, a name that had to do with being an exalted king.  When he wandered onto the smoke-filled battlefield, he was carrying something in his hands, and that something was bread and wine.  That’s normally not what one might expect on the battlefield.  Weapons, yes, and even the spoils of battle, but not bread and wine.  What could he possibly be up to?

The next thing you know, Melchizedek blessed Abram like one who knew what he was doing.  And Abram turned around and gave him, of all things, a tithe, a tenth of all he had, just like the faithful would give to one of the Levite priests.  And then, Melchizedek, high priest of Salem, or Jeru-Salem – the city of peace - vanishes into the mists of history.

For the next thousand years, Jewish scholars, and holy men, and Rabbis debated who he was.  In Psalm 110:4, Melchizedek is cited as a model for the Davidic kingship.  Some of the Rabbis said he was an angel, coming to teach Torah to Abram.  In one of the caves of the Dead Sea Scrolls (11Q13, Col.2) Melchizedek was described as a messianic figure, one who would preside over the culmination of history, the Jubilee of Isaiah, the year of the Lord’s favor.  When the Nag Hammadi library was unearthed outside of Alexandria, Egypt, they found the writings of Christian Gnostic groups of the first century who believed that Melchizedek was alive in Jesus Christ, that he lived, preached, died, and was resurrected, an eternal priest-king who will dispense justice at the end of history.  More than one early Christian heresy was centered on him, usually in some movement against the trinity.

And then there is the book of Hebrews, found in our own New Testament.  This anonymous, first-century Christian sermon used Melchizedek as a way to describe how Christ is our high priest, one who was from the beginning, who sits at the right hand of God and will be in the future (Hebrews 7:1-4, 15-17).

So, Tim, what do you think about him?  Well, thank you for asking.

I think that Melchizedek is a kind of archetype.  What I mean is that Melchizedek is a universal symbol, one that lives somewhere down there in our collective consciousness.  As such, he is a type for many things found in many places.  He is the symbol for the mysterious presence of God that comes into the picture when least expected, the peacemaker in the midst of war, the sacred intermediary, the holy man that blesses by his presence.

Melchizedek is Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings, Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, and Neo in The Matrix all rolled into one.  He is the shadowy figure Jacob wrestles through the night until dawn, the one Jacob won’t release until he agrees to bless him.  He is Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces.

The image of Melchizedek seeps through the cracks and crevices of history, bearing bread and wine in the middle of chaos, shattering our pride and blessing us until we lay down our treasure before his feet.  What is this mystery that haunts the world?

Is it any wonder that Christians, reading Genesis in one hand, and the story of Jesus at the Last Supper in the other, would say, “Yes, he is like that, there with his rag-tag disciples, a great high priest with no temple, a Fisher King whose heart is broken for sake of a broken kingdom, a table host who lays down bread and wine for the sake of the misfits around him.”

***

Some years ago, Kathy and I were part of a musical group that not only led in worship but provided musical leadership to large regional and sometimes national gatherings of the church.  And one time we were invited to be the musical group for the closing worship of a regional assembly that met in the convention center in Collinsville, Illinois.

We had worked out all the details in advance to coordinate what we were doing with the worship experience.  On the day of the conference, we arrived early, set up and warmed ourselves up, going over the final details.  And then we disappeared backstage to wait our turn.  Backstage in that place is a sprawling service corridor.

If we had timed out our part of the conference to make sure that we didn’t run over, no one else bothered to do the same.  What should have been an hour-long wait stretched into three, and the congregation out front was worn out by poor planning and an endless stream of poorly-executed business, fellowship, awards, and skits. We were preceded by the preacher of the night who didn’t begin until 9:30 p.m. Somehow he missed the memo that it was late, very late, and that the people out front who hadn’t already left were ready to burn down the convention center.  He preached what seemed to be a longer-than-usual message.  We would not even take the stage until 10 p.m.

Back in the corridor, our group passed the time from hour to hour entertaining ourselves with light-hearted conversation and word games.  By the time the third hour rolled around, this merry band of famished musicians, who had not eaten, became restless.  Irritation changed to anger.  There was talk of mutiny.  “We should just load our stuff out the back door and leave this pop stand in the dust,” some said.  

I felt exactly the same way, but I was the pastor for goodness sake.  That wouldn’t look very good to see the pastor escaping the convention center along with all the other inmates.  A few sprawled out on delivery carts and others sat on the concrete floor, backs against the wall.  What cruel punishment was this?  What had we done wrong to merit such treatment?

Just before the breaking point, we saw someone in the distance walking our direction down the corridor.  He was a very tall African-American man in a white apron and large white chef’s hat.  As he drew closer, we became silent and began to notice that he was carrying a large silver platter balanced on one hand.  When he arrived at the place of our exile, he stopped, smiled broadly, extended his tray out in front of us, and in a voice that sounded like James Earl Jones, said, “Cake, anyone?”

And indeed, the platter held cake, in fact cakes of all kinds – chocolate and vanilla, cheese cake and angel food cake with frosting of every flavor, strawberry, thick, gooey butterscotch, chocolate and German chocolate.  There were no forks and no napkins but that didn’t stop us.  With a controlled lunge, we started grabbing cake with our bare hands, pushing into our faces and moaning out loud.  Cake, lots of delicious cake, and we licked it off our fingers afraid we would miss one sugary smudge.  The worst thing we could possibly do is get lots of buttery, sugary, fatty icing all over our hands and then go play our expensive instruments, blow this food right through our flutes, and gum up our vocal cords so that it would be impossible to sing.  But it didn’t matter.  We didn’t care.  We had cake, and we ate cake until we couldn’t eat anymore, until we were ready to bust.  And then we laid there in the hallway, moaning with gratitude.

Our baker stood by patiently with his tray, and asked us if we would like more.  No, we said, we can’t, just can’t.  And at that, with a smile and without a word, he bowed his head and took his leave, walking out the back hallway through the doors and out of the convention center into the night.

In a few moments, we were summoned onstage, to persuade exhausted conventioneers that they should praise the Lord at 10:00 p.m. no matter.  After it was all over, the director of the fiasco came by as we were loading up our gear. We all said that we had no idea what we would have done if their caterer hadn’t come by at just the right time.  And he said, “Caterer?  What Caterer?  We don’t have a caterer at the convention center.”

If you ask anyone today who was there that fateful night, cake stuffed in their greedy little faces, and ask about that man in the white baker’s hat, they will, without a second thought, tell you that he was the cake angel.  The cake angel had come in the middle of our misery and fed and blessed us.  He came out of nowhere and departed the same way he came.  We didn’t know his name so we gave him one, the cake angel.

But if I were going to rename him today, it would be differently, with the name Melchizedek.  He is always the one who comes in the midst of chaos and suffering, bearing bread and wine, extending blessing, revealing a surprising and delicious grace.

For who is this One who takes bread and breaks it and says that our hunger will be satisfied in his presence?  Who is this One who takes wine and pours it out just like he pours out his life in love?  He comes and is gone as soon as he arrives, but somehow we continue to smell the fragrance of his meal wherever we go, remember the taste when all other tastes fade.  He comes when we are stuck, waiting in a hallway somewhere between here and there.  He comes in the fog of war and when a war rages in our own hearts.  He comes when two or three are present in hospital room, or when millions gather in his name around the world.

Look: He comes bearing bread and wine, blessing in his wings.  If you are so hungry you can’t stand it, dig in.  This is no time for modesty.

Let us pray. 

Oh, mysterious One of old and with us now, you come out of the shadows bearing bread and wine, and we, your starving people, bow down before you. To whom else can we come, Lord of the universe who brings forth bread from the earth? Amen.

Benediction

And now let us go forth with the blessing of Melchizedek, Jesus, and our God. Go in peace, loving and serving the Lord, all the days of your life. Amen.