Hebrews 5:5-10
Lent 5 - Year B
Verse 11 indicates there is much that needs to be said about the imagery of Jesus as High Priest. So what needs thinking about here?
Jesus was not a ladder-climber. He did what he did for the sake of the doing, not to result in a higher salary, obtain a more prestigious title, or be more effective.
That's pretty counter-cultural. For us it may even be more affrontive than the issue of suffering. We can explain bad things happening to good people, but we have a hard time being that good person if we are not striving for more.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/april2003.html
There is an interesting wordplay in verse 8 that links "learning" with "through which he suffered".
One interest is the picture that Jesus learns. This is different from the eternal, co-creator with God, king of the universe image of Jesus who thus has every situation well-in-hand. One might posit, without having to go to any particular foreign scenario, that the blank places in Jesus' biography are times of learning. This would also account for Jesus' understanding that a key aspect of a coming Holy Spirit would be teaching us that which was too difficult for us up to this point.
Another interest is re-looking at the issue of suffering to move it away from an immediate connection with pain. It is not the amount of pain that Jesus suffered that makes his life redemptive, but the amount of living and learning that he did. This larger way of looking at the metaphor of suffering is a helpful antidote to overemphasis on the passion of the christ.
How else might you play, given your particular life experiences, with this wordplay to bring this passage into view?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/april2006.html
Handy mnemonic device - Melchizedek can be sung to the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. Try it, you won't soon forget how to spell it. And . . . forever hold His banner high!
It seems true that "Christ did not glorify himself in becoming...." Can we leave it there without going on to the High Priest stuff?
How soon we forget that High Priests have one function and lowly prophets another. My sense is that we need to reclaim Jesus as lowly prophet, remembering the Priestly function is part of what he lived against. To be hung on our walls as a Great High Priest, with all the rest of us being pale imitations, doesn't seem in keeping with the Jesus I hang out with.
As a lowly prophet Jesus engages our brokenness to shift our focus toward wholeness. This is different than the distance of Priestly perfection that magically, ipso facto and quid pro quo, slips us in to the eternal realm and bars others.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/april2006.html
Hebrews 5:5-10
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:1-12 or 119:9-16
John 12:20-33
G*D: "I have glorified, I will glorify; I have been who I have been, I will be who I will be." And so the bookends are in place.
Self: "I am beloved." And so the content is in place.
Now comes the living with new covenants, steadfast love, abundant mercy, clean hearts, joyful salvation, and a willing spirit. Thrown into these qualities that open us to an expansive future are those elements that narrow us down: strayless commandments, sinless statutes, reverent submission (with cries and tears), and learned obedience.
As we go along there will be requests to take folks to Jesus. What will you show these inquiring hearts and minds first, second, third, finally? Will you start with something from the expanding list or the narrowing list, and why? Will it depend on the nature of the searcher and begin with where they are (if looking for more, start with the expansive), or begin with where they are not (if looking for more, start with the narrower)? Both have their appeal and effectiveness, but they are probably both equally incapable of being turned into a technology to be applied universally.
Will you start with where you are instead of where the questioner is? Here the questions of application may be even more difficult.
Finally, will any of this impact the kind of life you are going to live (which may have an impact on what kind of death you will have)?
- - -
someone is coming to dinner
they wish to see what makes me tick
that of course cannot be seen
it must be planted and replanted
grow unseen and burst dark bonds
a fruit here and there and everywhere
may yet appear in miracle and mysteryfed and encouraged
some choose to dive
into the dark
of a miracle self
invested as fallow seed
until tears of pain
waken it to blooma bloom of thunder
echoing from the past
awakening a future
with morning glories
twining upward
drawing beauty with them
here today gone tonight
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html
A priori problem: Every high priest selected to represent men and women before God and offer sacrifices for their sins . . . . Says who? Why is the sacrificial aspect of a priest the most important one?
How many high priests are in the order of Melchizedek? How many such mature priests came before and after Jesus' ordination? How is it that none of them are heard of as entries to temporal or eternal salvation? This seems, more and more, to be a preconceived idea that was wrapped around Jesus and no matter how helpful it was to some at the time, it has been more in the way than helpful in the long run.
Melchizedek, as priest and king, seems to be two things Jesus, in the gospels, had a great deal of trouble with. Now, in anticipation of Constantine, Jesus is officially powerful. But, I guess if God decrees it's OK, then I'll have to relearn everything – what a brave new world where learning to unlearn and relearn takes place by decree. Is aversion therapy the kind of learning we need if sacrificing priest (as a disciple this is our aspiration) are to deal gently with the difficult spots of life?
It may be that we'll have to start a new Christian sect – The Church of the Ancient Order of Melchizedek. Come, mature your faith through suffering now to achieve life later.
Wouldn't you know, someone beat us to it:
http://www.holisticwebs.com/workshop/ordination.html
http://www.melchizedekusa.com/order_of_melchizedek.htm