October 21, Ordinary 29B (Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45)

Although I have been an Episcopalian for almost 20 years and a priest for more than ten, I am still surprised when I bump into an old-fashioned image of Christ found in many Episcopal churches: Jesus on the cross, not nailed, naked, and suffering, but tranquil, triumphant, and vested in alb, stole, chasuble, and even a maniple (a High Church vestment resembling a fancy dish towel). This image, the resurrected Jesus as Episcopal priest, always strikes me as both presumptuous and odd. But I can’t help but think that this Sunday’s reading from Hebrews might provide the perfect caption: “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”

Some of my classmates used to jokingly declare this to one another across our seminary hallways, in voices you might mistake for a Monty Python sketch. It is a catchy phrase, with a weird but solid ring to it, worthy of a meme or T-shirt campaign. Who was this fantastically named Melchizedek? He was king of Salem and a priest, which is peculiar because no one else in scripture was ever both, much less generations before the Levitical priesthood even existed. Melchizedek’s story is entirely contained within a few verses near the end of Genesis 14, where he meets Abram, offers him bread and wine, blesses him, and vanishes—although not before Abram gifts him one tenth of his family’s possessions.

Not surprisingly, some Christians read Christ backward into this enigmatic person. “Melchizedek” means “king of righteousness.” Salem, an otherwise unknown place, has the same spelling in Hebrew as shalom. Clearly, a king of righteousness and peace who appears in the wilderness, hosts a meal of bread and wine, and is deserving of tithes is an irresistible candidate for Jesus peekaboo. And who else could be both a priest and a king but the Messiah?