Priestly Grandparents

Abram returned with the men he had rescued from invading armies and with the property that had been retrieved from the raiders. He came back to the place where the men and materials had been stolen. Rulers and citizens greeted their rescued relatives, and hoped for the return of their property.

Into this scene comes a priest, a priest bringing bread and wine.

In the 12 months I spent being a chaplain in Methodist Medical Center St. Joseph. I was always a priest coming into the scene. There were many scenes, once in a moment of shock a mother let her baby slide out of her arms I was there to pick up the baby, (she wasn’t hurt) and hold it . I was there to stand beside that mother while she heard the news that one of her children was terribly injured. I stayed there, doing nothing, except holding the baby and being there. A year after, I met that mother and she told me that it had been truly helpful to have a person who was obviously a friend materialize at that time.

I was a priest who came into the hospital room when the lights were still on at 2 a.m. who listened to fears without saying that they were groundless. I was a priest when an angry visitor attacked the security guard and the guard sent for a Chaplain because he was too sorry for the distraught visitor to escort him out of the building. I was a priest who came out of the corridor into the room where a mother held her new-born baby for the only two hours it lived.,

I was a priest not only because the New Testament says we are all priests but because the Church had piloted the Chaplaincy program and because that hospital authorized me to represent the Church Catholic to everyone in the building.

As a pastor people came to me; as a chaplain I went to them. And the coming into their presence was, to me, always a sacred re-enactment of the Son of God coming into the world to seek and to save.

A priest doesn’t just come personally into a scene; a priest is a representative of the Most High God, and of the Church. When the priest comes in so does the power of the Church that trained and approved and authorized that action. Within that authority are contained the prayers of the church that authorised the mission. When a priest is present both the power of Christ and of His Church is present with his representative.

At Abram’s hour of triumph a priest was present. Unlike my hospital patients and staff, Abram was not in need of comfort and friendship. He was a winner returning in victory, he was neither sad nor suffering. (Unless you can call having a nephew who didn’t know how to choose the right place to live, suffering) But it was appropriate that the priest should appear at Abram’s time of triumph because he was there to mediate God’s blessing to Abram and Abram’s praise to God. Abram was already blessed and had the promise that he would be even more blessed, yet he accepts the priest’s blessing. He recognized that to be involved with this representative of God was to be blessed. It's still the same; you can refuse the blessing, but you can’t avoid it, it comes with the priest.

And whose priest is he? This land was already filling up with immigrant tribes, each praying to their own tribal god; is he a priest of the sun, or the moon, or the stars? No he is the priest of the God who possesses Heaven and Earth. Interestingly enough the people with many gods knew the priest Melchizedek’s God as ‘The Most High God’

So Abram wasn’t alone in his worship of the One God. There were others. The self-revelation of God had only just begun, they knew so little, but they knew that the One God was the great God. How did they learn it? By the telling of stories, the stories Seth told to Enos, and Enos told to Cainan, and Cainan told to Mahalalele, and Mahalaleel told to Jared, and Jarad told to Enoch, and Enoch told to Methuselah, and Methuselah told to Lamech, and Lamech told to Noah. And then the process began all over again because Noah told Shem, Ham, and Japheth. May I ask who you are telling the story to? It seems a priestly task for grandparents, especially because grandparents can add their own part of the sacred story to the great story.

The priest has 3 major tasks: to offer the sacrifice, to be a mediator who introduces God, to man and man to God, and to keep the records of the sacred story. God has made those who trust him into a nation of priests, and everyone who trusts Jesus has the privilege of carrying out those same priestly duties.

In the days when the Church called everyone a priest according to the New Testament but did not help women to carry out all of the priestly tasks, I understood that I had inherited the New Testament priesthood of all believers; but I was compelled to recognize that no one was very interested in helping me immerse my life in that calling. So I initiated an agreement with God, that I would be his minister and the world would be my parish. It sounds spiritual and enlightened, but it was lonely and I lacked sufficient training, not that I let that stop me, I lacked the support of other ministers. There was a lot of evidence that God accepted my ministry, but if the Church had authorized it sooner it would have been a much stronger ministry.

Recently, desperate about the duties we are not emphasizing in the church, I have had to begin another lonely crusade. Whenever I meet someone who appears by dress or speech to be a Muslim, I feel compelled by my understanding of the New Testament to tell that person that I am a Christian and I love Muslims. Again, because I am alone in this aspect of the priesthood it feels clumsy, lacks support and would be so much more effective if the Church had authorized me to say it.

I still visualize that scene: the noisy crowd, weeping their thanks and shouting their joy at seeing their sons and brothers return home, the rulers meeting Abram, and into it all walking the priest of the Most High God. Abram receiving the bread and wine and then Abram, the members of his army, the priest, and perhaps a few others, praising God for the victory he had granted. I would like to be an authorized priest again