Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Let us pray, Lord, I pray that we may hear this scripture and understand the relevance of it for our lives. In Jesus name, amen.
First is Leviticus 728 to 36.
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, speak to the Israelites. Any one of you who would offer to the Lord your sacrifice of well being must yourself bring to the Lord your offering from your sacrifice of well being.
Your own hands shall bring the Lord's offering by fire.
You shall bring the fat with the breast, so that the breast may be raised as an elevation offering before the Lord.
The priest shall turn the fat into smoke on the altar. But the breast shall belong to Aaron and his sons. And the right thigh, from your sacrifices of well being, you shall give to the priest as an offering. The one among the sons of Aaron who offers the blood and fat of the offering of the well being, shall have the right thigh for a portion.
For I have taken the breast of the elevation offering and the thigh that is offered from the Israelites from their sacrifices of well being, and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons as a perpetual due from the Israelites. This is the portion allotted to Aaron and to his sons from the offerings made by fire to the Lord.
Once they have been brought forward to serve the lord as priests.
These the lord commanded to be given them when he anointed them as a perpetual dew from the Israelites throughout their generations.
And then Hebrews eight one, seven.
Now the main point in what we are saying is this.
We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary, and the true tent that the Lord, and not any mortal, has set up.
For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices.
Hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.
Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are already those who offer gifts according to the law, they offer worship in a sanctuary.
That is a sketch and a shadow of the heavenly one, just as Moses was warned when he was about to erect the tent.
For God said, see that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.
But Jesus has now obtained a more excellent ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on the basis of better promises.
For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need to look for a second one.
This is the word of the Lord.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: I love serving at a church where you can get away with including a text on Leviticus. So thank you for tolerating that and looking with me at this fascinating section of scripture and its connection to the Book of Hebrews. So, last month, before my family and I got to take a wonderful trip away to France that I'll tell you all about in the future. Before that, I was asked by Bryce Little and his family to co officiate a wedding. This was going to be held in Malibu at the Bel Air Bay club in an outdoor setting on a lawn overlooking the ocean. Beautiful setting for it. Bryce as the grandfather, me as the pastor, who could also do the premarital counseling. We thought we'd combine forces and co officiate. So before this event takes place, roughly a month ago, Bryce asked me, so, Matt, what were you planning to wear? I thought it might be good if we coordinate our outfits.
And I told Bryce that often when I officiate a wedding, particularly if it's in a non church setting, like this outdoor setting at the bay club, I'll wear that clergy collar. And I will do that for a few reasons. First of all, it helps identify my role right away, when I arrive at the venue, they'll usually let me in.
You know, I look dressed for the parts, and they'll quickly connect me with whoever I need to see. Like the wedding coordinator, the sound engineer, you name it, they'll put me right there. And then during the service and afterwards, those who are attending the wedding, those in the wedding party can quickly say, see by this collar? Oh, that's this guy's role. He is the officiant. And by the way, some of you pastor types, I've learned as well. When you get invited to do a black tie wedding, you don't necessarily have to rent a tux or buy one because the white collar will usually get you by if you've got a black suit, too. At least they've put up with that from me on those rare occasions. Well, I asked Bryce how he'd feel about wearing that clergy collar, and he said, I think I have one. I'll look for it. And he found one. And so I went to pick him up at Monte Vista Grove homes on this Saturday when the wedding was planned. And he came out wearing the collar. I had my collar on, and we drove in my Prius all the way to Malibu to do this wedding looking like a pair of priests.
And I especially felt the kind of weighted impact of the clothing when we stopped to get gas along the Pacific coast highway. So I get out of the car, I'm there pumping gas and suddenly I'm aware, oh, wow, I've got this clergy cholera on. We're right near a very busy street, the Pacific coast highway. There are people pumping gas near me. And I thought, I look like a priest.
What would a priest do?
Should I go up to people pumping gas next to me and say, bless you, my child.
Should I genuflect or offer a prayer before pumping gas?
I knew that I probably shouldn't swear at the pump if it wasn't operating correctly, that would be decidedly unpriestly behavior. But otherwise, I wondered, wearing the clothing, what does it mean to be a priest? The collar can do that to you. Can it prompt that kind of question?
And I have to believe that Aaron, in the times we read about in the book of Leviticus and Exodus, had to wonder about all it meant being a priest in his time when he put on the garbage. And in the case of Aaron and his descendants, as you might recall reading in scripture, the garb was really elaborate. It was not just that clergy collar that I wear, and sometimes you might wear on special occasions. And he wore not simply the linen tunic, the sash and the turban of a common priest. Aaron was the high priest of ancient Israel. So he wore a colorful belt lined with blue, red and purple threads. He had on an apron of gold, blue, purple and red. He would have a breastplate containing twelve stones. And to top it off, he wore a gold crown on his head. You wear that elaborate a costume and you have to wonder, what does it mean to play the part? What's the role I'm asked to play with that clothing? You feel the weight of it. I did. With just a collar. Well, from what we read in scripture, you could sum up the role of the priest and the high priest especially in a single word, if you wanted to simplify it. Represent the priest, and the high priest especially was ordained to represent.
Now, this representation went two ways. On the one hand, the high priest would represent the people to God. All the priests did this to some extent. The priest would serve in the tabernacle or tent of meeting. That was the movable worship space that would later have a fixed location. When the jewish temple was built in the time of Solomon, the priests would make offering and sacrifices to God on behalf of the people. The people, when they went to worship, would bring with them animals or grains a form of wealth. In ancient times, they would offer that to God as a form of worship, and they would do that at the temple by giving it to, to the priest. The priest would then represent them in that act of worship and offering and sacrifice, burning the offering and then keeping a portion of it. Ordinarily, for the priests to have something to eat. It was a way of the people supporting their ministers. The ministers would take a portion. We read about that in Leviticus today. Well, in the tabernacle and later in the Jerusalem temple, there was one especially holy space. And in this holy space, the regular priests were not allowed to go, only the high priest. And he could only go into this space, the holy of Holies, the place where the ark of the covenant was kept once a year on the day of atonement. Atonement is a word that means at onement. Atonement. On the day of atonement, or Yom Kippur, the high priest would enter the holy of holies and offer sacrifices. He would burn incense as a sign, we suspect, of the prayers of all God's people going up to God. He would sacrifice a young bull as a sin offering for himself and the other priests. The high priest represented all the priests in that space. And then the high priest would present a blood offering from a goat as a gesture of repentance, not only for the sins of the high priest, and not just for the sins of the priest, but for the sins of all ancient Israel. Sure, all the people didn't enter the holy of holies themselves on that day of atonement. There was no room for them to do so if they tried, but they did, by extension, in this representative, the high priest who went in there on their behalf. Having one person represent a whole body of people, this is super familiar to us, isn't it? As Americans and Presbyterians, as Americans, we elect people to go and represent us as senators, congressmen, or other sorts of roles like that, we might not go into those corridors of power with them, but they go as our representatives on our behalf. And you all here at Knox will elect a group of elders and they will meet as our session to make decisions on behalf of the whole church. They represent you. We have a representative form of government. And you might think of the ancient worship life of God's people as it involved the priests as a kind of representational process. The people participated. They would bring their offerings. But then the priests and the high priests especially had a particular role.
But the high priest didn't just represent the people to God. The high priest was also in this role of representing God to the people and in particular of offering a blessing. We read later in numbers that when that great blessing you've probably heard before, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you peace. It's one of the most famous blessings in the Bible. Well, you may remember from numbers, that was a blessing given by God to Aaron and to Aaron's descendants, that is, to the high priest to offer to the people.
Sometimes it's powerful. Sometimes you need a blessing that has a human voice giving it to you where there's a human presence in front of you. That's one of the aspects of the role of representation the high priest would take on to bless the people on behalf of God. Sometimes you need a priest, and God gives the people just such a person. God ordains and establishes this role of high priests so that the people for all time would have a person playing precisely such a role. That act of God's ordaining and establishing the office of high priests, that's something that is portrayed in scripture often as cutting a covenant. It's like God is making an agreement with the people and saying, here, let me give you a representative. Let me give you someone who can represent you to God and God to you. Let me offer you this. And then God has things for the people to do in response. And for the priests and high priests, especially, these kind of agreements God makes in scripture called covenants, where God acts and does something wonderful, makes promises to God's people, and then invites God's people to respond in turn. You'll remember we looked at the covenant God made with Adam. God gave the gift of creation, but told Adam, care for it, share it. That was a representation for all humanity. You remember the covenant God made with Noah and Noah's family and with all creation. God said, I'll never again flood the earth, but honor life, the lifeblood of all creation. That was the challenge for the people after God made this great prayer. You remember when we looked at the covenant God made with Abram and Sarai, where God promised to bless them and their descendants and challenge them to be a blessing to all nations of the earth. And God invited them to mark that covenant with circumcision. And then you'll remember the covenant God made through Moses giving a law to guide the people in their paths and invited God's people in response to honor that law. Well, today we see what's sometimes called the priestly covenant, or the covenant God makes with Aaron to provide this office of priests so the people would have a representative. It's a great gift to God's people offered in Aaron and his descendants.
But there's a problem that comes up with the priestly covenant, with all these covenants we see in scripture. And that problem can be summed up in a single word. And that word, of course, is sin. Take Aaron and Aaron's descendants. They're given this high and glorious call, but what do they do? Aaron, we read in Exodus, makes a golden calf for the people to worship instead of God. We read how Aaron's oldest sons, Nadab and Abi, who offer unholy fire before the Lord, such as God, did not command, and they pay a hefty price for it. God makes promises to people in the forms of covenants. Yet the people of God and their representatives, their priests, fail repeatedly and often spectacularly in following, living up to their side of the agreement.
So what does God do? We read in the book of Hebrews that in the fullness of time, God makes a better way. God cuts a better covenant. God ordains a better high priest. Where Aaron and his descendants served in a physical, earthly tent, the tabernacle, this new high priest served in the heavenly spheres, where Aaron and his descendants were imperfect. This new high priest is blameless. Where in Aaron's time, the role of high priest was passed from parent to child. This new high priest would take on the role permanently. Where Aaron needed to atone for sin each year, this new high priest would make just one offering and sacrifice for all time, for all people's sins. As Christians, we believe God honored that great tradition of ordaining a high priest by giving us Christ, our great high priest. He is for us the perfect representative of us to God and of God to us his life. It was the perfect offering to God and in his life. We know life and know how to live as his disciples. As our high priest, he presents us blameless before God. He is our representative, and as God's representative to us. Christ speaks to us words of blessing, words of challenge, calling us to be a blessing to all nations of the world. Christ made the perfect sacrifice of atonement at onement, repairing our broken relationship with God, uniting us with God through our high priest and representative, Christ Jesus.
So you're surely wondering by now, well, Pastor Matt, what does that mean for me? What does it mean to have a high priest in Jesus Christ? How does that change us, you and me? Well, it means one thing at least, and that is get ready to put on the collar, friends, or at least to put on whatever clothing or mindset might alert you to your role, your role as priest. You see, with that high priest, Jesus Christ, all of us are like ordinary priests under his authority. As the book of first Peter so beautifully puts it, we are, as the church, a royal priesthood, a kingdom or kingdom or community of priests. With that high priest, Jesus Christ, all of us are like ordinary priests under his authority. We have one high priest, but in his name, all of us get to go out and represent, maybe not as ordained catholic priests, but as priests all the same. Under that great high priest, Jesus Christ our Lord, all the priests of ancient Israel would take the prayers and offerings of the people and bring them to God. You can do that? I can do that. All the priests of ancient Israel communicated God's blessing and care to the people. You and I can do that. When you come to worship, you can bring the concerns of your neighbors and of the world with you and offer them to God. You can look to God for guidance with us and strength in responding to those needs in love and justice. And you can dedicate yourself to God's service as a priest does. And then you can go out into the world as Christ's representative. And you can say with your words or your deeds, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you peace.
If you're a doctor and you head in to the office or into the operating room or to meet with a patient this next week, imagine yourself with not just a stethoscope around your neck, but with a clergy collar. If you're a student studying at a nearby or faraway institution, imagine yourself going to class with clergy collar and thinking, what would a priest do in this situation? What does it mean to represent?
If you're a teacher, imagine having that clergy collar as well. If you're a parent and driving your child to school, imagine you have that collar. It might make you think twice in terms of how you respond when someone cuts you off in traffic or your children are trying your patience.
You are a priest. And thank heaven, because the world needs priests right now. People need those willing to bring the concerns of the world to God in prayer and then prayerfully to respond. And the world needs people who can be vessels of Christ's blessing and peace in a suffering world. We need such priests right now in areas of conflict, Russia and Ukraine, Syria, South Sudan, Mali, Afghanistan, and of course, in the ongoing Israel Palestine conflict. And praise God for brave souls willing to be ambassadors of Christ right there.
I shared with some of you. I was listening the other day at a conference at Calvin College, a symposium on worship, to a message, a video message sent to us by the Reverend Doctor Mitri Rahab. He couldn't be there because of all that was going on in Palestine, but he sent us a message, all those who were in attendance. Rahab has been the longtime lutheran pastor of the Christmas Lutheran church in Bethlehem, Palestine. And as he spoke, I was struck by two things. I was struck by the fact that he was right there in the conflict, close to those who were suffering, serving as a witness to the suffering of the palestinian people and of their prayers to God for an immediate end to the violence, a prayer so many in Israel are voicing, too. But I was also struck that this long time protestant pastor was wearing a clergy collar as he spoke. And I thought, yes, we need priests there. We need christians to bring the concerns of that people to God and to the greater world in the hope that we, with God's guidance, can all be part of the solution and not the problem. And we need people who can be a living blessing to the people suffering there, showing the compassion of our savior, the great high priest. Sometimes you need a priest, and you need to see God's care in a human face.
Wherever there's a christian present in the Middle east or right here in Los Angeles county, there is a priest, an ambassador of the great high priest, Jesus Christ. One final story, and I'll quit. I was once asked to be a priest down at the Los Angeles criminal Justice building. I was wearing the clergy garb at the time. I followed the example of a pastor who was my supervisor. She said, I'll often wear the clergy collar when I do jury duty as a kind of public witness to my vocation. I thought, that's a great idea, and it might get me dismissed from the jury pool, who knows?
So I wore my collar and was walking down the hall to go to that area where you have to wait and see whether you're called on to do jury duty. So I'm walking down the hall, there's crowds of people coming. I'm wearing my collar, and this young woman comes up to me and she says, father, will you bless me? I thought, oh, no.
Oh, no. She thinks, I'm a catholic priest. What do I do? Do I pretend to be a catholic priest and say, bless you, my child, or whatever the appropriate catholic blessing would be? Do I let the cat out of the bag and say, you know, actually, I'm not a catholic priest. I'm a presbyterian pastor. And risk her saying, oh, darn, I thought you were somebody important.
I wasn't sure what to do, so I thought I should come clean. And I said, you know, I'm a presbyterian pastor and not a catholic priest, but I'd be delighted to pray for you and ask for God's blessing to be with you. She said, oh, that would be great. Would you? And I said, sure.
What is going on right now? Is there something in particular I can be praying for? And she said, yes. You know, I'm just really struggling in my job right now and in trying to be a good parent. Will you pray for God's blessing on me in that? And I said, sure, I can do that. And so right there in the courtroom, people passing us by, going to and fro, I put my hand on her shoulder and I prayed for her and asked that God would be with her and support her and strengthen her and bless her in that situation. And for that time, I felt not just like a Christian or a pastor, even I felt like a priest.
Friends, you can do that. You can pray for people silently or out loud. You can bless them. You can be witnesses to that great high priest that is Jesus Christ our Lord and high priest. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, amen.
