Melchizedek and People Outside Our Religions

   Do people outside our religions also have a connection with God?  Can they teach us something about God?  Whether we are Jewish or Christian or Muslim or Universalist or Hindu or pagan or whatever else, I believe multitudes of people from all walks of life, and faiths from all over the world and throughout history, have or have had this connection.  And, much more importantly, they can teach us facets of belief and practices and concepts that we may not find in our own little tribes.  And Jewish scripture and the Old Testament recognized that people outside our tribes do indeed have a connection with this same God. Yep. It's in there. In the Pentateuch. And Jesus knew it.

    Melchizedek, king of Salem, was a mysterious character in the story of Abraham's life in Genesis

14.  He appears just before God's blessing of Abraham.  In chapter 14, Genesis says,

"After [Abraham's] return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet (Abraham) at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King's Valley). And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, 'Blessed be Abra(ha)m by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.' And Abra(ha)m gave him a tenth of everything. "

    This is where the idea of tithing comes from.  What is important to note here is that Jews trace their lineage up through Isaac to Abraham.  Muslims trace their spiritual lineage through Ishmael, Abraham's other son, to Abraham.  Christians trace it through Jesus up to Abraham as well.  In fact, passages in the New Testament books of Matthew (Matthew 1:2-16) and Luke (Luke 3:23-38) painstakingly list, generation upon generation, the lineage of Jesus up to Abraham. Abraham, the father of all these religions, was blessed by God that his offspring would be great nations and they would know God.  Abraham's tribe was a new kind of tribe in the bible: a tribe with a take on God: a loving, creator-God. Abraham, this ragamuffin lover of God, was a man with a simple stripped down faith in a divine Provider who looked after him, counseled with him, and gave him direction. His tribe was to become the Jews and his offspring also became the Muslims and the Christians. But Melchizedek was outside this lineage.  Melchizedek was outside our tribe. He was outside the tribe of the earliest ancestor of Judaism and Islam and what lead to Christianity.  He was a Canaanite. A native of the land that became Israel. And Melchizedek was, according the the writer of this part of Genesis, a priest of the Most High God. The name "Melchizedek," which isn't a proper noun in some more modern translations, means "king of righteousness."  And he was a priest of El Elyon or "most high God."  So as far back as we can go in all the Abrahamic religions, Melchizedek was a priest outside all of the religions that claim the lineage of Abraham.  And Abraham recognized him, a Canaanite, as a priest of his own God. I imagine Abraham and the king of Sodom and Melchizedek sat down at a fire and ate together after Abraham's campaign.  And Abraham received Melchizedek's blessing as a priest and paid tribute to him as such. Abraham paid tribute for the spoils of war to his ally, the king of Sodom, and tribute to God through God's priest, Melchizedek.  Abraham recognized this outsider as a priest of his God. So what does it mean when the author of Hebrews, after Jesus's time, says Jesus was a priest in the order of Melchizedek in Hebrews 7?  In fact, the author spends the entire chapter hammering the point home that Melchizedek was outside the tribe of the priesthood and Jesus is too. "He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe." (Heb 7:13)  But I think what the author was trying to say, but we miss it when we read it with our modern mindset, was that Jesus was wholly "in the order of Melchizedek": meaning, like Melchizedek, he was an outsider to the common religion of his time.  He wasn't just outside the tribe of the Levites (the official descendants of Levi who were "set apart" for Religious duties.)  No, he was like Melchizedek - a priest outside the Jewish religion of his time.  He didn’t subscribe to the official religion of the Pharisees and Sadducees - a religion of focused on sin and ridged requirements of animal, grain, and monetary sacrifices to "save" one from sin. Jesus was a prophet and rabbi, but he was not a Levite, the group from which all priests in the temple came from in the Jewish religion of the time.  He was an outsider to the priesthood and to the prevalent religion of his day and time.

    And I think Jesus knew this.  How I love him! I believe he knew this by what he taught. He taught that what the formal religion had become under the Teachers of the Law in his time: a system of sin and sacrifice and exclusion, was not of God.  He taught this through his actions, through his parables, and through his lectures. Jesus, in Luke 10:25-37, tells the parable of the good Samaritan in response to a question from one of the Levite priests:

"On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” [Jesus] replied. “How do you read it?”

 [The Levite] answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

   Samaritans, like the one in the parable, were considered by the Jewish people of the time to be half-bloods of Jewish and Canaanite people. The Samaritans were outside the Jewish nation. They were cut off from the Jews - excluded by the Jewish people, and considered "unclean."  Jesus counters the expert in the Law (a Levite) with the ultimate outsider.  This outsider was not just an outsider to the Levite priests, but a Samaritan: an outsider to Abraham's tribe - according to the Jews. Just like Melchizedek. This Samaritan was the prime example of someone ministering in the order of Melchizedek.

    So, of course I believe that people outside our religions have a connection with our God! In fact, when you meet someone of another religion, I think it is no mistake to consider that they may have a connection in the order of the priest, Melchizedek.  Just like Jesus. And Jesus scandalously picked a Samaritan to be the one acting as a good neighbor in his parable, ministering to the victim of violence. Jesus was always focused on the outsider: outsiders to the priesthood and teachers of the Law. Outsiders to society, like the lepers and those "possessed by demons."  Outsiders excluded to the outer courts of the Temple. Jesus spent a great deal of time teaching and speaking with women: outsiders to the rights of men in his time. Samaritans, lepers, "demoniacs", "sinners" (meaning people who could not afford the sacrifices to atone for their "sins" at the direction of the priests and teachers of the Law), you name it: outsiders to the lineage and blessings bestowed on Abraham. Common Jewish men and women who could not afford the animal sacrifices in their religion to "make them right with God."  Jesus said that these requirements were heavy burdens the teachers of the Law "placed on the people and then did not lift a finger to ease their suffering." I think Jesus knew that the outsiders were our salvation as religious people.  Isn't that why service is so important in Christianity?  It gets us in contact with people outside the walls of our little tribe.  Religion, down through the generations, has a tendency to distort the simple union with God that everybody can have.  We group together around very personal shared beliefs. So our tendency, as humans, is often to exclude the outsider.  The tendency is to look at them as "the other" who is "in error."  Jesus knew this.  We are to know it too.  What would our religions look like if we believed the the Samaritan was ministering just as Melchizedek? And Jesus was too; that Jesus, whom many call God, was an outsider?  That the outsiders like the good Samaritan were in communication with our God?  That the outsiders are our salvation as religious people?  That they too can be the hands and feet of our God? Like an outsider Samaritan was to the Levite to whom Jesus told the Samaritan story. Wouldn't we have more respect for those outside of our religion - whatever religion we associate with? The writer of this part of Genesis certainly wanted us to and so did the author of the part of Hebrews in the New Testament that says Jesus was in the order of Melchizedek, and I believe Jesus did too.  This thread that runs from the first books of the bible and culminates in the book of Hebrews after Jesus's death, is such an important story for us to hear.  I feel it is very important for all of us Christian/Jew/Muslim/Agnostic/Hindu/Spiritist (and on and on) need to pay attention to this theme that runs all through the bible, here, now, in our time. God's church is much, much bigger, I think, than any of us give it credit. It is all around us, all the time. It exists all around us in the hands and feet He uses, be the person spiritual or not. Jesus constantly alluded to the Kingdom of God being here, now, in his time and for all time to come. All we have to do to be "in" the Kingdom of God is to look around us and realize we already are.