First Presbyterian Church Psalm 82, Uphold the Cause by Pastor Matt Johnson, 11/15/2015 We, right here in the 21 st Century, live in an age of the gods. You might think of Greek and Roman mythology when you hear something like, age of the gods. Greek mythology is full of detailed stories that find their way into our culture about Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, and Aphrodite. We know all about the soap-opera relationships between one god and another, sometimes including having relations with human beings, thereby producing halfgod offspring like Hercules. It s easy to wonder how they could take such things seriously, and actually worship these mythological beings, but we, in the 21 st Century live in an age of the gods. In a brief perusal of the internet, I found people saying that, LeBron James is a sports god. Picasso is an artistic god. and Justin Bieber is a musical god. I took a break from the Presbytery meeting in Newport this weekend to work on this sermon, and I saw someone in the midst of the wind and rain riding the waves on a board strapped to his feet while a massive sail pulled him along the surf. He would line up these waves and launch off a 10 foot breaker, gaining another 10 feet of air before slowly gliding back down to the water. It was like watching a deified being out there. Not only that, but I found a claim that god has been discovered in a verifiable way by a new religion called, Googlism. They claim that Google is God because: Google is the closest thing to an Omniscient (all-knowing) entity in existence. Google is everywhere at once (Omnipresent). Google answers prayers (gives you advice you couldn t find on your own). Google is potentially immortal. Google is infinite. The Internet can theoretically grow forever, and Google will forever index its infinite growth. Google remembers all. Google can "do no evil". 1
I m not so sure about that last one but it s a very fine effort. (You should really check out their prayers section!) Our desire to have contact with gods doesn t stop with deifying our favorite artists, entertainers, and search engines. We also want to be gods ourselves. We know about this in our own religious tradition as well. The original sin described in Genesis stems from the temptation to be like God, knowing good and evil. And this temptation to take over God s job, and be designers of our own morality, and therefore direct our own path through the universe is very much alive and well. One of the chief tasks in the life of faith is to continue remember the insight offered by Father Cavanaugh in the movie, Rudy : There is a God, and I m not him. This insight is really just a paraphrase from Moses, who in the book of Deuteronomy offers up one of the most enduring statements of faith in Israel s history: Hear, O Israel, The Lord is our God. The Lord is one. This belief in the oneness of God is something that theologians have called, Monotheism. And yet the Scriptures of Israel also share that that humans are made in the image of God, we are God s representatives and have the capacity for relationship with God. That s not nothing. There s a big gap between foraging for food and having conscious contact with the Almighty. And as Christians we take things a step further, but we do so reluctantly. The life of Jesus forced a reckoning: How could this person be worshipped if only a human? How could this man s life, death, and resurrection open a way for all things to be reconciled, if only a human? 2
And so the church, with much trepidation and after centuries of debate, began to articulate belief in one God who exists eternally as three persons. Yet always, One God. Now we come to Psalm 82, from Asaph. Asaph is a guy who was set aside by King David to lead the nation of Israel in worship and music. Here we find nothing less than a description of God sitting in a great assembly of other divine beings. I can assure you, there are no quotation marks in the Hebrew of verse one, it simply says, he gives judgment among the gods. Then in verse 6 there is a bizarre statement from the One God: I said, you are gods. What gives? A number of people who knew I was preaching on this text this week asked me, Why didn t you choose a different one for this week? This Psalm is pretty weird. Well, it s a valid question. And part of my answer is that the Bible can be a weird place. And if I only look at passages that are familiar or easy to understand, then what is the church supposed to do when reading the Bible and all of a sudden things get a bit weird? (I m going to call this one: You will never hear another sermon on Psalm 82. Bank it. This is your one big opportunity, so enjoy it!) When it really comes down to it, God is weird, people are weird, and life is weird, so we shouldn't be surprised if what people wrote thousands of years ago about God, people and life is a bit strange or confusing! So what s happening here in Psalm 82? The psalm begins in the Court of Heaven, where the One True God presides as the judge over these other gods who are being called to account. In verses 2-7, these Gods are indicted for defending the unjust and giving Christmas bonuses out to the wicked. 3
Instead, they ought to defend the weak, uphold the cause of the poor and oppressed, and rescue the people who are floundering in the surf without a parasail to hang onto. Though they are called gods and even sons of the Most High, the verdict comes down in verse 7, But you will die like mere mortals, you will fall like every other ruler. Asaph speaks out in the final verse, calling out, Rise up, O God! Judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance. When it comes to the identity of these other gods there are three main theories: 1. Some believe that the gods here are essentially the gods worshipped by other religions, the pagan gods crafted into idols and whatnot. The idea here is that through this Psalm the God of Israel is pronouncing a death sentence upon these other gods, and as the Last God Standing is free to claim the title as the One True God. I have a hard time with this one, because it s totally out of character for Israel to even open up the possibility of the gods of other nations being alive, let alone functioning in some kind of relationship to Yahweh and being entrusted with certain responsibilities. 2. The second interpretive model is to say that this Psalm uses the word gods (Elohim) as a euphemism for what the New Testament calls spiritual powers and principalities, typically angels and demons. So they are beings that exist in the heavenly realm, but are part of the created heavenly order. The idea behind this interpretation is that these angelic beings were tasked with promoting the welfare of humanity, but have failed in this, and thus are doomed for destruction. This isn t too far from some of the imagery we have in prophetic literature in the Old Testament and the book of Revelation in the New Testament. 3. But there s a third approach that I m more partial to than these others. And the reason I m partial to it, if I m being honest, is that I don t feel okay disagreeing with Jesus on the interpretation of Scripture. It s just not a position I m ready to put myself in! In John 10, we find Jesus in an extended interaction with religious authorities who take great offense at his statement, I and the Father are one. They accuse him of blasphemy, and where does 4
Jesus turn for support but Psalm 82. See, weird Bible passages can be really helpful sometimes! Jesus says Is it not written in your Law, I have said you are gods? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came and Scripture cannot be broken what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, I am God s Son?. The interpretation that Jesus is making here appears to be based on some other Jewish rabbinical arguments that were written down over the centuries. These rabbinical interpretations say that the people referred to as gods in Psalm 82 are actually the Israelites themselves after receiving the 10 Commandments on Mt. Sinai. Having received the word of God (as Jesus also notes), they were made holy, and in that sense were declared (at a figurative level) to be gods. But in the disobedience that followed, they fell again into condemnation. It s not a super straightforward circumstance, but after considering all of this, my stake is with Jesus! Regardless of your preferred approach, those who are called gods in this psalm are commissioned with a specific task: To uphold the cause! What cause? According to what? According to the character of the one true God. The cause of the poor and the oppressed is one that finds its way all the way to the Creator s heart. Who are the poor and the oppressed? Certainly they include folks we help with food and shelter through our Community Dinner and CWISH ministries. It certainly includes refugees and victims of abuse and war. But poverty and oppression goes beyond economic status and explicit acts of violence. Poverty is the state of lacking what is needed for a full life. All of us experience some form of poverty: born into a family that warps our sense of self, born with a body that is deficient, a brain that doesn t quite balance out chemically. 5
Sometimes we experience so much wealth and abundance that it becomes its own form of oppression we become accustomed to having all our needs met, every desire satisfied, and we suffer through captivity to our desires. To uphold the cause is to name the sources of corrupting influence, the sources of oppression, and live as a signpost to the Kingdom. To uphold the cause is to declare with our lives that God is bringing about a different order where the rich can t buy their way out of justice, where our environment isn t polluted by waste and abuse, where wounds are bandaged up. We who have this hope certainly are not gods. But by being included in Christ, we have been called Children of the Most High. We have received the Word of God in Jesus Christ, and through the Spirit, we are held near to the heart of the One True God. In our rebirth as God s children, we hear God s heartbeat, and are comforted. Like a child in a mother s womb is comforted by the sound of her breath, her voice, her heartbeat, so we are comforted by the endless mercy and compassion of our One God. And from that place of healing and comfort, we are able to enter our world with a new perspective. This is not a calling to fix everyone or do everything, but to live as an extension of God s love for those who are hurting. Let s close with this question: How does this help us to pray? To begin with, praying through, and reflecting on this call to uphold the cause, shifts our expectations and expands our areas of concern. It s calling upon God to replace the rulers who have godlike status in our world perhaps even in our church. It s a prayer that calls for the destruction of those who twist the good gifts of God, who distract from what really matters in the world. I ll be honest, my prayer life doesn t usually go there on its own. I need something to lead me into that mindset. The Psalms can be that reminder, that guide, into arenas that we aren t sure how to address on our own. Secondly, it s not far from anyone s mind that the world is grieving again over the tragic loss of life from terrorists, this time in Paris. 6
Anyone who takes the life of innocent human beings (and I include both terrorists and sovereign nations in this assessment) is playing god. We don t know how to pray when these things happen, but Psalm 82 enables us to say, Rise up, God. Judge the earth. See the things that are happening, and bring those responsible to justice. Friends, our God is so far beyond the conventional, the ordinary. God is not tame or domesticated, and our prayer should reflect that reality. This Psalm opens our imagination to enter into the wildness of who God is and out of that place see our own lives and our own world in a new way. Let s pray. 7