Justice (Psalm 82)
Summary
Matt Crummy explores Psalm 82, one of the more unusual and challenging passages in the Psalter, in which God stands in a heavenly assembly and judges other "gods" for their injustice. Drawing on the view that God created spiritual beings who share in his rule, Matt considers what this strange scene reveals about God's priorities. Defending the weak, the fatherless, and the oppressed is not a side concern but central to the right ordering of creation. He traces how Jesus takes up this psalm and fulfills its vision, and how the Spirit poured out at Pentecost extends that calling to ordinary people. The result is a reminder that the church is not merely an organization but a people on a shared pilgrimage, called to reflect God's justice and carry a living hope into the world.
Questions for reflection
Psalm 82 pictures God judging spiritual beings for their injustice. How does the idea that "there's more going on than meets the eye" affect the way you think about justice and your place in the world?
The sermon describes a tension between the individual and the group, between our own interests and the good of others. Where do you feel that tension most in your relationships, work, or community?
Howard Thurman asked what the religion of Jesus has to say to "the man who stands with his back against the wall." How would you answer that question? What would your answer look like in practice?
Matt names two unhelpful extremes: shrugging off injustice because "God will sort it out," or assuming money and power can fix everything. Which temptation do you find yourself closer to?
The same Spirit that anointed Jesus "to proclaim good news to the poor" has been poured out on ordinary people. What would it look like for you to take that calling seriously this week?
Are there ways you've been riding along on "cruise control" in your faith? What might it mean to trade the promise of power or security for a prophetic hope?
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Matt Crummy:
I never imagined myself driving a Dodge Grand Caravan. Minivans, by their very nature, are primarily people movers. They are practical, they're versatile, and precisely because of these characteristics, they are completely and totally lame.
Minivans are made for pilgrims. Hear me out. They're for groups of people on the way somewhere else—to not be in the minivan, right? Families, friends, prisoners in transport—you get the idea. And over the last decade—or decades—big minivan has been replaced by big SUV, the more attractive, more athletic, younger sibling of the minivan, right? But no matter which one you ride in, the point, I think, kind of remains the same. They are modern tools to transport groups from one place to another.
Now, this morning, through the lens of Psalm 82, we're going to attempt to step out of the minivan for a moment to take stock of humanity's journey together. Your journey, our journey—this collective road trip through history. And we'll see how this movement together even goes beyond the history of human civilization. But we'll save that for a moment.
Maybe you're here this morning and Christianity, or going to church, or your relationship with God itself has become like a Dodge Grand Caravan. You don't want to be in it, but maybe you feel like you have to for social or practical reasons. Maybe you're just grateful to have travel companions in this thing we call life. Really, honestly, any action or goal is fine as a way to avoid loneliness or despair. And believe me, I get that.
I think there are many good reasons to be a part of an organization. They can be amazing places to find meaning, connect with others, do justice in the world, have fun, and so on. Organizations can be hard, too. They can be places of inner turmoil, abuse, confusion—maybe around mission and purpose—power dynamics, internal politics. I could go on. But no matter what, they are defined at least in part by their ability to organize. That's why we call them organizations, I think. Organizations plan and strategize and dream and execute and report and fundraise and all that stuff. They have particular activities. And if those stopped, the organization, in any meaningful sense, would eventually cease to exist.
Can't tell if I'm cutting out or not. Okay. I'm just going to power through it.
The church is not solely an organization—or at least that's in part what I want to communicate. The church is a people, specifically a called-out people of God. And we are collectively a people on the move, I think, through time and space together. And even when we're at each other's throats, somehow time just keeps moving. History keeps kind of inching forward like a slow-moving lava flow—that's sort of how I imagine it.
Neither you nor I created this thing we call church. Neither did St. Peter. God, who is called Emmanuel, or God with us, has come to earth in the person of Jesus to save us from death and to reestablish his kingdom here. And this is a vision of history, I think, that's far beyond our ability or authority to even organize, or to have ultimate authority or control over. And in that way, we are participants in some bigger thing. And this, I think, should help give us some perspective on our role in really anything we undertake.
We are a people on the move, because down to the very cells of our bodies, this world is dynamic and full of life. And yet, like Dominic talked about last week, death is an ever-present reality. The Psalms, I think, beautifully hold life and death together in tension without glossing over anything. And as we've studied the Psalms, this has been a gift to me—to remember how much we actually share with our ancient brothers and sisters in this way.
So here's the plan for today. This morning is an effort in building hope, building resiliency, and perhaps, paradoxically, widening our perspective and narrowing our focus. So with that, let's pray, and then we'll look at our text again.
God, we thank you again for this morning. We thank you just for an opportunity to look at your word together. God, we pray just that you would bless this time, open our eyes in a new way, soften us to your presence and what you're doing in our midst. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Psalm 82—excuse me—verse 1 says, "God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the 'gods': 'How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. The "gods" know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, "You are 'gods'; you are all sons of the Most High." But you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler.'"
So as we see from the outset, this psalm is attributed to someone named Asaph, who was a Levitical prophet or seer and a musician in David's court. He was essentially one of the chief worship leaders for the temple. This prophetic role is key to understanding this psalm, I think, and potentially unlocking how it could even serve us today. This is more than just a guy who sings, like, worship songs, or is maybe good at getting people to sing along at church. This is a role that is quite set apart. And this person had given their entire life in God's service—not only [playing] instruments, but even serving as an instrument of divine revelation.
Now remember, the ancient Near East was a very, very different place for followers of Yahweh, the God of Israel. It was weird, you could say. And Christianity as we know it today simply did not exist, meaning no one was talking about Jesus or had the concept of the Trinity at this point. But as I alluded to with the role of Asaph, Christianity is a story, at least in part, about revelation—God creating and revealing himself, and in and through the universe, we see him.
And thanks be to God, there are no minivans in Asaph's psalm. No coffee after church—although that's good. No community group—although that's good. No potlucks or youth groups. Again, these things are good. And they can be places of genuine love and joy and communion, and I encourage you to participate in that stuff. But what I'm trying to disrupt today is the tyranny of the expected, the predictable, the containable—even the plannable and controllable. And when this becomes our frame for God, we find ourselves with a God too small to actually be God at all. What I mean to say is this: God is really, really weird.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines weird like this: "very strange and unusual, unexpected, or not natural." I think it fits. So this morning, let's keep God weird. But know that you're welcome to disagree with my particular take on this passage, and I always welcome your wisdom and pushback. My goal here is to take a fresh look at how we understand our place in the world and in history.
Here's verse 1 again. It says, "God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the 'gods': 'How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?'" Now, I intentionally chose this psalm today because it is difficult. And I think it's healthy to model wrestling with the Scriptures, even as a pastor. I want all of us to sort of step out of the minivan for a moment and take a look at the beautiful canyon before us. Try to take in the scene before we miss something perhaps important—maybe because of familiarity, or maybe because of something we've been told about this place.
In the NIV version of the Bible, verse 1 says God—or Elohim in Hebrew—"presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the 'gods'"—Elohim again. So the picture given is of God standing amongst a gathering of others. But who are the others here? And why has the same term for God been applied to them? It can't be the other members of the Trinity, the Son and the Holy Spirit, because God is rebuking them for wickedness and for favoritism of the wicked. So what's going on here?
Well, there's one reading—perhaps the predominant one—that frames the scene as God judging the wickedness of earthly rulers. Although that becomes difficult when you think about the term being used for God—twice, right? Elohim is being used for "gods." There's another reading that could be developed that would say this passage is actually evidence that ancient Israelites were pantheists, meaning they believed in many gods, and that their monotheism, or belief in one God, actually developed or evolved over time. And lastly, there is another view that I will pose, and that others have explored, that says God has created spiritual beings who are different from us and yet participate in reality in a distinct way—one that is connected to God and yet non-human. Think angels, demons, seraphim, cherubim, that kind of thing. A lot of Christmas songs get into this stuff more than other times of the year.
So this morning, I'm going to develop this third view, but just a tiny bit. And for time, I'll note that I don't believe that Judaism was fundamentally pantheistic, but none of that will be crucial in affirming what I'm about to lay out.
So Psalm 82, verse 1 says, "God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the 'gods': 'How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?'" Michael Heiser, who was an Old Testament scholar, is perhaps best known for popularizing the view that God created these spiritual beings who actually participate in various roles, including some sort of group of leaders who make up what may be called the heavenly host, or divine council. There's different ways it's phrased in the Scriptures. This view is not something he created, but it is something he championed. His view is that these beings have some sort of ruling role that we cannot see but is still quite real and happening in the world. And that, like us or angels, they could be good or they could be bad. They make real choices, and so on.
So with that framing, the prophetic worship leader Asaph wrote a song about this for the royal court of Israel, primarily about God rebuking some of this heavenly council for their injustice. Okay, so we're definitely out of the minivan now.
But here's why this is important, I think, and why I wanted to read this song together today. First, because this is definitely a more psychedelic corner of the Psalms. Perhaps more seriously, because this psalm is a reminder that there's more going on than meets the eye. And this is actually crucial in developing a healthy view of God, of ourselves, of our bodies, of humanity, of justice, of the planet, of history, and more. We are a created species. We did not choose any of this. It was given to us by a God who loves us, who invites us to image himself, and who is not operating primarily from need, but from a place of generosity and gift. We are all pilgrims and sojourners on the move somewhere through life. None of us has it all figured out. And even these ancient beings, who were created before we were even born, require correction and coaching. Weird, right? And their mistakes make great lyrics for a pretty unorthodox sacred song in your Bible.
But maybe here's a key question: is it surprising to you how relevant this list of misdeeds is? It is to me. It feels like having an alien spacecraft land on Earth. They come out, the gate opens, and then you find out, after you're chatting with them, that they struggle with eating too many Cheetos. It's kind of like, seriously? You too? I thought it would be something interesting, you know? Come on. It feels like this could have been written yesterday. Perhaps this highlights that temptations toward things—or favoritism—aren't uniquely human at all. And that there's something particularly alluring about them for us created beings living in various forms of community.
Here's how God is portrayed speaking to this heavenly council in the song. Verse 2 says, "How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. The 'gods' know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, 'You are "gods"; you are all sons of the Most High.' But you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler. Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance."
So what we see here reveals a type of ethical scaffolding. You know what scaffolding is—the understructure of some bigger project. We're going to use the remainder of our time looking at a few takeaways to consider from this passage.
First, the tension between the individual and the group is one of the most fundamental struggles we face. This is part of what drives the political dysfunction we see in the world, but also, at a root level, the challenges we face in relationships—in our families, workplaces, schools, churches, friendships, marriages, and so on. There is a continual balancing and rebalancing, how we negotiate what we're okay with, what you consider fair or equitable, and so on. But once you experience the self-fulfilling advantages of favoring those who can get you the life you want, it isn't a big leap to start ignoring those who get in the way of those personal goals, or even opposing them. Perhaps we see this playing out in this passage.
By contrast, I think pursuing equality or equity is both costly and one of the greatest challenges we face. But it is good. I think it's an acknowledgment of how things really are—that we live in a shared world with other people. And it is one of the most important ways we actually image God. It is operating within reality, you could say.
Even the philosopher Thomas Nagel, who was an atheist, put it this way. He said the impersonal standpoint—meaning the social standpoint of things—"in each of us produces a powerful demand for universal impartiality and equality, while the personal standpoint gives rise to individualistic motives and requirements that present obstacles to the pursuit and realization of such ideals." Okay, that's a mouthful. What he's saying is this: the social aspects of who we are drive us toward love—or they should—toward considering the needs of other people. But our tendency is towards selfishness. And it gets in the way of our ability to develop the necessary character to act for the common good. Got that? Our tendency towards selfishness actually gets in the way of our ability to develop the necessary character to act for the common good of other people. As Philippians 2:4 says, "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."
Again, this tension between the individual and the group, I think, is one of the most fundamental struggles we face. Because of this, perhaps, it's important that we develop an attitude of being open to the perspectives of other people. Not, of course, saying we let other people steamroll us. I'm just saying that we listen to others, so we don't wake up one day realizing we're the ones doing the steamrolling, right?
But which others? Who are we talking about? Well, that's a question that drove a man named Howard Thurman. Thurman was a Black theologian and mystic who wrote the book Jesus and the Disinherited in 1949, which asked what the religion of Jesus had to say to people whose backs were against the wall—that's the way he put it. It became so central to the civil rights movement that Martin Luther King Jr. is said to have carried a copy with him during the Montgomery bus boycott. So in the book, Thurman writes this:
"I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that I have heard a sermon on the meaning of religion, of Christianity, to the man who stands with his back against the wall. It is urgent that my meaning be crystal clear. The masses of men live with their backs constantly against the wall. They are the poor, the disinherited, the dispossessed. What does our religion say to them? The issue is not what it counsels them to do for others whose need may be greater, but what religion offers to meet their own needs. The search for an answer to this question is perhaps the most important religious quest of modern life."
So in Psalm 82, maybe we see that these questions are not so uniquely modern after all, but common throughout history. In part, this is why we say our generosity liturgy each week at Gateway, which we said earlier. We want to remind ourselves that God calls us to care for the needs of other people. And in so doing, our needs will also be met.
Next, we see in Psalm 82 that social justice and the right ordering of the world are central to the kingdom of God. Here's what I mean. In this psalm, God is commanding these heavenly beings to defend those who are disadvantaged, including orphans, the poor, those who are oppressed by others, and so on. I don't know exactly what this looks like for them. I simply do not. But I can imagine a little bit what it looks like in our context. And he goes even further and says not only should they defend them, they should rescue them and deliver them from the wicked. Verse 2 says, "How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."
So the modern church in America has seen many impoverished ways to deal with the effects of sin and oppression. And I'm saying this as someone who deeply loves the church, for all its failures. One way, I suppose, is you could shrug your shoulders. Maybe there's a particular church camp that would say something to the effect of, "God will sort it out in the end. The whole world is going to burn, and everyone's going to hell, so let's focus our ministry. We ought to get people to believe in Jesus as fast as possible, and really anything beyond that is probably just social." Or one could be so committed to a particular version of equity that you accidentally end up believing that the answer to all of society's problems is, ironically, money and power. We don't want that either.
Of course, I'm oversimplifying here. But this is the temptation. We tell ourselves stories. We create narratives that are actually only partial truths, and then neglect to notice that we've driven our Dodge Grand Caravan into a lake. But we believe that we should be committed both to the whole-life formation of individuals and to the proactive work of systemic renewal.
Like I said at the beginning this morning, today is an effort in building hope, building resiliency—maybe a little courage in here—paradoxically widening our perspective and narrowing our focus. Psalm 82 shows us an image of a type of royal court, one where a good king is making it very clear who is in charge and what the stakes are. And this comes in contrast, of course, to the many kingdoms of men throughout history, even up to today. The mindset of domination and expansion without limits and self-seeking will one day come to an end. It will.
Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggemann, who we've quoted a few times in this series, called the mode of operating here the dominant consciousness, or the royal consciousness. He talks about how it leads people to despair about the power to move toward new life. He contrasts this with what he calls a prophetic imagination, which is tasked with getting people to engage with the promise of newness in our history with God. It turns out God deeply cares about justice. And the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, are signposts of the very unraveling of the oppressive kingdom of darkness—this royal consciousness. This is the very heart of the gospel.
Lastly, God is supernatural. He is preeminent. There is no one greater. He puts the "grand" in Dodge Grand Caravan, right? Sorry, that was a really bad joke.
Verse 2: "How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. The 'gods' know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, 'You are "gods"; you are all sons of the Most High.' But you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler. Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance."
The second half of this psalm, I think, highlights that even these so-called gods are simply part of the family of God too. God is over all. He sustains all. Even the nations are his inheritance. So you see, one of the primary motivators for me to teach on this today was to prepare us, actually, for the series that's coming up this fall on the book of Acts, which is so charged with the supernatural.
So here's a quick backstory, and then we'll wrap up. You see, way back in the book of Genesis, we read about the Tower of Babel—the scattering of the nations and languages. Later, in Deuteronomy 32, we see God dividing up the boundaries of humanity among the "sons of God." And some scholars believe that this is actually the very heavenly council we're reading about here in Psalm 82. There's no way to know. But the anger of God, I think, reveals something: that his heart is toward those who are weak here. And for those who believe themselves to be strong, it becomes clear that structural injustice is actually treated as a collapse of creation order, not just a private ethical failure. Got that? It almost seems like a parallel Garden of Eden story—of Adam and Eve—for these particular spiritual beings we're reading about in Psalm 82. Verse 7 says this: "But you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler." There's a judgment here.
And then we fast-forward to Jesus standing before the Jewish religious leaders many years later, and he quotes Psalm 82. John 10—he's standing before the crowd, and they begin this section. The crowd says, "We are not stoning you for any good work," they replied, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God." Jesus answered them— [Scripture on screen not captured in the transcript.] Here's Psalm 82. It's interesting.
So Jesus uses Psalm 82 to defend himself and actually designate himself a son of God. That's not to say he's simply placing himself as one amongst many. Just a few lines later, he says that "the Father is in me, and I in the Father," right? But he does connect himself directly to this ruling and reigning heavenly realm somehow—which sent the crowd, of course, into turmoil. They were already about to stone him, I guess.
Luke 4:18, quoting Isaiah—Jesus says this of himself: [Scripture on screen not captured in the transcript.]
See how this shows him to be the rightful heir of the throne? It's a perfect inverse of the injustice described in Psalm 82. And I think it lays the groundwork for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2—and we'll save that for the next series. But the key here is that what Jesus says about himself in Luke 4—his anointing—is incredibly and miraculously extended to, quote, "all flesh," as it says in Acts chapter 2, in the Spirit. Peter actually quotes the prophet Joel, saying, "Your sons and daughters will prophesy… Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit." It's not just, like, religious leaders described in Acts 2. Not just the powerful, it turns out. The same Spirit we see in Jesus—who defends the weak, the fatherless, the poor, the oppressed, in Luke 4—gets poured out on ordinary people. On us. On the beautiful and diverse ethnos of the world. The call to kingdom ethics we see portrayed in Psalm 82 has actually gone out to the riffraff, right? To y'all. Sorry, I called you riffraff, I guess.
The renewal of all things is at hand. The kingdom of God is the great supernatural undoing of the curse of death. Healing and liberty and wholeness are being proclaimed, both on earth and in the heavens. So, friends, we have a true and present hope—a future hope, too. A hope that is both personal and also powerful, preeminent, perfect. One who knows our very frame, because he made us and loves us all.
So the question is, where are we on the way to? Where is our shared pilgrimage heading? Are you riding along with some sort of Christian cruise control on, unmoved by those around you—perhaps even unmoved by your own conscience or the voice of God anymore? Have you traded prophetic hope for the royal promises of power or security? Where does your hope come from? Where is it going, if hope has a direction?
I think there are a lot of questions that remain, both in the Psalms and beyond. But I think the Psalms are a wonderful place for them, and that's perhaps why I love them so much. But one last question I'll leave you with today is borrowed from Howard Thurman. When we consider those who feel like they are cornered in life, those who are up against the wall—perhaps that's you—the question is, what does our religion say to them? To you? To the world? Let's close in prayer.
God, we thank you for this time to remember that you are so, so good—that all that is good in this world is of your light. God, we thank you that you illuminate our lives. You give us purpose and direction, clarity. God, I pray, as we remember you during communion here, that we'd have a chance to just stop and reflect on who you are as a person—that your humanity gave us a vision of life, real life, and it was one that was entirely unexpected. So we give you praise, and we thank you for this time together. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
