I feel a lot of rage right now. I am angry with God. Where is God as the Israeli army continues to slaughter the innocents? Vengeance is mine says the Lord, but where is the vengeance? Where, God, is the hellfire knocking Israeli fighter jets and drones from the sky? Where are you God while Israel lays siege to Gaza and starves its people? God is the Lord of hosts. Where, God, is your angel army? I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when an Israeli complained that an Israeli hostage being held in Gaza was starving. God, why is your wrath not poured out upon the people who are starving those in Gaza? If the food was allowed in for ordinary people then hostages would not be starving. And the Israeli military and Israeli leaders are starving those in Gaza –hostages, militants, and ordinary civilians. Why is the ground not swallowing the Israeli tanks stopping aid from crossing into Gaza? Where is the manna? Where are the loaves and fishes? This is not justice. 

 Let’s be clear: I don’t hold the people of Israel collectively responsible. I don’t believe in collective punishment. I do not see civilians as the same as soldiers. Even in my most angry thoughts I don’t want the destruction of Israel. Still I rage. I am so angry, God and I don’t know where to put it.

Injustice also reigns closer to home. In the US, dragnets sweep up criminals and those merely seeking a better life alike. Most are merely migrants. Where are God’s commands enforced to treat the foreigner well and not oppress them? What meaning do your laws have, God, if they are not followed? The poor and the elderly have even their meager resources taken away. LGBTQIA+ people and racial minorities are facing a loss of equality and erasure from history. The homeless are purged from the cities. How long O God before you deliver the people from oppression?

When I am feeling more charitable I ask the Light, where are you? Why aren’t you convicting the people of wrongdoing in their own hearts? Why, O Light, are you not laying bare their sins so their own eyes cannot look away?

In today’s scripture passage the high God gathers a council of the gods to hold them to account. If you’re used to monotheism this may sound a little strange. At the time, they saw one God as above the others, but the other gods were no less real. The other gods can be seen as regional or tribal deities. As somebody who follows the historical critical method I try to see the passage through the eyes of the writer and first hearers. The way they saw it God and the gods were in many ways persons like us.

Scripture isn’t always easy to approach. The hardest part may be that the meaning isn’t fixed. The original psalm may have been written as early as 10th century BC, but countless people have read it as a prayer in their own time and circumstances over the centuries. This prayer can both be seen as supplication crying out for God to act and lament expressing sorrow at the state of the world. 

To early readers the gods would have been very real supernatural beings. Later readers re-interpreted the gods first as angels and later even as human rulers. You may interpret it metaphorically. Maybe gods to you are just forces beyond your control. You may not be a theist, but unnamed forces are hard to rail against. Gods can be a useful metaphor. 

In the Psalm, God, that is the high God, says that the gods are doing what is wrong: defending the unjust and showing partiality to the wicked. The gods failed the people and what’s more they failed the high God.

Next, a pause written into the psalm may mean it is no longer God talking. The psalmist calls on the gods and maybe even the high God to do what is right: defend the orphan, poor, and oppressed and rescue the weak and needy. The gods lack knowledge, wisdom, and awareness according to the psalmist. 

Next, the voice of the psalm then shifts definitively to the writer of the psalm. The psalmist proclaims that these gods will fall and even die like mortals. The writer calls on God to do what is right: judge the earth.

The Hebrew reveals something less than evident in the English. The same word is used for gods and the high God. Is God judging Godself? Are the gods being judged by each other? This may be a case of awareness for one’s own failure and wrongdoing. If even they can be called to account then you can push back when you think they are wrong. 

It is alright to be angry with God. God can handle your anger and your doubt. God is confusing and frustrating and that’s OK. Let God know what you are thinking and feeling. Even if you don’t see God that way it’s good to let it all out.

God is real enough that you do not have to gaslight yourself into thinking the world is better than it is. God will not vanish like a dream in the light of the morning. God gave us reasoning and we are meant to use it. We can argue with God. We can try to persuade God. If you think God will not be able to handle arguing it’s time to grow your understanding of God.

It can be scary, but disagreeing with God is a strong part of the Jewish tradition. Not only Job, but even Moses and Abraham argued with God. Job questioned the justness of God’s actions and how Job suffered without cause. Abraham begged for mercy and questioned collective punishment on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah(Genesis 18-19). Moses calls for God to be present and give the people hope (Exodus 33). In more recent times, Elie Wiesel reports witnessing people put God on trial at Auschwitz for failing to fulfill God’s covenant with the Jewish people and letting them be massacred. Good people, even the patriarchs, questioned and even argued with God.

I can be angry and still not give up on God. Like you stay in the argument with a good friend you do not have to stop relating to God when you aren’t satisfied with how the world is. What’s more if you think God agrees with you there is nothing wrong with offering to help out.

• When have you been angry with God?
• How do you respond to injustice and oppression in the world?