DIVINE JUDGMENT
Rev. Dr. Joyce Antila Phipps
Old First Church
September 30, 2018
Texts: Psalms 52 and 53
It was a bizarre comment, almost comical but in light of the death and destruction that occurred, it was neither, just hateful. When the right-wing radio host Dennis Prager asked Rev. John Hagee, a renowned anti-gay rights spokes-person, about why Hurricanes Katrina had struck New Orleans, Hagee responded, “What happened in New Orleans looked like the curse of God … because there was going to be a homosexual parade on Monday.”
Linking all natural disasters to “God’s impermissible will,” Hagee went on to say that it was clear that Hurricane Katrina wasn’t like any other because of the planned parade. Two weeks after Katrina, Hagee commented, “Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.” In his mind, it was a modern Sodom and Gomorrah. A year and a half later, he did draw back a little on his initial statement with “No one can know the mind of God.”
Hagee falls into a long line of people ascribing events to the judgment of God. Our Puritan ancestors did no less. In July 1646 John Winthrop, one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, connected an invasion of cater-pillars on the grain harvest to “God’s displeasure” noting that in “divers churches” people observed a “day of humil-iation” whereupon the caterpillars disappeared.
There were divergent voices, however, including that of Roger Williams who although he believed that God’s wrath would be visited on nations that set up false churches, did not necessarily believe that civil communities could protect themselves from divine judgment by pun-ishing what they considered to be spiritual error. As we can see, the question of God’s judgment regarding our human affairs has been hotly contested since the establishment of the colonies.
Divine judgment has been inextricably linked to the idea of divine will. Used to defend the annihilation of First Nation peoples, the conquest of the southwest, and slavery, the two ideas have been often conflated. The two Psalms this morning are prime examples of a call for judgment as well as belief in the will of God.
The idea of divine judgment has been around since human beings recognized that there is something larger and more encompassing than themselves. Thomas Mann wrote, “Very deep is the well of the past,” and it is clear that religions even more ancient than Judaism have be-lieved in divine judgment.
The twin deities of Sumerian religion, Utu the sun god and his sister Inanna were enforcers of divine justice. Utu was believed to see everything that happened during the day and Inanna was the one in charge of hunting down transgressors and enforcing judgment in this world. Like many other Near Eastern peoples at that time, the Mesopo-tamians did not have a place of punishment in the afterlife, but believed that souls went to an underworld, dark and shadowy like Sheol.
There are basically two places to look for divine judgment, this life and what we will call the afterlife. Among ancient religions, it seems that the Egyptians were singular in having a concept of an afterlife where people were judged for how they lived their lives. Ammit, the “soul-devourer,” was a goddess who was part lion, part crocodile, and part hippopotamus, who passed judgment and sent evil souls to a place of eternal restlessness if they did not follow the principles of Ma’at, which stressed harmony, truth, balance, order, and justice.
Divine judgment in this life, however, was a strong belief of the ancient Hebrews who saw God as acting in history with particular goals and objectives in mind. A central idea of the Old Testament, this was a momentous development in religious thought. Even the violence of God works towards an objective, much of it embodied in the covenant between God and human beings.
In these two Psalms we see a common theme, namely, that divine judgment will be visited on the evildoer, the corrupt, and those who in the poetic language of Psalm 53 eat up people as some eat bread. The Psalms are both a statement that God will protect the righteous and a plea to God to do just that.
We respond to what we consider evil in much the same way. We plead for God to protect the righteous even as we have an underlying hope in God. The words of these Psalms express a combination of faith and hope. And when we talk about God we have the same mixture of faith and hope, jumbled as they are.
Our religious ancestors clearly believed in divine judgment as well as divine will. In our twenty-first century minds we may smile a bit when we think of going to church and humiliating ourselves, those words meaning to confess our sins, and poof! the caterpillars disappeared; however, it was a strong tenet of faith that God visited judgment and rewarded righteousness.
When faced with strange fits among teenage girls, our Puritan ancestors turned to the only explanation they could comprehend: witchcraft. Twenty dead persons and two dogs later, it was only the intervention of the Royal Governor, Sir William Phips, who although under the influ-ence of Cotton and Increase Mather, Phips returning from colonial wars, closed the courts, released more than 100 accused from jail, but earned an intractable enemy in Mather and ended up being recalled to London where he died several years later.
The Mathers and most of their contemporaries believed in divine judgment and purported to speak for God’s divine will in the Massachusetts colony. Others like Williams and the Quakers, being a bit more humble about ascertaining God’s will, could only shake their heads. But it’s not just in the past that people speak of God’s will and divine judgment.
We may not presume to be so certain in today’s world about God’s will or divine judgment but in many ways we continue to conflate the two in our minds. From the dawn of human life, the archaeological evidence presents an undying belief in something greater than ourselves, than our individual human lives as well as our societal life. The development of religious hierarchies is inextricably linked to political power. Priests had power because they could interpret God’s will to prevent divine judgment from being visited on the people.
In these two Psalms we find a different approach to divine judgment. The Psalmist reminds us that those who consider themselves mighty but are deceitful will be ex-posed by their own deeds. They are those who trusted in abundant riches and sought refuge in wealth, as the text says, and in the following Psalm, they are those who devour the people like bread.
The Psalmists who composed these pieces believed that God would directly intervene and crush the oppressors, or at least it seems so. These Psalms are not only a state-ment of faith but a plea that judgment will come. These Psalms are a cry for recompense but do we have faith that the evildoers, in the words of the Psalms, sow the seeds of their own destruction?
Our ideas of divine judgment are connected to our idea of divine justice. That justice means more than mere recompense which is what the Psalm calls for. Another translation of the opening line of Psalm 53 is “the scoundrel has said, “There is no God.” It’s a much stronger statement regarding those who devour the people as bread. The evildoers called scoundrels don’t say it out loud so their intent is clear; they say it in their hearts where no one else can hear it.
And, to be sure, such scoundrels wax pietistic and embrace religious people for their own purposes even though they have never been connected to any faith tradi-tion. Such scoundrels implement policies that do eat people up as bread. Just take a look at the proposed regulations designed to eliminate the U.S. born children of immigrants.
These proposed changes change the definition of “public charge,” something an immigrant cannot be and obtain lawful status. Now, however, buried in the 448 pages of proposed changes, the fact that a U.S. citizen child may use WIC, a supplemental food program, or low cost lunches at school, can prevent anyone in the entire family from ever obtaining lawful status. Talk about eating people up like bread.
Congress, of course, has the final authority re-garding these proposals, but few members of Congress have spoken up regarding the impact this will have on families. You should ask your member of Congress where he – and the two from this area are men – stands on this issue.
The Psalmists call for God to deliver justice which they see as closely allied to judgment. We like to think of justice as not necessarily involving judgment. That word has such a negative connotation. We have to ask ourselves whether it is possible to have one without the other. We may smile at the thought that confessing our sins will get rid of the caterpillars, but it’s not so far from the truth.
Let us come to God in prayer: Lord our God, we are often so perplexed, not sure how best to care for the world you have given us. Help us, O God, to discern what is right and just and to be instruments of your justice and peace. In the name of him who came to show us the way, even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.