Psalm 83 - Pushing Back

Straight up - I am not a fan of Psalm 83. Not at all. A few months back I reflected on Psalm 14 which has a really similar vibe. I entitled that reflection “I Refuse.” And I still not only feel the same about Psalm 14 but about this one as well. I understand the anger that is within this Psalm and I do not fault the people for feeling as they do. They had been conquerored, brutalized, and oppressed. I have also come to a different place for me with anger in my own life - years ago I felt like it was a “bad thing” to feel angry. But anger is just like any other emotion - it is pointing to something deeper going on and it raises the question of what I will do with that anger. The Psalmist here made a choice to ask God to do the following to their enemies:

• Be destroyed as had happened to other armies

• Become “dung” on the ground (I’ll use the Bible’s language here rather than more contemporary language that expresses the same)

• Lose all their land and possessions

• Have their rulers be overthrown (and some killed)

• Turn them to dust and, like after Thanos snapped his finger in Infintiy War, be blown away in the wind

• Consume them with fire

• Terrify them

• Make them ashamed

• Die in disgrace

Embedded within some of those are a few calls asking that these punishments might lead people to turn to God but the majority is about destruction and punishment. That is what the Psalmist chose to do with the anger within.

Again, I get it. I share here from an incredibly privileged position. I am male, white, heterosexual, cisgender, middle-class, Christian, and the list goes on. I have never truly been oppressed or marginalized or attacked. But I have come to be able to understand why people who have been oppressed, marginalized, attacked, dehumanized, and erased would want to strike back and have their anger be enacted in vengeance.

But at the same time, I go to the words of King I quoted back with Psalm 14...

May I say just a word to those of you who are struggling against this evil. Always be sure that you struggle with Christian methods and Christian weapons. Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence. If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.

In your struggle for justice, let your oppressor know that you are not attempting to defeat or humiliate him, or even to pay him back for injustices that he has heaped upon you. Let him know that you are merely seeking justice for him as well as yourself.¹

I also think of the words in Proverbs 25:21-22 which say:

If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat;
and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink;
for you will heap coals of fire on their heads,
and the LORD will reward you.

And of course, Jesus had a lot to say on this as well - notably this from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:43-44...

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

Now that doesn’t mean that we embrace or condone or ignore evil actions. Jesus doesn’t call us to stand by idly in the face of oppression, injustice, and evil. But I believe I am called to fight with different tools. Other’s tools may be different, but for me some of my tools are beauty, embracing mystery, and curiosity. It is trying to live out that the world isn’t always as clear cut as we want it to be. Activitst and lawyer Bryan Stevenson often shares that “each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” The world isn’t made up of the bad guys in the black hats and the good guys in the white hats. It is all a lot more complicated than that contrary to what many politicans and leaders want us to think.

That is some of why I was so moved by the recent Disney+ show, Andor. It is truly the best television show I’ve ever seen and a lot of it was that none of the characters are portrayed as just purely evil or purely good. The show tries to help us understand the depth of even the most villianous characters while also making it clear that our heroes aren’t perfect either. In the first season, one of the good guys has an epic speech where he shares that he is “condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them” and that he burns his “deceny for someone else’s future...to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see.” He’s a hero but doesn’t always “look” like a hero even though he is fighting against the fascist empire. He is an ambiguous character. We see similarly with two of the “bad guys” in the story as the show helps us see their humanness in the midst of their horrific actions.

It is an incredible show that lives in the realm of nuance and ambiguity while also acknowledging the necessity to fight against oppression and evil. One of the podcasts I listened to about the finale had this nugget in it.

And I think that it is, I mean, everyone's just making TV for streaming services while the world burns, I get it. But at the same time, I think that one bit of service that is incumbent on the creative industry is to do everything we can to try and reeducate people towards accepting uncertainty and nuance and shadow in art, and then maybe, God forbid, in life as well. But like, that is a fairly noble mission.

I think that art, I don't feel like I'm being too big for my britches in saying it. I feel like that is what art does for us as humans in the world. And the fact that so much of the power of Andor comes from its silences, from its ellipses, from the space between episodes, between seasons, between scenes, is significant and meaningful.²

So, with a Psalm that has a stark us-vs-them vibe, I want to push back. I want to push back with what I often share here - a sunrise (a la Luthen’s quote above about a sunrise he’ll never see), a perfectly framed but out of focus heron, ominous (or beautiful depending on your p.o.v.) clouds surrounding a cross, a dramatic duck, and a smartly dressed pup. These are my tools, at least for today.

Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed

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1. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/pauls-letter-american-christians-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church

2. https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/the-watch/2025/05/15/hbo-max-is-back-though-it-never-really-left-and-four-lessons-learned-from-andor