July 17

- Psalm 79 & 80

The Psalms speak repeatedly of God's anger. We don't speak much of God's anger. We talk about the love, mercy and grace of God. We like to think pleasant thoughts about God. But in today's readings, you can't ignore the issue of God's anger.

Maybe we like to ignore God's anger because in the Psalms it comes in response to human sin. We don't like to think of our action in terms of sin. We may acknowledge our mistakes, but to call them sin is something we avoid. However, you can't avoid the anger of God in today's reading. Just as we should not avoid acknowledging our sinfulness.