Dionysus on a Bike

Psalm 78:1-8, 17-29 – 8/3/2026

Lately for the daily lectionary reflection, I have written about scripture that challenges our traditional view of God and about experience that seems to conflict with the promises of God, further challenging traditional theistic belief. Today’s Psalm presents an angry God who is filled with rage when people do not have faith, when people doubt that God will deliver them from their troubles. Here is another picture of God or way of thinking about God in the Bible that I find challenging. Is it really befitting a deity to be so sensitive? Would the creator of the cosmos be so insulted by the little faith of a people who have wandered so far and suffered so much? This is not a picture of greatness; this is a petty tribal deity who gets his feelings hurt easily. I have little doubt that the creator of all things takes pity on our small faith and does not have feelings that get hurt so easily.

Why write about challenges to faith and scripture that arouses doubt? Why focus on the troubling, contradictory sides of a faith that is supposed to be about hope and joy? I think it’s important to be honest about what is troubling and what gives pause and what awakens doubt. Without being honest about the contradictions, the tensions, and the troubling parts, whatever faith and commitment we have will be dishonest and ignorant. It’s easy to hold onto joyful teachings if we blind our eyes to suffering, but that joy is false and will fall apart as soon as reality impinges upon itself. Faith with doubt firmly in view may not have the same certainty or feel as stable, but it is more courageous and certainly more capable of changing lives.

Some people will not be satisfied with this because they want out of faith is a belief system with an unshakable worldview. That desire is bound to be futile unless it buries its head and hides from the reality of experience. Facing experience of the world with honesty destabilizes worldviews to the point where no system of beliefs is ever complete. Our ways of understanding the world are always subject to revision, skepticism, and admission of ignorance. There will always be new things to learn, and the struggle to survive and thrive in community will, for the foreseeable future—until the restoration of all things—give rise to reasons to doubt, reason to call into question. I’ll take that kind of faith over a dogmatism that lies to itself and others any day.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for 8/3/2026:
Deuteronomy 8:1-10
Romans 1:8-15
Psalm 78:1-8, 17-29

Reflections of a Dionysian Lutheran, comments on the daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary by Justin Marquis