"Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken [it]."
Naomi from Dakar and I have an ongoing discussion about god. She is a PhD in religion and teaches religion classes through an online university. She posed the question "what do you make of the phrase 'judge the fatherless.'"
Here is my reply. Proceed with caution. Thank you in advance for listening to my ramblings. All corrections, additions, oppositions and agreements are welcome and accepted equinamiously.Always go with your first thought they always say, right? So in answer to your question about "judge the fatherless"...here is my first thought...
Who is the father? In a spiritual context there is only one father, god. And also there is only one judge, god as well. On "judgement day" we will be "judged" not on our list of good and bad behaviors but on whether or not we had a relationship to the father, god. Did we have a father or were we fatherless, without god? Only god will be the judge of that...
This is why i can sort of comprehend the holiness of the trinity...god sends himself as a man...people accept jesus, for jesus says "she who loves me loves my father, and is she that my father will love..." and the holy spirit comes after jesus (which, by the way, i comprehend as female, as mother. The holy spirit is also called the comforter, who can be more of a comforter than a mother? And where there is a father and a child there must be a mother. Not Mary, who is a substitute, but the true holy spirit...) The holy spirit comes after jesus to be dispensed INTO our spirit, so that actually OUR nature (which is natural, which is to say, inherently selfish, like that of a baby which can only cry for its needs, it is purely selfish in a totally non-moralistic, non- judgemental way, it just IS)...so that OUR nature can be replaced by HIS nature, gods nature...and if "we" can be a judge of the fatherless it is only god within us that is the judge of the fatherless... as bob marley said, leave all judgement unto him!
We, as humans, are SO SO SO inherently self centered and self absorbed that we always think everything is about us, that god is talking to us, that we are the center of attention etc. When god gives us the ten commandments we NATURALLY think he is talking to us...but my insight is that it has nothing to do with us...god is not looking for us, god is looking for his child, the one who embodies his perfect nature, and god gives us the opportunity to be his child (through grace which means undeserved/unmerited favor..)
The ten commandments is a CHARACTER description of christ himself, christ being the perfect manifestation of gods nature in a human form. A description. And the only way to follow the law is to follow that perfect person, because he IS the law. HE is the law. So by accepting christ, and the holy spirit, then the complete LAW is in our spirit, and we are perfect in the law because we are following christ with all our hearts! Its an inward experience, not an outward expression such as god rails against in the book of isaiah...
We cant and dont love the lord and our neighbors with all our hearts (as christ commanded when we asked what are we to do, what is the law), and anyone with a shred of self honesty will recognize that, because once again we are so SELF ABSORBED and ADDICTED to the illusion of our SELVES that we think christ is giving US a commandment that our puny little selves can accomplish. No. Again, actually christ is describing HIS abilities to love infinitely, he is describing the nature of god, as the apostle paul says later, with ME nothing is possible, but through him IN me, all things are possible...
OK, and the point is simply this: when god says "seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" it is actually a description of a holiness that god possesses and that is deep within us only as god himself. So the only way to do what god says is to let go and let god. Die to our self and let the god that lives deep in our spirit be the guide...its like that fantastic painting in the sistine chapel by Michaelangelo where god and man are almost touching...the thing is, as i feel it, is that in order for our spirit to be ACTIVATED, we need to be touched by god the father/mother/child...our spirit lies dormant, or is corrupted by the opposer, until we seek, ask and pray for god the big spirit to enter our hearts and touch our spirit, then we have the connection, the activation...this is being born again, or born anew. A new creature, a new being.
Amen. Selah!
