"Back From the Brink" - Clear-Cut and Messy

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Noah Curses Ham for His Mockery

The sons of Noah who came out of the ship were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah; from these three the whole Earth was populated.

Noah, a farmer, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank from its wine, got drunk and passed out, naked in his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw that his father was naked and told his two brothers who were outside the tent. Shem and Japheth took a cloak, held it between them from their shoulders, walked backward and covered their father's nakedness, keeping their faces turned away so they did not see their father's exposed body.

When Noah woke up with his hangover, he learned what his youngest son had done. He said,

Cursed be Canaan! A slave of slaves,
a slave to his brothers!
Blessed be GOD, the God of Shem,
but Canaan shall be his slave.
God prosper Japheth,
living spaciously in the tens of Shem.
But Canaan shall be his slave.

- Genesis 9:18-27
(translation from The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language by Eugene H. Peterson)

I would love to be able to ignore this part of the story. I'd be very happy to end the story of Noah and the ark with the part about the covenant and the rainbow. Noah drunk and naked, and hungover and cursing his son, is more than I wanted to hear about.

Why does this even have to be part of the story?

Moreover, this is one of the Bible passages that was used to justify slavery in the United States. That's a reminder that the passage goes beyond dwelling on messy, complicated behavior to being used as an excuse for systemic injustice.

One possibility is that the people who originally told the story wanted us to remember: even superheroes have complicated lives. If this were a fairy tale, Noah would save the world and then everyone would live happily ever after. Instead, Noah saves the world and life goes back to being messy.

What possible connection does this have to the "Back From the Brink" campaign to prevent nuclear war? For me, this part of the story reminds me that, no matter how clearly the campaign is able to dissect the issues and prescribe a pathway to action, it's still going to have to be carried out by people  -- and that means it's still going to be complicated and messy.

Perhaps now would be as good a time as any to offer up a prayer -- a prayer for forbearance as we set out to do important work that will try our patience and challenge our interpersonal intelligence. We should all be as lucky as Noah to share this work with those we love most in the world; and we should all be prepared for our relationships to be tested.


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Related post:

What's the image in your mind of the human behavior that induced God to want to bring the flood? What I remember from Sunday school was that people were misbehaving . . . .

(See They were awesome. (But they really screwed things up.) )