Regarding Getting Smashed...

I recently acquired The Message on MP3 format so that I could load it on my Dell DJ. So this week I began listening to the Bible as I drive in to work. I get about three chapters in, which is perfect! Anyway, here's a thought from this morning... Remember after Noah gets out the ark, after the rainbow, and definitely after the children's stories end when Noah gets hammered in a cave? (See Genesis 9) One of his sons sees him and then goes and tells the other two. The other two go in walking backwards carrying a blanket between them and cover their father without checking out his birthday suit. When Noah wakes up, he condemns the one son - Ham - and praises the other two. Here's what captured my thoughts this morning -- the text doesn't even hint at a condemnation of Noah for getting wasted, but instead focuses on the sin of his son Ham (maybe he was a screwed up kid because he dad named him after a deli meat). We have no idea if Ham was mocking, or making fun of his dad. What we do know is that Ham didn't treat his father with grace, mercy, kindness or gentleness and instead chose to make a spectacle of his dad's drunkenness. And maybe that's the point of the story! Funny how this passage was always about the evils of alcohol in my fundamentalist upbringing!