In our text we are introduced to the reality that sometimes good people can face moments of indecent exposure. This is the case in the life of a man named Noah. Noah was a righteous man. He was a follower of God left on the earth. The Bible says he was blameless among the people of his time. It also says he walked with God. Living in a society saturated with sin and rebellion against God, Noah was a man who pleased God. Noah is a follower of God remaining in his generation. As an architectural engineer and shipbuilder, he put together an amazing structure called an ark, the likes of which had never before been built. During a time where there was no rain and the people reminded him of his foolishness for investing time and energy in an assignment that made no sense, Noah stayed faithful and obedient to God until God sent the rain. He was willing to risk his reputation just to follow what God told him to do. Noah was a great man, faithful to God and had a love for God’s people.
Because of Noah’s obedience in a time when it seemed more rational not to obey God, God gave Noah a new assignment. Noah has become elevated from a herdsman to a church planter under the auspices of the Founder named God. He has been ordained and appointed to be Senior Pastor of the New Beginnings Church of God. With any pastoral appointment there is a charge. God charged Noah and his sons with these instructions and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. As we can see, God honored Noah for Noah’s obedience to God and for him honoring God with his life.
However, one day Noah did something that caused him to become indecently exposed. The bible said that Noah, a man of the soil, who was the first to plant a vineyard, drank some of the wine and became drunk, and he lay uncovered in his tent. The developer of the new human race, who has been faithful to God, now finds himself drunk and uncovered. This good man with a testimony is tipsy. He has a once in a lifetime moment where the worker became wasted. He is righteous, faithful, upright and just but in this period of his life he has perused the parameters of corn liquor, became well acquainted with Jack Daniels, experimented with gin and juice, mixed cranberry and vodka, indulged himself in Crown Royal and perhaps finished with Sangria. He is anointed but became an alcoholic; he is righteous but wreaks whisky and sold out for God but becomes intoxicated.
The text does not tell us why he was drunk. There is no reason given for his state of drunkenness. I know from my experiences in life that some situations will make you want to take a taste. I know some of us are trying to be phony and super religious. However, some things will make us want to throw our heads back not to say Hallelujah but BOTTOMS UP!!!!! Through pure speculation, maybe he was drunk because he was wrestling with the assignment given to him by the Divine and realized that it was too much for him to handle. It is a possibility that he became drunk because Sister Noah had a hard time understanding her husband’s call causing her to beat him up instead of lifting him up. Perhaps Noah became intoxicated because he had to deal with some crazy members of the human race who nick picked about everything Noah did that they didn’t like in his new pastorate. I don’t know why he became drunk but he did.
I want to stick a pin right there and note parenthetically that we never know why people do what they do. It is crazy that we believe we can analyze somebody else’s life based upon what we heard and we were not there because we don’t have a clue about the reason for it occurring. This is why I have learned how to stay out of other people’s business and mind my own. I have enough stuff going on in my own life that I don’t have time to be mingling in your. Often times we hurt people in church because we look at them and make conclusions about them based upon our own interpretation of their presentation. However, sometimes speculation will lead to humiliation as result of a misinterpretation. If you don’t know the full situation then you have no right for perpetual participation. Look at your neighbor and say, “BUTT OUT!!!!” If we are not careful, we will make ourselves look dumb because we jumped the gun on some things without grasping an understanding of the situation. Then we will discover that some things are not for us to understand but to leave alone. I may not understand it but I know God’s got it!
My brothers and sisters, we do not know the reason for him getting drunk. However, we can deal with what led to the intoxication. He made wine off of the stuff he planted that was intended for the purpose of feeding. He started tampering and experimenting with what God told him to plant which leads him to making some stuff that led to his intoxication and indecent exposure.
One of the things I have discovered is that often times we get ourselves in trouble when we start creating things with the stuff God called us to plant that is used for self indulgence and gratification. Pastors, we have to be careful that we don’t start sniffing ourselves so much that we begin to concoct self aggrandizing paraphernalia off of the vineyard we have been privileged to grow and plant just so we can get a buzz. So instead of feeding folk with the vineyard we are getting drunk off of the liquids of the vineyards. Don’t you know that it takes more work to make wine than it does to eat grapes? This is why some of us are so tired and frustrated in ministry. We are too busy making wine when God only wanted us to plant grapes. Whenever we do this, it will lead to indecent exposure.
Regardless of how anointed, gifted, saved and sanctified we are it is dangerous to get involved in making wine with what is meant to feed. It will cause an intoxication that we will have to deal with; and it will lead to indecent exposure. I don’t care if you have never had a drink or a sip physical. In life, we all have had our own share of existential shots of Bourbon, Grey Goose, Scotch and Mad Dog 20/20. Because we are imperfect, flawed people, we are not excluded from having moments of slipping, making mistakes and falling short. All you have to do is live on this earth and you will discover that moments of intoxication will take place. Some people have become intoxicated with ourselves as we believe we are better than other people. Just because you have lighter pigmentation does not mean that you are better, smarter and more knowledgeable than people who have a plethora of shades of chocolate. Some people are intoxicated with their own perspectives and philosophies so much so that we believe that the way we see things are the only way to view them. We have become intoxicated with materialism and capitalism. We will shop till we drop but won’t invest in our children’s education. We have become tipsy with our own religiosity. If we don’t go to certain people’s churches then we are considered outcasts when in fact we are all included in God’s Kingdom. I don’t know what your intoxicating taste is; however, we all have had a taste for something that caused us to become intoxicated and indecently exposed.
However, there is good news for us today who have suffered from indecent exposure based upon our participation in the process of intoxication. No matter how indecently exposed one is, God wants to minister to you. God wants to restored us, heal us and make us sober. As we peruse the parameters of today’s text, we will discover how we can be ministered to while being indecently exposed.
The first thing the text is tailored to teach us is that the indecently exposed can be ministered to by not gossiping about their situation. The text states, “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.” This is typical of the average person who has been exposed to indecent exposure. Most people when they see or hear of someone who has messed up, will immediately go and run their mouths. They will involve themselves in gossip talk such as, “I heard and they said.” This is what Ham did. The first thing Ham does is gossip.
I have a huge problem with this because Ham never attempted to do ministry to his father but rather demonize his father’s reputation and character. Remember! His father was a righteous, faithful and just man. However, the first time his is a witness of how the Godly can fall, he broadcasted it outside in the public. He had never seen his father in this predicament but he talks about his dad publicly based on one incident without any investigation. It was a time for ministering not gossiping.
My brothers and sisters, one thing that God can’t stand is people who choose to gossip over spreading the gospel. It is the gospel that transforms, heals, delivers, liberates and motivates. The only purpose of gossiping is to attempt to tear down, destroy, demonize and humiliate. The Hebrew word translated “gossip” in the Old Testament is defined as “one who reveals secrets, one who goes about as a talebearer or scandal-monger.” A gossiper is a person who has privileged information about people and proceeds to reveal that information to those who have no business knowing it. Gossip is distinguished from sharing information in two ways:
1. Intent. Gossipers often have the goal of building themselves up by making others look bad and exalting themselves as some kind of repositories of knowledge.
2. The type of information shared. Gossipers speak of the faults and failings of others, or reveal potentially embarrassing or shameful details regarding the lives of others without their knowledge or approval. Even if they mean no harm, it is still gossip.
God wants us to do ministry to the hurt, downtrodden, marginalized and oppressed. God wants us to bring healing to those persons who have become victims of indecent exposure. In order to do this, we must not get caught up in exposing the flaws of others when in fact we have several of them ourselves. We must minister to fallen people, hurting people, and people who had made mistakes along the way. This is what the church should be about. We are a house of healing and hope for people who have fallen but can get back up again!
The second thing the text is tailored to teach us is that the indecently exposed can be ministered to by being a covering for them. The text states, “Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father.” Instead of gossiping about their father’s indecent exposure, they covered their father. This is what God has done for us. God covered our indecent exposure instead of exposing it. By covering it, God protects us from being harmed in the midst of our fallen state of being. Look at your neighbor and tell them, “God covered me!”
I don’t know about you, but that is good news to me. God covered me. When I was out there and my stuff was out there, God covered me so that the ravens couldn’t get to me. I’m covered. God could have left me out there to be destroyed but God covered me so no hurt, harm or danger could come my way. When the bill collectors wanted to take us out, God covered us with grace and mercy. I’m covered. I don’t care what life will bring us. We can thank God for the fact that God covered us!
The last thing that text is tailored to teach to us is that the indecently exposed can be ministered to by not seeing their nakedness. The text states, “Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. What a beautiful demonstration of ministry to the indecently exposed. Not only do they cover Noah but they turn their face away so they wouldn’t see their father in this way. They understood what the father meant to them and the human race and decided protect their father from shame and embarrassment. This is a presentation and representation of God’s grace. God’s grace will literally decide to turn backward on your flaws and make the choice not to look at it. Some of us need to be shouting because there were some things in our lives that if looked upon would have had us humiliated and ashamed. It would have caused us to be dehumanized and made a public mockery. However, God’s grace made the attention move from our shortcomings. The focus was not on our exposure but on God ability to give us a Divine waiver so that what should have messed us up did not ruin our lives. Somebody ought to be screaming, “Thank you Lord for grace!”
The sons decided to walk backward and cover their father’s nakedness so they would not see their father’s nakedness. I’ll see y’all later. This is what God did for us. We were like Noah. We were victims of indecent exposure. Our sin had us all out in the open. However, God sent God’s son to cover us with his blood. It was his blood that washed away all of my sins. Jesus cried out to the father, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” God decided to turn God’s back on the Jesus on the cross because Jesus took on our sins so that we would have no more sins. God decided not to look at sin so that we could be covered. Because God didn’t look at my mess, now I can proclaim God’s message. Because the son didn’t look at my stuff, now I can promote salvation.
