Owning Our Curse

Genesis 9 tells the story of Noah after his return from the ark. Having retired from zoology, he took up gardening, specifically planting a vineyard. One day after drinking too much, he went to his tent. His son Ham went in, saw his father naked, and scornfully told his two brothers about it. They quickly took a cloth and covered their father without looking at him. Upon recovering from his drunken state, Noah cursed Ham's son, Canaan. 

This story has led to plenty of theories of what Ham actually did. I will not delve into those, but Scripture makes it plain that Ham was wrong. At the very least he revealed the shame of his father, while Shem and Japheth covered their father's shame. Nothing is said about Noah's being drunk. There were no commands about drunkenness at the time and Scripture does not condemn him; for us to do so is to miss part of the point.

There's a lesson for us in this passage. It's become popular to  heap scorn upon prior generations for their sins and blind spots. Those blind spots are real and we should certainly learn from them. But there is a great difference between that learning from our fathers' mistakes and publicly proclaiming their shame. I suspect our reasons for doing so are similar to Ham's: we think if we shame our fathers, we no longer have to submit to them. We showcase their sins (whether real or perceived) and think it frees us from hearing what they have to say. In doing so, we bring a curse upon our offspring. 

We teach them to scoff at the guidance of the past and consider our scoffing virtuous, saying those old paths lead to slavery. In fact, it's only those paths that chart a course out of our dark modern cave. This is no call to ignore the sins of our fathers. But to ignore their wisdom and proclaim their shame, we sin against them. Only by loving and appreciating our forebears can we learn from them. Only by receiving their wisdom can we protect our children and grandchildren from the ignorance of the age.