Abraham receives the patriarchal blessing and so requests a baby from God. After Abraham asks God for a child saying that if he doesn’t get one, the blessing will go to someone from Damascus, God responds to Abraham. “And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.’ And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:4-6).
Abraham asks for a baby of his own, and God promises to give him one. God goes much further, for He not only promises him a child, He also promises to give Abraham a vast multitude of descendants through the promised baby. His descendants will be innumerable. Abraham, seventy-five years old married to a sixty-five year-old barren woman, believes God; he believes that God will be faithful and give them a child. God is pleased with Abraham’s belief in Him.
So nine months later God sends a son to Abraham and Sarah. Actually, the child came two years later. No, on further thought, God didn’t send the child for five whole years. Can you image that? God promised a baby, but then He did not send the little one for five more years, and these are elderly people already. I hate to say it, but God did not send that promised baby even after five years; ten years later and guess what? They are eighty-five and seventy-five, and still the promised bundle of joy has not been sent.
They might have been wondering, “Does God really know what He is doing?” “Is He really able to give us old and as good-as-dead childless hopefuls a baby?” Sarah may have asked her husband, “Are you sure that God said He would give us a baby? Are you sure that He promised to give you one?” She may have carried on asking, “Did God promise that the baby would be from you or from us?” Whatever questions went on, and we all know well enough how much and often we question what God is doing or not doing, whatever the actual questions were, Sarah talked Abraham into having relations with Sarah’s maid Hagar.
“ Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar; and Sarai said to Abram, ‘Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my maid; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.’ And wrong with what God had promised since it had already been ten years and no baby had been born. The promised little one had not been given. Sarah thought that God would give them the promised one in some other way. She did not trust the promise as given; Abraham, too, did not trust, after ten long, long years of waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. So he listened to the voice and the wisdom of his wife, for she did have some good points you’ll have to admit.
Adam, the first human made, had done basically the same thing. After his fall, God said to him, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife… (Genesis 3:17) the ground will bear thorns and thistles. Both men listened to the voice of their wife; both were seeking the God-promised child; both accomplished God’s promise on their own strength in their own way; both failed in their trust in God when the test became fierce; both bore a child who was a thorn and thistle: Cain and Ishmael; both had a change of heart and bore a righteous second child: Abel and Isaac; both sons were sacrificed, although Isaac was passed over.
For Adam and Eve, we don’t know how long they patiently waited for the promised baby of their own. Abraham and Sarah ended up waiting twenty-five years before God sent the promised little one. Abraham was 100 when God fulfilled the promise He gave a quarter century earlier. God waits and tests us. He is not about immediate gratification; we would have gone directly to heaven, entirely bypassing earth. Love requires testing, and testing requires time, and time tries our patience and trust. It is only by trust, only by living our daily life with a believing and hopeful heart that we pass the test.
That is why God placed us on earth. He wants to make self-sacrificing lovers out of us; He wants to make us into true lovers of Himself; if we daily give Him our entire self, He makes us into His spouse. Earth is the place for this transformation and growth. Earth is a time of testing and waiting; it is a place of sorrows and I-hope-it-happens-tomorrows; it is a valley of tears; it is our training ground to learn how to trust, and hope and love; in a similar manner, infants learn how to sit-up and crawl and walk under the watchful eyes and close to the loving arms of their parents.
“Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it’ ” (Luke 18:15-17). There is nothing but trust in the heart of an infant learning to walk and crawl; they are our example, according to Our Lord, of how we are to walk by faith.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.16.2007
12.14.2007
Saint John of the Cross
Blessed feast of Saint John of the Cross!
The feast is almost over now that I am sitting down late at night to write. One of the few times I have freedom to write is late at night when my family is in bed. I don't know much about Saint John of the Cross, but what I do know I like. He is a Doctor of the Church and is one of the masters of the spiritual life. Here is a passage from The Spiritual Canticle that deals with spiritual realities. He is giving commentary on a poem and explaining what it means; in stanza 14-15 paragraph 28-29 he says:
28. The Supper that Refreshes and Deepens Love
Supper affords lovers refreshment, satisfaction, and love. Since in this gentle communication the Beloved produces these three benefits in the soul, she calls it "the supper that refreshes, and deepens love."
It should be known that in divine Scripture this term "supper" refers to the divine vision [Rv. 3:20-21]. Just as supper comes at the end of a day's work and the beginning of evening rest, this tranquil knowledge causes the soul to experience a certain end of her evils and the possession of good things in which her love of God is deepened more than before. As a result, he is the supper that refreshes by being the end of evils for her, and deepens love by being to her the possession of all goods.
29. Yet for a better understanding of what this supper is to the soul--it is as we said her Beloved-- we should note in this appropriate place what the beloved Bridegroom says in the Apocalypse: I stand at the door and knock; if anyone opens, I shall enter and we shall sup together [Rv. 3:20]. In this text he indicates that he carries his supper with him, and it is nothing but his very own delights and savors that he himself enjoys. In uniting himself with the soul he imparts them, and she likewise enjoys them. For such is the meaning of the words, "we shall sup together." Hence these words declare the effect of the divine union of the soul with God, in which God's very own goods are graciously and bounteously shared in common with his bride, the soul. He himself is for her the supper that refreshes and deepens love, for in being bounteous he refreshes her, and in being gracious he deepens love in her.
I recommend reading more of Saint John of the Cross; this was just one tiny little bit. I need to read more of it, too. He constantly talks about God as the Bridegroom and our souls as the bride; God seeks to give Himself to us as such. He stands at the door and knocks at each of our hearts. Will you let Him in?
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
The feast is almost over now that I am sitting down late at night to write. One of the few times I have freedom to write is late at night when my family is in bed. I don't know much about Saint John of the Cross, but what I do know I like. He is a Doctor of the Church and is one of the masters of the spiritual life. Here is a passage from The Spiritual Canticle that deals with spiritual realities. He is giving commentary on a poem and explaining what it means; in stanza 14-15 paragraph 28-29 he says:
28. The Supper that Refreshes and Deepens Love
Supper affords lovers refreshment, satisfaction, and love. Since in this gentle communication the Beloved produces these three benefits in the soul, she calls it "the supper that refreshes, and deepens love."
It should be known that in divine Scripture this term "supper" refers to the divine vision [Rv. 3:20-21]. Just as supper comes at the end of a day's work and the beginning of evening rest, this tranquil knowledge causes the soul to experience a certain end of her evils and the possession of good things in which her love of God is deepened more than before. As a result, he is the supper that refreshes by being the end of evils for her, and deepens love by being to her the possession of all goods.
29. Yet for a better understanding of what this supper is to the soul--it is as we said her Beloved-- we should note in this appropriate place what the beloved Bridegroom says in the Apocalypse: I stand at the door and knock; if anyone opens, I shall enter and we shall sup together [Rv. 3:20]. In this text he indicates that he carries his supper with him, and it is nothing but his very own delights and savors that he himself enjoys. In uniting himself with the soul he imparts them, and she likewise enjoys them. For such is the meaning of the words, "we shall sup together." Hence these words declare the effect of the divine union of the soul with God, in which God's very own goods are graciously and bounteously shared in common with his bride, the soul. He himself is for her the supper that refreshes and deepens love, for in being bounteous he refreshes her, and in being gracious he deepens love in her.
I recommend reading more of Saint John of the Cross; this was just one tiny little bit. I need to read more of it, too. He constantly talks about God as the Bridegroom and our souls as the bride; God seeks to give Himself to us as such. He stands at the door and knocks at each of our hearts. Will you let Him in?
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
My Invitation to You
I lost my keys. Have you ever lost yours? There is not much one can do when the keys are lost. You cannot get into your home; you cannot drive your car; you can not get into your office. The key is everything, and…it is nothing. We only think of our keys when we cannot find them. Otherwise, there is really nothing special about keys (no offense all you locksmiths). Don’t worry, I didn’t really lose my keys; I was just saying that for dramatic effect.
The hinge or heart of my theory, as I’ve stated many other places, is that the tree of life is the heart and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is sexual relations; the garden of Eden is the garden of delight, and it refers to the man and the woman first and foremost. God made us, His garden of delight, with the ability to bear fruit in two ways: begetting and bearing children (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) and by a heart that loves, trusts, and obeys God. He told them to be fruitful and multiply and then told them not to have marital relations. That was their test of faith. Mary had the same test, and she passed.
A main part of the hinge of my theory has to do with sex. Sex, as I’ve said many times before, is the greatest of this world’s goods. It is a symbol of the ultimate supernatural good: the union of Christ and His Church. It seems that a common pitfall for people when considering this theory is that I say God commanded Adam and Eve not to have marital relations. It seems that for a lot of people, when they hear this theory, their gut reaction is to dismiss it or attack it as being against marital relations and the teachings of the Church. I understand that reaction. I don’t think those who have that response understand what I am saying, but I do see that the theory is rather easily misunderstood by some.
My point tonight is that most of what I say has very little to do with sex, per se. I certainly talk about it a fair amount, but there is so much more that I have to say. Mostly, I talk about it insofar as it is discussed in the Bible as I make sense of the Biblical story. The point about sex being the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is part of the key to understanding everything else. That theory is a key: necessary to drive the car, but not all that impressive by itself. Driving the car is the thing. I invite you to give yourself some time pondering this theory I propose, and see if it makes sense, sheds light, and puts the pieces of the puzzle together of the Bible, the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and your life. It did for me and has continued, these past fifteen years, to clarify and make sense of thousands of points about life, love and the gospel.
In other words, my focus is not on sex but on the fact that God created us from the beginning to be His spouse. Even today, He is calling each of us to the most intimate of communion with Himself. He wants all of us and is dying to give us all of Himself; having died for us, He is dying for us to enter into Himself and His death and resurrection and so have life abundantly. He is our spouse, and united to Him we bear much fruit and give glory to God.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
The hinge or heart of my theory, as I’ve stated many other places, is that the tree of life is the heart and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is sexual relations; the garden of Eden is the garden of delight, and it refers to the man and the woman first and foremost. God made us, His garden of delight, with the ability to bear fruit in two ways: begetting and bearing children (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) and by a heart that loves, trusts, and obeys God. He told them to be fruitful and multiply and then told them not to have marital relations. That was their test of faith. Mary had the same test, and she passed.
A main part of the hinge of my theory has to do with sex. Sex, as I’ve said many times before, is the greatest of this world’s goods. It is a symbol of the ultimate supernatural good: the union of Christ and His Church. It seems that a common pitfall for people when considering this theory is that I say God commanded Adam and Eve not to have marital relations. It seems that for a lot of people, when they hear this theory, their gut reaction is to dismiss it or attack it as being against marital relations and the teachings of the Church. I understand that reaction. I don’t think those who have that response understand what I am saying, but I do see that the theory is rather easily misunderstood by some.
My point tonight is that most of what I say has very little to do with sex, per se. I certainly talk about it a fair amount, but there is so much more that I have to say. Mostly, I talk about it insofar as it is discussed in the Bible as I make sense of the Biblical story. The point about sex being the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is part of the key to understanding everything else. That theory is a key: necessary to drive the car, but not all that impressive by itself. Driving the car is the thing. I invite you to give yourself some time pondering this theory I propose, and see if it makes sense, sheds light, and puts the pieces of the puzzle together of the Bible, the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and your life. It did for me and has continued, these past fifteen years, to clarify and make sense of thousands of points about life, love and the gospel.
In other words, my focus is not on sex but on the fact that God created us from the beginning to be His spouse. Even today, He is calling each of us to the most intimate of communion with Himself. He wants all of us and is dying to give us all of Himself; having died for us, He is dying for us to enter into Himself and His death and resurrection and so have life abundantly. He is our spouse, and united to Him we bear much fruit and give glory to God.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.12.2007
Short Summary of Theory
Blessed Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe! Giving our heart, our tree of life, into her protection, into the protection of our rib, our dear and powerful mother, we have complete confidence that she will keep our tree strong, and so we will have life; she will help us obey and trust her Son, and in so doing we will have life and have it abundantly. Rivers of living water will flow from our heart, and we will bear fruit twelve months of the year. She is the follower of Christ par excellence and the sure way to her Son.
A friend of mine regularly visits another blog; yesterday (was it only yesterday?), he alerted me to the fact that a discussion on that blog was addressing the question of whether or not the Fall had anything to do with sex. I had never been to that blog, but he told people about this site. Some of them commented about what I was saying on that site, so I responded over there. Today’s entry will be what I wrote over there; if you want to see the discussion going on there, go here. It is a rather long discussion, and the material relating to this blog begins toward the bottom.
Here is what I posted there tonight:
Fr. John Wauck wrote, "...Pullman is wrong to describe the Church as spending the last 2,000 years advocating a theological position that hasn’t even existed for 2,000 years, that flies in the face of the scriptural text, and that the Church not only never officially taught but also had to combat and condemn on a number of occasions?" From what I understand, Pullman is saying that Christianity has been saying since its inception that sex is bad; the Church surely condemns such a position. I am not sure if Father's comment was meant as a response to my blog and the theory I am defending there. Maybe not, but if it was, that is a misunderstanding of my theory. In fact, my theory doesn't even make sense if marital relations are not good; my theory makes most sense if marital relations are the highest good of the natural world.
The hinge of my theory is that the tree of life is the believing, trusting, obedient, loving heart and that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is marital relations. As far as I am aware, the Church has never condemned such a position. If it has, I need to disavow myself of my error; please let me know. As someone who desires above all to be a faithful son of the Church, I am "prepared to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission of interpreting authentically the Sacred Scriptures and of defending the dogmas of the faithful" (Humani Generis #36). However, at this moment, it is my understanding that my theory has never been condemned; if it has, then there is no further discussion needed.
Marriage is a "great mystery" symbolizing the relationship between Christ and His Church. Nothing is more important, other than the Trinity itself, than the relationship between Christ and His Church, and therefore, there is nothing greater on this earth than marriage. God gives us free will, hides Himself, and tests us to see if we truly trust and love Him. In the Old Testament, there is no one tested as severely as Abraham, other than the man and the woman. His test? He was to kill his only son, the son through whom God promised to give Abraham descendants as many as the sand on the seashore.
He asked our first parents (Eve was only named after the Fall because she has just conceived Cain) to forgo the highest natural good, which is the symbol of the highest supernatural good, to obtain the highest supernatural good. Their trial of faith, which went beyond their intellect, was to tell them to be fruitful and multiply but not to have relations. Relations are good, and that is what the woman saw, but God had a higher gift planned. He wanted to give them more than the symbol (marriage), He wanted to give them the reality (mystical marriage). We are all called to holiness, but there is no holiness without deep prayer; the endpoint of prayer is mystical marriage, and the reason there is no marriage in heaven is because we are all married to God as members of His Body, the Church.
My main point is that God wants you and me as His spouse; He calls each and every one of us to the deep prayer of mystical union. That is true for priest, nun, husband, wife, and single from every occupation.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
A friend of mine regularly visits another blog; yesterday (was it only yesterday?), he alerted me to the fact that a discussion on that blog was addressing the question of whether or not the Fall had anything to do with sex. I had never been to that blog, but he told people about this site. Some of them commented about what I was saying on that site, so I responded over there. Today’s entry will be what I wrote over there; if you want to see the discussion going on there, go here. It is a rather long discussion, and the material relating to this blog begins toward the bottom.
Here is what I posted there tonight:
Fr. John Wauck wrote, "...Pullman is wrong to describe the Church as spending the last 2,000 years advocating a theological position that hasn’t even existed for 2,000 years, that flies in the face of the scriptural text, and that the Church not only never officially taught but also had to combat and condemn on a number of occasions?" From what I understand, Pullman is saying that Christianity has been saying since its inception that sex is bad; the Church surely condemns such a position. I am not sure if Father's comment was meant as a response to my blog and the theory I am defending there. Maybe not, but if it was, that is a misunderstanding of my theory. In fact, my theory doesn't even make sense if marital relations are not good; my theory makes most sense if marital relations are the highest good of the natural world.
The hinge of my theory is that the tree of life is the believing, trusting, obedient, loving heart and that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is marital relations. As far as I am aware, the Church has never condemned such a position. If it has, I need to disavow myself of my error; please let me know. As someone who desires above all to be a faithful son of the Church, I am "prepared to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission of interpreting authentically the Sacred Scriptures and of defending the dogmas of the faithful" (Humani Generis #36). However, at this moment, it is my understanding that my theory has never been condemned; if it has, then there is no further discussion needed.
Marriage is a "great mystery" symbolizing the relationship between Christ and His Church. Nothing is more important, other than the Trinity itself, than the relationship between Christ and His Church, and therefore, there is nothing greater on this earth than marriage. God gives us free will, hides Himself, and tests us to see if we truly trust and love Him. In the Old Testament, there is no one tested as severely as Abraham, other than the man and the woman. His test? He was to kill his only son, the son through whom God promised to give Abraham descendants as many as the sand on the seashore.
He asked our first parents (Eve was only named after the Fall because she has just conceived Cain) to forgo the highest natural good, which is the symbol of the highest supernatural good, to obtain the highest supernatural good. Their trial of faith, which went beyond their intellect, was to tell them to be fruitful and multiply but not to have relations. Relations are good, and that is what the woman saw, but God had a higher gift planned. He wanted to give them more than the symbol (marriage), He wanted to give them the reality (mystical marriage). We are all called to holiness, but there is no holiness without deep prayer; the endpoint of prayer is mystical marriage, and the reason there is no marriage in heaven is because we are all married to God as members of His Body, the Church.
My main point is that God wants you and me as His spouse; He calls each and every one of us to the deep prayer of mystical union. That is true for priest, nun, husband, wife, and single from every occupation.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
Sex is Good
Over the past fifteen years that I have been pondering this theory and meditating upon it, I have shared it with many people, both priests and religious, theologians and lawyers, moms and dads, young and old, single and married, laity and consecrated virgins, writers and publishers, highly educated and not so much, and just about anyone who seemed willing to listen. There has been one main concern mentioned by two of these people, and that was the theory sounds a bit Manichean or that the body and sex is bad.
I understand this concern, but this would be a misunderstanding of the theory. I think that a closer look at the theory will show that my theory would fall apart if sex were bad. On my post of 11/15/07, I talked about how the tree of the knowledge of good and evil must be good for good people to have chosen it. In itself, it must have been a good tree; the man and woman had no inclination toward evil and no disordered passions, so choosing an evil would not have been appealing to them. The deception of the serpent was not getting them to think that the tree was good, but it was getting them to distrust God and to think that disobeying His singular command would be good for them. God had given them an extremely difficult trial of faith, and instead of trusting in Him and eating of the tree of life, they trusted in themselves for life and received death.
What I want to highlight today is that sex is good. It is the highest good of the created order. To be more precise, I mean marital relations or sex between spouses. Any sexual activity outside of marital relations open to life is intrinsically disordered and evil, but the marital embrace open to life is a beautiful and holy reality. It is the symbol of God’s relationship to man. God wants the most intimate union with humanity, and He created the marital embrace to symbolize that heavenly reality. Of course sex is not bad; it is holy and is the most awesome activity of this world. Part of its greatness comes because of it symbolism of Christ and His Church. The reality that sex is a symbol of, will only be fully realized in Heaven with God (although in mystical marriage, some of that reality is given).
Now for those partaking of immoral sexual behavior, which is anything outside of marriage that is open to life, of course that behavior is bad. It is not the sex that is bad, but it is the use of that sex that is bad. A knife is not bad; in and of itself it is good; morally, it is neither good nor bad. If the knife is used to make dinner, it is used well. If the knife is used to murder an innocent person, it is used badly and in an evil manner. Sex is far better than an object like a knife, as I said above, but even the best of things can certainly be used for evil or used in an evil manner.
Sex is meant to be used under very precise and exacting circumstances because it is so good and so powerful. To use some more analogies, it is like dynamite or nuclear power; used in the correct manner, time and place, it brings a fuller life; used in the wrong way, time or place, it brings mass destruction. Sex is like that, too. It always has been like that.
Adam and Eve were tested by God as well as were Abraham and Isaac. Each one of us is tested throughout our lives; many tests are small, and a few are large. The test of virginity (which is what I think Adam and Eve’s test was as well as Mary and Joseph’s) is still a common test today. Every priest and sister and nun has passed through that test. Married couples and singles are all called to chastity, and that is a test and a trial, too. In our sex-crazed society, purity in marriage is a challenge; singles are called to live celibate lives until and if ever they get married: that is a struggle. Many voices today say that it is not even possible or healthy to keep sex only for married couples open to life; certainly, then, this is a test. Things haven’t changed much, and it is in our faithful living according to what God wants (summarized in the Ten Commandments and the two Great Commandments of Jesus), that we please Him and are fully alive.
Mistreating sex as just another appetite to be satiated whenever and with whomever I please, only brings loneliness, separation, sickness, misery, destruction and death. The irony is that those who claim Christianity teaches that sex is evil or bad or dirty, are the ones who treat sex as no big deal; they are the ones who degrade sex and make it like simply blowing one’s nose. It is like using fine china as a Frisbee, or a rose as a hammer, or a Ferrari as a bulldozer. It turns people into objects for use, for pleasure. It degrades humanity. Treating sex as sacred personalizes people and gives them great dignity. The proper use and respect of sex breeds deep and lasting joy, peace and life; without such reverence in the face of such a mystery, there is only discord, divorce, disease and death.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
I understand this concern, but this would be a misunderstanding of the theory. I think that a closer look at the theory will show that my theory would fall apart if sex were bad. On my post of 11/15/07, I talked about how the tree of the knowledge of good and evil must be good for good people to have chosen it. In itself, it must have been a good tree; the man and woman had no inclination toward evil and no disordered passions, so choosing an evil would not have been appealing to them. The deception of the serpent was not getting them to think that the tree was good, but it was getting them to distrust God and to think that disobeying His singular command would be good for them. God had given them an extremely difficult trial of faith, and instead of trusting in Him and eating of the tree of life, they trusted in themselves for life and received death.
What I want to highlight today is that sex is good. It is the highest good of the created order. To be more precise, I mean marital relations or sex between spouses. Any sexual activity outside of marital relations open to life is intrinsically disordered and evil, but the marital embrace open to life is a beautiful and holy reality. It is the symbol of God’s relationship to man. God wants the most intimate union with humanity, and He created the marital embrace to symbolize that heavenly reality. Of course sex is not bad; it is holy and is the most awesome activity of this world. Part of its greatness comes because of it symbolism of Christ and His Church. The reality that sex is a symbol of, will only be fully realized in Heaven with God (although in mystical marriage, some of that reality is given).
Now for those partaking of immoral sexual behavior, which is anything outside of marriage that is open to life, of course that behavior is bad. It is not the sex that is bad, but it is the use of that sex that is bad. A knife is not bad; in and of itself it is good; morally, it is neither good nor bad. If the knife is used to make dinner, it is used well. If the knife is used to murder an innocent person, it is used badly and in an evil manner. Sex is far better than an object like a knife, as I said above, but even the best of things can certainly be used for evil or used in an evil manner.
Sex is meant to be used under very precise and exacting circumstances because it is so good and so powerful. To use some more analogies, it is like dynamite or nuclear power; used in the correct manner, time and place, it brings a fuller life; used in the wrong way, time or place, it brings mass destruction. Sex is like that, too. It always has been like that.
Adam and Eve were tested by God as well as were Abraham and Isaac. Each one of us is tested throughout our lives; many tests are small, and a few are large. The test of virginity (which is what I think Adam and Eve’s test was as well as Mary and Joseph’s) is still a common test today. Every priest and sister and nun has passed through that test. Married couples and singles are all called to chastity, and that is a test and a trial, too. In our sex-crazed society, purity in marriage is a challenge; singles are called to live celibate lives until and if ever they get married: that is a struggle. Many voices today say that it is not even possible or healthy to keep sex only for married couples open to life; certainly, then, this is a test. Things haven’t changed much, and it is in our faithful living according to what God wants (summarized in the Ten Commandments and the two Great Commandments of Jesus), that we please Him and are fully alive.
Mistreating sex as just another appetite to be satiated whenever and with whomever I please, only brings loneliness, separation, sickness, misery, destruction and death. The irony is that those who claim Christianity teaches that sex is evil or bad or dirty, are the ones who treat sex as no big deal; they are the ones who degrade sex and make it like simply blowing one’s nose. It is like using fine china as a Frisbee, or a rose as a hammer, or a Ferrari as a bulldozer. It turns people into objects for use, for pleasure. It degrades humanity. Treating sex as sacred personalizes people and gives them great dignity. The proper use and respect of sex breeds deep and lasting joy, peace and life; without such reverence in the face of such a mystery, there is only discord, divorce, disease and death.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.10.2007
Eucharistic Poem I Wrote in College
I just found this old poem I started on 8/24/1991 and finished 4/9/1992 during my junior year in college. I had forgotten that I had written this. I wrote a few poems in college, and this may be the last one I've written.
RAYS
Small gestures made
A scattering of words spoken
The roaring waterfall pounds down.
The morsel washed away
Vanished from between fingers.
The Sun rises.
Soaked to the bone
We are given something uncontainable
Contained
All glorious and mighty
Hidden.
The Sun’s rays beam through the water
Colors captivating
The universe is naught
‘tis but a making
And it is everything
He who is, has entered it.
The non-nourishing morsel
Lost
Leaves in its place
The Nourisher.
The Sun rises.
Life is lifted.
Soaked to the bone
Kneeling
Overwhelmed
Drawn forth
We hold onto faith.
We rise
We consume
And are consumed.
One we become.
The Sun Has Risen.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
RAYS
Small gestures made
A scattering of words spoken
The roaring waterfall pounds down.
The morsel washed away
Vanished from between fingers.
The Sun rises.
Soaked to the bone
We are given something uncontainable
Contained
All glorious and mighty
Hidden.
The Sun’s rays beam through the water
Colors captivating
The universe is naught
‘tis but a making
And it is everything
He who is, has entered it.
The non-nourishing morsel
Lost
Leaves in its place
The Nourisher.
The Sun rises.
Life is lifted.
Soaked to the bone
Kneeling
Overwhelmed
Drawn forth
We hold onto faith.
We rise
We consume
And are consumed.
One we become.
The Sun Has Risen.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
The Quest for the Son Begins Again
Last night we discussed how Abraham was called back to his ancestral home to reclaim the family’s rightful inheritance; once he established a peace from his enemies round about, the undisputed head of the family, Shem/Melchizedek, comes out to bless Abraham. Shem is also the King of Salem and priest of God Most High who celebrates using bread and wine. It is possible that Salem, which means peace, later becomes Jerusalem when the Hebrew word for “it will be provided” is added as a prefix. It was added later in Abraham’s story when he offers up his only son in chapter twenty-two and says that God Himself will provide the lamb.
Shem was one of a handful of righteous first-born sons, and he is the king of peace in (Jeru)salem who offers bread and wine. Later, in this same location, Abraham/Isaac offer up Isaac, and God provides the lamb. This provision is all fulfilled when the true King of Kings and King of Peace, the true King of Jerusalem comes offering bread and wine; Jesus is the Lamb that God provided on Calvary in the same general location as Mount Moriah where Isaac offered himself up. Isaac was passed over, becoming the reason God provides the Passover to the Israelites in Egypt, and Jesus fulfills all of these prefigurements when He remakes the Passover at the Last Supper which ends with His own self-offering as the Lamb of God upon the cross.
Abraham is blessed by Shem when Abraham retakes the Promised Land, which solidifies the constant quest for the Promised Land by his descendants. The other primary quest now comes to fruition: the quest for a son. The very first thing that is mentioned after the blessing sequence is completed, is that God speaks to Abraham who immediately asks for a son. Blessings/the inheritance are meant to be passed on to one’s son. This is no ordinary blessing but a powerful, life-changing reality, and it is meant for one’s son. Abraham was quite wealthy before, but now that Abraham has been endowed with such a blessing from the patriarch, Shem, he knows he needs a son and so asks for one the first chance he gets. Thus begins anew the quest for the son.
God does not take long to respond: “And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.’ And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:4-6). God wants to give Abraham a son; that was His plan from the beginning and why He called Him to come to his homeland. Abraham trusts God and believes that God will provide him a son, even though he is at the age of 75 and his wife is 65 and has been barren her whole life.
Ten years later, Abraham and Sarah still have not been given a son. There are key parallels to this story and the Adam and Eve story. Here Abraham and Sarah, with the God-given promise of a son, have been given something like the command to be fruitful and multiply. They have not been given the command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but they are tempted to have a child outside of the ordinary way children come to couples. In both stories, the husband listens to the voice of his wife and sins. Both tried to fulfill God’s will by their own strength instead of allowing God to provide the son. Eve conceived Cain, and Hagar conceived Ishmael. Neither was the son God promised.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
Shem was one of a handful of righteous first-born sons, and he is the king of peace in (Jeru)salem who offers bread and wine. Later, in this same location, Abraham/Isaac offer up Isaac, and God provides the lamb. This provision is all fulfilled when the true King of Kings and King of Peace, the true King of Jerusalem comes offering bread and wine; Jesus is the Lamb that God provided on Calvary in the same general location as Mount Moriah where Isaac offered himself up. Isaac was passed over, becoming the reason God provides the Passover to the Israelites in Egypt, and Jesus fulfills all of these prefigurements when He remakes the Passover at the Last Supper which ends with His own self-offering as the Lamb of God upon the cross.
Abraham is blessed by Shem when Abraham retakes the Promised Land, which solidifies the constant quest for the Promised Land by his descendants. The other primary quest now comes to fruition: the quest for a son. The very first thing that is mentioned after the blessing sequence is completed, is that God speaks to Abraham who immediately asks for a son. Blessings/the inheritance are meant to be passed on to one’s son. This is no ordinary blessing but a powerful, life-changing reality, and it is meant for one’s son. Abraham was quite wealthy before, but now that Abraham has been endowed with such a blessing from the patriarch, Shem, he knows he needs a son and so asks for one the first chance he gets. Thus begins anew the quest for the son.
God does not take long to respond: “And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.’ And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:4-6). God wants to give Abraham a son; that was His plan from the beginning and why He called Him to come to his homeland. Abraham trusts God and believes that God will provide him a son, even though he is at the age of 75 and his wife is 65 and has been barren her whole life.
Ten years later, Abraham and Sarah still have not been given a son. There are key parallels to this story and the Adam and Eve story. Here Abraham and Sarah, with the God-given promise of a son, have been given something like the command to be fruitful and multiply. They have not been given the command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but they are tempted to have a child outside of the ordinary way children come to couples. In both stories, the husband listens to the voice of his wife and sins. Both tried to fulfill God’s will by their own strength instead of allowing God to provide the son. Eve conceived Cain, and Hagar conceived Ishmael. Neither was the son God promised.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
Canaan Stole Shem's Promised Land
Continuing the discussion from two days ago, Ham attempted a takeover of the family by sleeping with his mother, and Canaan was the fruit of his action. Noah curses Canaan, and then he blesses Shem in the very next verse: “Blessed by the LORD my God be Shem;
and let Canaan be his slave” (Genesis 9:26).
The blessing is a big deal; later, we see Esau and Jacob doing whatever they can to get the blessing from their father, Isaac. Shem gets the blessing, and then we no longer hear of the blessing until 290 years, ten generations, later when Abraham gets blessed by Melchizedek saying, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth” (Genesis 14:19).
Melchizedek is probably not a person’s given birth-name but a title-name. The letter to the Hebrews says of him that, “He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace” (Hebrews 7:2). So if Melchizedek isn’t his birth-name, who is he? Hebrews is not arguing that Melchizedek had no genealogy but that he did not have the correct Levitical genealogy required to be a Levitical Priest. The argument is about which is the enduring priesthood, and the answer is the bread-and-wine priesthood of Melchizedek.
Since Melchizedek is someone other than Melchizedek, and he is someone who possesses the blessing, could he be Shem, the last one we heard about who was blessed? Shem lived 210 years after the birth of Abraham, so he was around.
I’ll tell you what I think. Shem was blessed and given the inheritance, but the Canaanites and the Hamites continued to try to take over his inheritance. Shem’s descendants moved away to avoid the conflict, leaving Shem mostly on his own but still the king of Salem. Shem’s inheritance, the land promised to him, is taken by the Canaanites and becomes known as the land of Canaan. The land of Canaan is really Shem’s rightful inheritance stolen by Canaan and his family.
Abraham is called back to this land by God to retrieve it for God’s chosen people. As soon as Abraham defeats the four kings who had defeated the five kings in that region, becoming a sort of king of kings in what later will be called Israel, Melchizedek comes out to bless him. When Abraham reasserts authority over his family’s rightful inheritance over against the Canaanites, it is then that the ultimate family father, Shem, comes out to pass on the family blessing and inheritance. Abraham comes to set his people free and to regain the lost inheritance, and so he is blessed and made the new head of the family of God by the former head, Shem.
The Promised Land was controlled by the Canaanites because they had usurped it from Shem’s family. Abraham reasserted his familial claim, and so was made the family’s new head. This is all symbolic and a representation of the battle between humans and demons. The demons are jealous of us and seek to keep us from our God-given inheritance, heaven. The Promised Land is one of the strongest symbols of heaven, and through the disobedience of our first parents and the deceit of the devil, we lost our inheritance.
We have been trying to regain it ever since; this is represented in the Old Testament by the continual quest for the Promised Land. Abraham was the first one to reclaim it; David is the next one to get peace from his enemies round about, and then God makes a covenant with him promising that one of David’s descendants will reign on his throne forever. Jesus is the fulfillment of these prefigurements, for He definitively retakes heaven and opens its doors for all who are united to Him.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
and let Canaan be his slave” (Genesis 9:26).
The blessing is a big deal; later, we see Esau and Jacob doing whatever they can to get the blessing from their father, Isaac. Shem gets the blessing, and then we no longer hear of the blessing until 290 years, ten generations, later when Abraham gets blessed by Melchizedek saying, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth” (Genesis 14:19).
Melchizedek is probably not a person’s given birth-name but a title-name. The letter to the Hebrews says of him that, “He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace” (Hebrews 7:2). So if Melchizedek isn’t his birth-name, who is he? Hebrews is not arguing that Melchizedek had no genealogy but that he did not have the correct Levitical genealogy required to be a Levitical Priest. The argument is about which is the enduring priesthood, and the answer is the bread-and-wine priesthood of Melchizedek.
Since Melchizedek is someone other than Melchizedek, and he is someone who possesses the blessing, could he be Shem, the last one we heard about who was blessed? Shem lived 210 years after the birth of Abraham, so he was around.
I’ll tell you what I think. Shem was blessed and given the inheritance, but the Canaanites and the Hamites continued to try to take over his inheritance. Shem’s descendants moved away to avoid the conflict, leaving Shem mostly on his own but still the king of Salem. Shem’s inheritance, the land promised to him, is taken by the Canaanites and becomes known as the land of Canaan. The land of Canaan is really Shem’s rightful inheritance stolen by Canaan and his family.
Abraham is called back to this land by God to retrieve it for God’s chosen people. As soon as Abraham defeats the four kings who had defeated the five kings in that region, becoming a sort of king of kings in what later will be called Israel, Melchizedek comes out to bless him. When Abraham reasserts authority over his family’s rightful inheritance over against the Canaanites, it is then that the ultimate family father, Shem, comes out to pass on the family blessing and inheritance. Abraham comes to set his people free and to regain the lost inheritance, and so he is blessed and made the new head of the family of God by the former head, Shem.
The Promised Land was controlled by the Canaanites because they had usurped it from Shem’s family. Abraham reasserted his familial claim, and so was made the family’s new head. This is all symbolic and a representation of the battle between humans and demons. The demons are jealous of us and seek to keep us from our God-given inheritance, heaven. The Promised Land is one of the strongest symbols of heaven, and through the disobedience of our first parents and the deceit of the devil, we lost our inheritance.
We have been trying to regain it ever since; this is represented in the Old Testament by the continual quest for the Promised Land. Abraham was the first one to reclaim it; David is the next one to get peace from his enemies round about, and then God makes a covenant with him promising that one of David’s descendants will reign on his throne forever. Jesus is the fulfillment of these prefigurements, for He definitively retakes heaven and opens its doors for all who are united to Him.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.08.2007
"I am the Immaculate Conception"
Blessed Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception!
A few years after the Church, over 150 years ago, declared that Mary was the Immaculate Conception, Mary appeared to Saint Bernadette in France telling her: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” She does not say, “I was immaculately conceived,” but, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” No other human person can say this. Jesus is fully human and divine, but He is not a human person; He is one person, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, to which He has united two natures: a human one and His divine one. Jesus, in His divinity, was not conceived for He proceeded from the Father; his humanity was immaculately conceived, but His divine personhood has always proceeded from the Father. Properly speaking, Jesus cannot say, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
The night before Saint Maximillian Kolbe was taken away by the Gestapo to his eventual death at Auschwitz where he offered his life in place of another, He received a new insight into Mary and the Holy Spirit; it was the last thing he wrote. He said Mary is the created Immaculate Conception and the Holy Spirit is the Uncreated Immaculate Conception. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and in that way could be said to be conceived. One of the titles of Mary is Spouse of the Holy Spirit; Maximillian said that as they are both Immaculate Conception, Mary is an image of the Holy Spirit in a way similar to spouses who look like one another.
The grace for Mary to be the created Immaculate Conception came through the Redemption Jesus won on the cross; Jesus saved his mother from the stain of sin when He created her, making her the Immaculate Conception. His Redemption, the center and focal point of human history, opened the treasure chest of graces, so to speak, and He used those gifts to redeem His own mother whom He created. She, then, becomes the New Eve who passes the test and acts as a true rib protecting the heart, protecting the tree of life, encouraging her Son to trust, love and obey God even to the shedding of His blood on a tree.
Jesus, being God, obeys the Ten Commandments perfectly; as such, He would obey the fourth commandment, too. He would obey and honor his parents perfectly, both His Heavenly Father as well as His human parents, Joseph and Mary. Of course, Joseph and Mary were perpetual virgins, and this virginity was the test God gave them to see if they loved and trusted Him to the point of death (for virginity was considered death). There reward for eating of the tree of life in their acceptance of virginity was to become the parents of the Son of God and of the entire human race. They were rewarded with the very thing they gave up. We know that Mary was the true mother of Jesus; I think that Joseph, too, was, in a certain way, the true father of Jesus. We call him the foster father of Jesus so people don’t think that Jesus was conceived in a carnal way, but in the spiritual realm, Joseph is more a father to Jesus than I am to my five kids because Jesus was given Joseph by God when Joseph gave up that which he desired most on this earth: a child.
Since Jesus perfectly obeyed the fourth commandment, Mary had a certain authority over her Divine Son. If she had asked or demanded Jesus to not die on the cross, that might have been a problem for His fulfilling the fourth commandment. To a degree, Mary had to allow Jesus to suffer and die an ignominious death; at any time along the way she could have approached Him and ordered Him to call on legions of angels to deliver Him and instantly annihilate all His enemies. She didn’t do that. She stayed close by His side, encouraging Him along the way to lay down His life for His beloved.
Since Mary had already suffered her own crucifixion when she accepted perpetual virginity which usually means not having children, since she had already not put her trust in the powers of the body, she was able to be the rib and encourage Jesus to give up His entire body on the tree. As the beginning of the betrayal of Adam began with a kiss in a garden after the beloved consulted with the enemy, so the beginning of Jesus’ betrayal began with a kiss in the garden by one of his beloved friends who had consulted with the enemy. The first betrayer was Eve, and the second was Judas. The New Eve, Mary, does what both should have done and trusted in God for life and given up the body of her husband. Eve clung to Adam’s body and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; the New Eve ate of the tree of life, clinging to God, and allowed her spiritual husband, Jesus, to offer his body unto death on the tree. Eve ushered in death for all her children, the human race; Mary ushered in life for all her children, the human race.
On this great feast day let us call upon our Mother, the Rib, to protect our heart, to protect our tree of life, so that we may always trust and obey God and be ready to lay down our life for our beloved. Mary always leads us to imitate her Son; she always leads us ever closer to Jesus; she is always ready to help us, when we ask her, to avoid sin; she is our mother, and her primary desire for us is to be there for us to encourage us to pick up our cross and follow Jesus to our very own crucifixion. Fully entrust yourself into her loving, motherly arms in a special way this feast day, and she will make sure you reach your destination—the Promised Land of Heaven.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
A few years after the Church, over 150 years ago, declared that Mary was the Immaculate Conception, Mary appeared to Saint Bernadette in France telling her: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” She does not say, “I was immaculately conceived,” but, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” No other human person can say this. Jesus is fully human and divine, but He is not a human person; He is one person, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, to which He has united two natures: a human one and His divine one. Jesus, in His divinity, was not conceived for He proceeded from the Father; his humanity was immaculately conceived, but His divine personhood has always proceeded from the Father. Properly speaking, Jesus cannot say, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
The night before Saint Maximillian Kolbe was taken away by the Gestapo to his eventual death at Auschwitz where he offered his life in place of another, He received a new insight into Mary and the Holy Spirit; it was the last thing he wrote. He said Mary is the created Immaculate Conception and the Holy Spirit is the Uncreated Immaculate Conception. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and in that way could be said to be conceived. One of the titles of Mary is Spouse of the Holy Spirit; Maximillian said that as they are both Immaculate Conception, Mary is an image of the Holy Spirit in a way similar to spouses who look like one another.
The grace for Mary to be the created Immaculate Conception came through the Redemption Jesus won on the cross; Jesus saved his mother from the stain of sin when He created her, making her the Immaculate Conception. His Redemption, the center and focal point of human history, opened the treasure chest of graces, so to speak, and He used those gifts to redeem His own mother whom He created. She, then, becomes the New Eve who passes the test and acts as a true rib protecting the heart, protecting the tree of life, encouraging her Son to trust, love and obey God even to the shedding of His blood on a tree.
Jesus, being God, obeys the Ten Commandments perfectly; as such, He would obey the fourth commandment, too. He would obey and honor his parents perfectly, both His Heavenly Father as well as His human parents, Joseph and Mary. Of course, Joseph and Mary were perpetual virgins, and this virginity was the test God gave them to see if they loved and trusted Him to the point of death (for virginity was considered death). There reward for eating of the tree of life in their acceptance of virginity was to become the parents of the Son of God and of the entire human race. They were rewarded with the very thing they gave up. We know that Mary was the true mother of Jesus; I think that Joseph, too, was, in a certain way, the true father of Jesus. We call him the foster father of Jesus so people don’t think that Jesus was conceived in a carnal way, but in the spiritual realm, Joseph is more a father to Jesus than I am to my five kids because Jesus was given Joseph by God when Joseph gave up that which he desired most on this earth: a child.
Since Jesus perfectly obeyed the fourth commandment, Mary had a certain authority over her Divine Son. If she had asked or demanded Jesus to not die on the cross, that might have been a problem for His fulfilling the fourth commandment. To a degree, Mary had to allow Jesus to suffer and die an ignominious death; at any time along the way she could have approached Him and ordered Him to call on legions of angels to deliver Him and instantly annihilate all His enemies. She didn’t do that. She stayed close by His side, encouraging Him along the way to lay down His life for His beloved.
Since Mary had already suffered her own crucifixion when she accepted perpetual virginity which usually means not having children, since she had already not put her trust in the powers of the body, she was able to be the rib and encourage Jesus to give up His entire body on the tree. As the beginning of the betrayal of Adam began with a kiss in a garden after the beloved consulted with the enemy, so the beginning of Jesus’ betrayal began with a kiss in the garden by one of his beloved friends who had consulted with the enemy. The first betrayer was Eve, and the second was Judas. The New Eve, Mary, does what both should have done and trusted in God for life and given up the body of her husband. Eve clung to Adam’s body and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; the New Eve ate of the tree of life, clinging to God, and allowed her spiritual husband, Jesus, to offer his body unto death on the tree. Eve ushered in death for all her children, the human race; Mary ushered in life for all her children, the human race.
On this great feast day let us call upon our Mother, the Rib, to protect our heart, to protect our tree of life, so that we may always trust and obey God and be ready to lay down our life for our beloved. Mary always leads us to imitate her Son; she always leads us ever closer to Jesus; she is always ready to help us, when we ask her, to avoid sin; she is our mother, and her primary desire for us is to be there for us to encourage us to pick up our cross and follow Jesus to our very own crucifixion. Fully entrust yourself into her loving, motherly arms in a special way this feast day, and she will make sure you reach your destination—the Promised Land of Heaven.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
The Quest for the Promised Land: Part 1
The question I will address tonight is why does God promise to give Abraham and his descendants the Promised Land? This question ties together with another question, why is there this never-ending quest for the Promised Land?
To examine the first question, we have to start by looking at who occupies the Promised Land. It is known as the land of Canaan. Who are the Canaanites? Where did they come from? Who was Canaan? We have to look back to Genesis 9:18 where Noah’s three sons are mentioned for the first time after getting out of the ark: “The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan.”
A few verses later it says, “Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent” (9:20-21) The sense of the Hebrew word translated “uncovered” means one’s private parts are exposed. The passage continues with the second mention of Canaan: “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside” (9:22).
What is the big deal? Noah gets so angry with Ham for seeing his nakedness that he proclaims: “Cursed be Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers” (9:25). Noah curses his grandson! Whoa! Either Noah is some ultra-sensitive wacko who is both extremely insecure about his own son seeing him naked and highly vindictive to the merely guilty-by-association, or there is something going on which is more than meets the eye. Let’s see what it was that Ham saw.
Our clues lie in Leviticus 18. This chapter opens up with God warning the Israelites not to do what the Canaanites do: “you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes” (Lev 18:3). “Ok, ok,” we could respond to God, “we won’t do what they do in Canaan. We will follow you, O Lord.” We would be wondering, “What exactly do they do in Canaan?”
God continues: “None of you shall approach any one near of kin to him to uncover nakedness. I am the LORD. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness” (18:6-8). Seeing one’s nakedness is to have sexual relations with them. When Ham sees his father’s nakedness, that is an idiom saying that he had sexual relations with his mother.
Ham sinned with his mother when she was not protected by her drunken husband, but why is Canaan cursed? Why isn’t Ham cursed? Canaan was the fruit of the union of Ham with his mother. The Canaanites’ religion was based in cult prostitution and incest; it was an incestuous fertility cult. A people celebrates their beginning and origin, so the Canaanites celebrated their incestuous coming-into-being in their worship. This is why God warned the Israelites before they entered into this land.
Why would Ham do that? It was an attempt to take control of the family and lay claim to a double portion of the inheritance. Normally, that automatically goes to the first-born son. Shem was the first-born, and Ham wanted what was due Shem. The mentality seems to be: whoever is sleeping with the mother of the household is the head of the family.
Absalom did a very similar thing to his father, David. David had many sons, and Absalom wanted to be his successor instead of any of his brothers. “Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, ‘Give your counsel; what shall we do?’ Ahithophel said to Absalom, ‘Go in to your father’s concubines, whom he has left to keep the house; and all Israel will hear that you have made yourself odious to your father, and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened.’ So they pitched a tent for Absalom upon the roof; and Absalom went in to his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel” (2 Sam.16:20-22).
Another one of David’s sons, Adonijah, tries to take over as the next king. His plan does not work and Solomon is anointed as the new king. A little later, Adonijah asks his brother Solomon, the new king, to give him one of David’s wives, and Solomon responds: “And why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also; for he is my elder brother, and on his side are Abiathar the priest and Joab the son of Zeruiah” (1 Kgs 2:22). If Adonijah has as wife one of his father’s wives, he could try again to take the kingship.
Earlier, Jacob’s first-born son, Reuben, does the very same thing, going into Bilhah, one of his father’s concubines (Gen 35:22) Although Reuben was Jacob’s firstborn, the son of Leah, his first wife, Jacob did not fully consider Reuben the first-born. Jacob was tricked on his wedding night by his father-in-law; he thought he was marrying the love of his life, Rachel, but Leah was given him instead. He loved Rachel, so he ended up marrying both. The two women had a baby competition, and to try to get ahead, they use their maids to have more children. Jacob had his twelve sons through four women.
The inheritance was going to go to Joseph since Jacob considered him to be his first-born, being the first child of the one he considered his real wife, Rachel. Bilhah was the maid of Rachel by whom Jacob had two sons. So Reuben tried to take what he considered rightfully his (the inheritance) by sleeping with the mother of the competition. Before Jacob dies, he blesses his sons; to Reuben he says: “Reuben, you are my first-born, my might, and the first fruits of my strength, pre-eminent in pride and pre-eminent in power. Unstable as water, you shall not have pre-eminence because you went up to your father’s bed; then you defiled it—you went up to my couch!” (49:3-4)
Canaan is the result of Ham’s attempt to take over control of the family. It is his descendants who live in the Promised Land. I will have to continue the explanation tomorrow.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
To examine the first question, we have to start by looking at who occupies the Promised Land. It is known as the land of Canaan. Who are the Canaanites? Where did they come from? Who was Canaan? We have to look back to Genesis 9:18 where Noah’s three sons are mentioned for the first time after getting out of the ark: “The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan.”
A few verses later it says, “Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent” (9:20-21) The sense of the Hebrew word translated “uncovered” means one’s private parts are exposed. The passage continues with the second mention of Canaan: “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside” (9:22).
What is the big deal? Noah gets so angry with Ham for seeing his nakedness that he proclaims: “Cursed be Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers” (9:25). Noah curses his grandson! Whoa! Either Noah is some ultra-sensitive wacko who is both extremely insecure about his own son seeing him naked and highly vindictive to the merely guilty-by-association, or there is something going on which is more than meets the eye. Let’s see what it was that Ham saw.
Our clues lie in Leviticus 18. This chapter opens up with God warning the Israelites not to do what the Canaanites do: “you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes” (Lev 18:3). “Ok, ok,” we could respond to God, “we won’t do what they do in Canaan. We will follow you, O Lord.” We would be wondering, “What exactly do they do in Canaan?”
God continues: “None of you shall approach any one near of kin to him to uncover nakedness. I am the LORD. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness” (18:6-8). Seeing one’s nakedness is to have sexual relations with them. When Ham sees his father’s nakedness, that is an idiom saying that he had sexual relations with his mother.
Ham sinned with his mother when she was not protected by her drunken husband, but why is Canaan cursed? Why isn’t Ham cursed? Canaan was the fruit of the union of Ham with his mother. The Canaanites’ religion was based in cult prostitution and incest; it was an incestuous fertility cult. A people celebrates their beginning and origin, so the Canaanites celebrated their incestuous coming-into-being in their worship. This is why God warned the Israelites before they entered into this land.
Why would Ham do that? It was an attempt to take control of the family and lay claim to a double portion of the inheritance. Normally, that automatically goes to the first-born son. Shem was the first-born, and Ham wanted what was due Shem. The mentality seems to be: whoever is sleeping with the mother of the household is the head of the family.
Absalom did a very similar thing to his father, David. David had many sons, and Absalom wanted to be his successor instead of any of his brothers. “Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, ‘Give your counsel; what shall we do?’ Ahithophel said to Absalom, ‘Go in to your father’s concubines, whom he has left to keep the house; and all Israel will hear that you have made yourself odious to your father, and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened.’ So they pitched a tent for Absalom upon the roof; and Absalom went in to his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel” (2 Sam.16:20-22).
Another one of David’s sons, Adonijah, tries to take over as the next king. His plan does not work and Solomon is anointed as the new king. A little later, Adonijah asks his brother Solomon, the new king, to give him one of David’s wives, and Solomon responds: “And why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also; for he is my elder brother, and on his side are Abiathar the priest and Joab the son of Zeruiah” (1 Kgs 2:22). If Adonijah has as wife one of his father’s wives, he could try again to take the kingship.
Earlier, Jacob’s first-born son, Reuben, does the very same thing, going into Bilhah, one of his father’s concubines (Gen 35:22) Although Reuben was Jacob’s firstborn, the son of Leah, his first wife, Jacob did not fully consider Reuben the first-born. Jacob was tricked on his wedding night by his father-in-law; he thought he was marrying the love of his life, Rachel, but Leah was given him instead. He loved Rachel, so he ended up marrying both. The two women had a baby competition, and to try to get ahead, they use their maids to have more children. Jacob had his twelve sons through four women.
The inheritance was going to go to Joseph since Jacob considered him to be his first-born, being the first child of the one he considered his real wife, Rachel. Bilhah was the maid of Rachel by whom Jacob had two sons. So Reuben tried to take what he considered rightfully his (the inheritance) by sleeping with the mother of the competition. Before Jacob dies, he blesses his sons; to Reuben he says: “Reuben, you are my first-born, my might, and the first fruits of my strength, pre-eminent in pride and pre-eminent in power. Unstable as water, you shall not have pre-eminence because you went up to your father’s bed; then you defiled it—you went up to my couch!” (49:3-4)
Canaan is the result of Ham’s attempt to take over control of the family. It is his descendants who live in the Promised Land. I will have to continue the explanation tomorrow.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
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