Nobody's Perfect- Noah in the Vineyard

It's hard to imagine someone as faithful and righteous as Noah, passed out drunk and naked inside his tent, but alas that is exactly what takes place in this story.  Though Noah was the only man God chose to save from the flood along with his family,  and though he was the one whom God chose to establish a covenant with, he made mistakes too!  Such as sampling too much of the wine from the vineyard he planted! Moral:  We are all human and we all sin. 

I know several people who would find that statement disempowering.  Original Sin is one of the main religious concepts that influenced my mother to leave the Catholic Church.  I actually find that Truth to be a relief.  We often demand perfection of ourselves.  I know from my own experiences and thoughts that I am often consumed with the idea of being the perfect wife, mother, friend, career woman etc.  But to err is human, and it is from making these mistakes that we learn some of our greatest lessons in life.  Noah's silly mistake is simply a reminder that he stumbled like the rest of us do.  Therefore, if Noah was just like the rest of us, there is also potential for us to have great Faith as he did, despite our natural human errors. :) 

Not only is this portion of Scripture able to teach us about our own tendency towards sin, but the importance of how we react to the mistakes of others as well.  Noah had three sons; Ham, Shem, and Japheth.  It was Ham, the father or Canaan, who was the first to discover his father intoxicated and exposed inside the tent.  Instead of covering him with blankets, and keeping quiet about his father's error, the first thing he did was to go outside and tell his two brothers.  How many times have we heard some juicy gossip about someone in our community and instead of keeping quiet about it; we chose to talk about it behind that person's back? If we are honest with ourselves, we can admit that at one time or another in our lives we made the same choice as Ham did that day in the vineyard.  Ham's two brothers took the high road, and not wanting to shame their father, walked backwards into the tent (so as not to see his nakedness) and covered their father's body.

When Noah came to his senses and realized what had taken placed he both cursed his youngest son for talking of his shame to others, and praised his 2 eldest sons for making a kinder decision.  I am guessing that his words are prophetic and foreshadow the difficulties which will arise later for Canaan's descendants.

"Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers."

He also said,

"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Shem!
May Canaan be the slave of Shem.
May God extend Japheth's territory;
may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,
and may Canaan be the slave of Japheth."
 ~Genesis 9:25-27

I suppose we will find out later in Scripture  how history plays out for these three branches of Noah's descendants!