Considering Nakedness

In preparing my sermon on the sin of Ham (and Noah), I was reminded of the Seinfeld episode when Jerry had a new girlfriend who liked to be naked.  There was “good” naked, and “bad” naked.  Jerry sadly discovered that his “bad” naked moment was enough to drive off the girlfriend with whom he tried to connect over nakedness.

In the account of Genesis 9:18ff, Noah inadvertently became drunk and lay “uncovered” inside his tent.  Ham, his youngest son, saw his “nakedness.”  He is contrasted with his brothers who refused to look upon their drunk and naked father.  This was clearly an example of “bad” naked.

We struggle with nakedness, at least most of us do.  We really don’t want people to see us naked.  I’m thinking of the guy next to me in the restroom yesterday who tried to fit his entire body into the urinal lest anyone get an inadvertent glimpse of his stuff.  Very few of us are exhibitionists.  Male exhibitionists tend to get arrest, and female exhibitionists tend to get jobs- but that is a different discussion.  Why do we struggle with naked?

In Genesis 2 we read this:

25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

The word for naked in this pre-fall state is ‘arom.  It indicates a lack of concealment or disguise.  This is a good exposure- the type necessary for intimacy.  There was no shame associated with this.  Neither tried to hide, or said “ick”.  It was, very good.

Pere Mates

After they disobeyed God, Adam and Eve realized they were naked.  They were suddenly not so comfortable, and concealed their private parts from one another (even though they were married).  Then they hid from God out of fear.  They felt shame.  Something was different about this naked.

The word is different, though from the same root.  ‘erom has the sense of being defenseless, weak or humiliated.  It is clearly “bad” naked.

I recalled a series of letters to the editor years ago.  I responded to an advocate of public nudity.  He didn’t think there was anything wrong with walking around naked.  He was thinking Genesis 2 naked.  But the reality of the matter is that we now experience Genesis 3 naked.  Oh, we have glimpses of the Genesis 2 kind in the marriage bed, and no reasonable person freaks out if they bathe their young children or are seen by their young children.  But the rest of the time….

The problem is not with our bodies, though some of us have body image issues.  I currently “feel” fat since I’ve never weighed this much.  I see the added weight, but appear reasonably thin compared to the rest of humanity aside from those who struggle with anorexia.    If someone besides my family sees me naked, I find it quite uncomfortable.  I feel exposed and more vulnerable than I want to be.  And it isn’t even like middle school gym class with the group showers- seriously uncomfortable!

I was in the pool!

The point I made to the sparring partner was that the problem is in the human heart, not the human body.  Sinful hearts take the nakedness of others into dangerous places.  On one side there is mockery.  Seinfeld comes to mind again.  This time poor George was seen by another one of Jerry’s girlfriends while undressing.  He quickly declares “I was in the pool!  I was in the pool!”  Some people can’t be trusted with our nakedness, it doesn’t meet their standards and they can mock our weight, flab, effects of time & gravity etc.

What I had in mind was how the sinful heart lusts after the nakedness of others.  Correct, we don’t have to see anyone naked to lust after them.  That seemed to happen in ancient Israel even though they were covered from head to foot.  Now we deal with shorts, low necklines, bikinis, thongs and a whole lot more.  But seeing another naked, in person, photos or film, can stir up lust in us.  This is the problem.

We aren’t sure which of the problems Ham had.  But his descendants, the Canaanites, went after anything that moved.  They were enslaved to their sexual lust and crossed numerous boundaries, including prostitutes in worship.  They just couldn’t handle any naked.  There was no good naked for them, they turned it all into sexual immorality of one kind or another. From God’s perspective, all their naked was bad naked, though they thought it good.

We have a hard time understanding Noah’s day.  We are surrounded by nudity.  At least it seems that way sometimes.  I have to cover up Victoria’s Secret ads to look at my e-mail.  News sights have scantily clad people in ads, and stories are about celebrities in various states of undress.  We are almost used to seeing people naked (famous ones anyway, not necessarily the couple 3 doors down).  We are so used to how are hearts twist it, we don’t even notice anymore.

Modesty is sadly out of fashion.  We assume our own modesty, and think only those less modest are immodest.  But part of piety is modesty.  Not frumpy- but covered.  Wendy Shalit’s A Return to Modesty reveals a growing movement that needs to grow further.  Modesty recognizes that all of us struggle with sinful hearts.  Therefore we seek to protect others from their sinful hearts by not revealing too much of ourselves.  We also guard our hearts which can want to approval of lustful stares.  This is something that bears more consideration.