Reflections on Dissections: S5E14 — “XXX.” pt. 1a
This post is a companion to Dissect Podcast Season 5 Episode 14
In the last post, see discussed how Kenny turned away from his pursuit of sex and money and toward the blessings of a committed relationship with his girl. As the song ended, Kenny seemed to be on “the Way” to following Jesus’s example of humility and self-sacrificial love. However, as we noted, Kenny does not seem to have arrived. Most notably, although Kenny has committed to loving his girl he has yet to display an ability to love his enemies. Similarly, while Kenny has turned away from his pursuit of sex and money, it is yet to be seen whether he has turned away from his inclinations toward murder. Indeed, the title “XXX.” — which seems to refer the rating given to films which incite violence — suggests that Kenny’s inclination to commit murder remains as strong as ever. We may question why this particular vice is so hard for Kenny to overcome. However, to understand the more destructive aspect of Kenny’s psyche, it would seem that we needed to understand the collective psyche of America.
America, God bless you if it’s good to you
America, please take my hand
Can you help me underst —
“XXX.” opens with a reference to “God Bless America” — a famous patriotic song which begins with the lyrics:
God bless America, land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with the light from above- From “God Bless America”
In these lyrics, the writer personifies America as a woman and prays for God to bless her by guiding her toward the light. The implication here is that God is the one who sees what is good and is thus able to provide blessings for human individuals and societies. The idea that humans depend on God’s blessing and wisdom about what is good is one of the central points of the first chapter of the Bible.
In Genesis chapter 1, God creates the land and the skies in the span of seven days. On each day, God creates one or more features of the world and in seven instances after his creative act, God sees that what He has made is “good”
“Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.”
- Genesis 1:3-4
“Then God said, ‘Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear’; and it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.”
- Genesis 1:9-10
“Then God said, ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them’; and it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.”
- Genesis 1:11–12
“God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.”
- Genesis 1:16-18
“God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.”
- Genesis 1:21
“God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.”
- Genesis 1:25
“God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them… God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”
- Genesis 1:27, 31
In addition to seeing that the created world is good, God also blesses the living creatures — first the animals and then the humans — so that they can spread their goodness across the entire earth.
“God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’”
Genesis 1:22 NASB
“God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
Genesis 1:28 NASB
Through this repetitive structure centered around the words “good” and “bless”, Genesis 1, firmly established that God is the one who determines what is good and blesses all living creatures by providing what is good. However, if we examine the first line of “XXX.” in which Kenny raps “God bless you if it’s good to you,” it is interesting to note that America is the one who gets to decide what is good. America will only accept God’s blessings on its own terms and may in some cases America may decide to reject God’s blessing.
Fittingly, this idea of America personified as a woman who decides what is good in her own eyes directly parallels the second and third chapters of Genesis. In those chapters, God plants a garden in a place called Eden, which in Hebrew means “delight”. God then places a prototypical human in the garden and forms a woman to partner with the man to enjoy all of the good things that God has created. In order for the man and woman to continue enjoying the delightful garden, God informs the humans that they must refrain from eating the fruit from the tree of knowing good and evil. God warns them that if they eat the fruit from that tree, they will die.
At first, the humans obey God’s only commandment. However, one day a snake approaches the woman and suggests that if she eats the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil she can become like God. The woman then reconsiders whether she should make her own decision about what is good.
“When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.”
- Genesis 3:6
In this passage, we see that the woman ceased to rely on God’s assessment of what was good and instead decided for herself that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was “good for food.” She then proceeded to eat the fruit and give it to her husband also ate the fruit without any objection. As a result of this decision, generations of humans would be cursed to endure an existence with strife and conflict.
The Garden of Eden narrative thus suggests that if America continues to indulge in whatever it determines to be good, eventually such indulgence will lead to conflict. Fittingly, conflict will become one of the most central themes of “XXX.” as we continue to see in Kenny’s first lines on the track.
Throw a steak off the ark to a pool full of sharks
He’ll take it
On the surface, this line appears to be a boast which suggests that Kenny is savage enough to wrestle a piece of meat from the jaws of sharks. However, on a deeper level, Kenny seems to be offering self-critique by way of a biblical reference. In particular, Kenny makes a reference to the biblical story of Noah from the book of Genesis. In that story, God was grieved to see that the wickedness of humanity was devastating the created world. In response, God decided to send a cosmic flood to wash the land clean of all humans and animals.
However, God decided to spare the family of one blameless man named Noah. God told Noah to build a large boat — often referred to as an ark. God then told Noah to take a single pair of animals — one male and one female — from each species on the land and bring them along with his family onto the ark. The implication was that after the flood drowned all life on the earth, Noah, his children, and the animals on the ark would repopulate the earth.
Thus when Kenny raps about taking a steak out of the mouths of the beasts swimming around the ark, he is revealing how his unrestrained appetite can inspire him towards destructive behavior — such as eating one of the last two cows on the earth and driving a whole species into extinction.
This thematic exploration of power and appetite continues into the next line where Kenny raps
Leave him in the wilderness with a sworn nemesis,
He’ll make it
On the surface, this line seems to be a boast about Kenny’s ability to survive through harsh conditions even if it requires him to eliminate any human enemy who stands on his way.
However, it should also be noted that the wilderness is one of the most iconic spatial motifs throughout the Bible. After God used Moses to free the Israelites from slavery and lead them through waters of the Sea of Reeds, God them led the Israelites into the wilderness where they had to rely on God in order to survive. However, the Israelites repeated failed to trust God and thus had to wander in the wilderness for forty years before entering the promised land.
In a similar pattern, the New Testament gospel accounts detail how God brought Jesus through the waters of baptism and subsequently led Jesus into the wilderness to fast and pray for forty days. After forty days of fasting, a figure known as the False Accuser (Greek: Diabolus, English: Devil) appeared and tempted Jesus to turn stone into bread so that he could eat.
This temptation to eat in violation of God’s command was essentially the same temptation that the woman in the Garden of Eden faced. However, rather than choosing to do what was good to him, Jesus quoted words that God spoke through Moses during his farewell speech in Deuteronomy
You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, so that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.
- Deuteronomy 8:2–3
This quote reveals that humans cannot find true life when they focus on their base appetites. As we discussed in our post on “LUST.”, those who focus on base appetites may eventually be driven to fight against their human enemies so that their appetites can be satisfied.
Hence, Jesus 40 day fast seems to be part of what enabled Jesus to recognize that the spiritual forces of evil are his true enemies — not other humans. However, as someone who is still driven by his appetites, Kenny seems to focus on overcoming his human enemies in the wilderness.
Take the gratitude from him
I bet he’ll show you somethin’, whoa
This final line in the three-line sequence again implies that Kenny might turn to violence — this time as an act of retribution against anyone who is ungrateful about what he has done for them. Interestingly, Kenny's intuition of seeking retribution against those who are ungrateful directly violates the first commandment that Jesus gave during his teaching about the kingdom of God in the gospel according to Luke.
“Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful just as your Father is merciful.”
- Luke 6:35
According to Jesus, those who want to live under God’s rule must be merciful to those who are ungrateful just like God the Father is merciful to those who are ungrateful. This implicit contrast between God the Father and vengeful humans is something that will again come into focus in the next post as we examine the first verse of “XXX.”
Resources:
- “Image of God” video by the Bible Project
- “How to Read the Bible: Biblical Story” video by the Bible Project
- “The Book of Genesis — Part 1 of 2” video by the Bible Project
