**I apologize in advance if the
content of this blog post is too overtly religious for a public school
teacher’s liking; I just felt that the gospel I heard in church this weekend,
and its allegorical significance in our daily lives had way too much to do with
The Scarlet Letter for me not to talk
about it. **
So, what I heard in church was
basically this:
Everyone in Jericho despises
Zacchaeus, a devious little tax collector whose personality and stature are not
unlike those of a leprechaun. Like all of his kind, he takes about twice
the money the Roman Empire demands and keeps half for himself. When Jesus comes
to Jericho, Zacchaeus watches for Him in the crowd just as any worthy citizen
would.
And what Jesus does then is remarkable: He
calls Zacchaeus by name—a name that any self-respecting Jew would sneer at with
disgust—and asks to visit his house for dinner that evening.
After dining with Jesus, Zacchaeus
forsakes his old ways of greed and corruption and walks as a child of the
light.
As it turns out, the name “Zacchaeus”
means “just”—something he definitely wasn’t before his encounter with Jesus.
But when the warm blanket of unfailing love and forgiveness envelops Zacchaeus,
he becomes his truest self—the man that his self, his God, and his parents who
named him want him to be.
But unfortunately, no such warm
blanket gives relief from the frigid New England winters in Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.
Society makes it so.
The Puritans’ interpretation of the
Bible is so grossly distorted that Jesus’ original message of compassion and
mercy is nowhere to be found. Society is so unforgiving that Hester Prynne
observes Reverend Dimmesdale reduced to half the man he once was, prominent
women hiding their inner guilt only to become more cruel to those below them,
and herself with “her truest life… evaporated” (Hawthorne 162).
Without mercy and love, how can
this society ever hope to transform greedy little Zacchaeuses into pure, godly
ones?
So much for America being the City
on a Hill…
It's interesting that you would think about Zacchaeus for this particular reference. He lived his life of greed and whatnot, and then changed. But isn't that basically what happened to Dimmesdale? He committed a crime (adultery) and changed. Anyhow, nice job on connecting what the Puritans should have been and what they are.
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