It should be required reading, I think, for members of the clergy: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, that masterpiece of American literature and of the American psyche.

I’ve read it several times since first coming across it in high school. I read it on the eve of my first Anglican ordination and then a few years after that. I’m due, really, to pick it up one more time and study again the dangers of my trade. We all know the story of poor Hester, doomed to wear the scarlet letter “A” on her chest, publicly shamed for the sin of adultery; which her secret lover, Dimmesdale the local minister, hides, until his demise. It’s a powerful story of hypocrisy and secrets, morality and love, hatred and shame.

There’s a remarkable scene in the middle of the book: Hester and her young daughter Pearl are alone along a wooded shore. Hester had met her old and malignant husband, Chillingworth, in secret, exchanging their hatred for each other. Pearl, young and precocious, played along the water. Playfully, and not knowing the meaning of the scarlet letter her mother wore, Pearl fashioned for herself her own letter “A,” “freshly green, instead of scarlet!”[1] Hester, her mother, was caught off guard by this childish, playful gesture. She didn’t know what to make of it. Might this mean she should open up to her daughter about the burden and shame she bore? Might Pearl, her dear young daughter, be just the person “to soothe away the sorrow that lay cold in her mother’s heart.”[2] It’s a beautiful moment, an innocent child loving her mother with truth but without judgment. Hester doesn’t know what to do, and she fails to tell her little girl the truth. The moment passes, and the tragedy continues.

It’s a beautiful, human moment when love comes unadorned, uncomplicated by the lingering sense of judgment and shame. But it is rare. Loneliness is often the first thing that comes the way of a person mired in shame, scandal, and accusation. It’s the way with most of us that we avoid scandal and the scandalized man. We keep our distance and leave him be. Institutions, for the sake of liability, can be rather ruthless in this regard, never mind presumed innocence or due process. Cut him off; avoid him at all costs—this is cold Darwinian law of litigious and human society.

And it’s an ancient law. The Talmud has a saying: “At the gate of abundance there are many brothers and friends; at the gate of misery there is neither brother nor friend.”[3] In ancient Roman law a person could be declared homo sacer, “a man outcast,” and stripped of whatever rights he had and killed by anyone with impunity.[4] Our modern rituals of shame are rather more benign than those of our ancestors, but the motive and psychology are the same. Abandon the one accursed and ashamed. It’s an ancient law to which even Jesus was subject. Just hours before his death, he said to his frightened and weak disciples, “the hour is coming…when each of you will be scattered…and you will leave me alone.”[5] Even he was abandoned, which is why such simple, uncritical love—like the love little Pearl showed her mother—is so rare. It should be held and hallowed wherever it is found.

And it is this sort of love we find in God when we can see him clearly, when we see him in Jesus, and when no one has got in the way of it. This is the sort of love Paul found in God when he said that Jesus “emptied himself,” taking up humanity in his humility.[6] “[W]hile we were still sinners,” Paul said, “Christ died for us.”[7] This is the love which astounded Paul: that Jesus drew near to sinners, nearer to them than to others. Like Pearl, Jesus—innocent like her—fashioned his own “A” out of love for us. He was, to quote Paul again, “made…to be sin who did not know sin.”[8] This is love: love which comes down to us where we are, even down to the muddy filth of sin and the isolation of our shame, the love which simply comes to us and says, “I love you,” as in those sweetest morning moments when you know her, and she knows you.

This is the love we’re to imitate—as did Joseph after a little angelic nudging. He does not abandon Mary, his betrothed, an act which would have exposed her not only to shame but even possibly to death. He does not abandon his wife; rather, he stays and recommits himself to her, and to this child which he did not make but which he must raise. For Joseph, following the will of God meant embracing circumstances conventionally scandalous and likely awkward and embarrassing. He stood by her, her immaculate purity still hidden from the world, when as yet no one had ever said, “Hail Mary, full of grace…” This is love: loving when no one else sees the point. This is the love God has for us. This is the love we should have for others.

Earlier this week a line from the Office of Readings struck me and has stayed with me. God, speaking to his people: “My mercy will not leave you…”[9] God did not abandon us in our shame. He has never abandoned us. We may from time to time feel abandoned by God, but that is always a misconception. “My mercy will not leave you…” That is the truth about God. And if God never leaves us in our shame, then we shouldn’t abandon others in theirs. Think of that faded friendship, that wronged or simply awkward coworker.

Think of that hard-to-love or wayward family member. Even if you’re exhausted and tired of their games, or even if it puts your reputation at risk: love that person anyway. Love them like little Pearl loved her mother, like Joseph loves Mary and like God loves you.

And not only this: Joseph stayed with Mary, and for his obedience was given the gift of Christ and the honor of the ages. He was faithful, and salvation was the prize. And what this means for us is that we should not only love those people in our lives that are either burdened by shame or who are awkward and alone, but we should also expect to find Jesus in them. Had Joseph run away from Mary out of fear of what others might think, he would’ve never known Jesus. Christ very well might be hidden, just like that, in the awkward, embarrassing, and shameful people in our lives. God will often draw us into awkward situations. Embrace it! Because this precisely is the mystery: that God is often found in shame, when we love even when shame comes; it’s the mystery of the cross, of resurrection after death.

And think about it: this brings us to the genuine mercy and real meaning of Christmas. Many are disillusioned with the season. After the lights and the carols and the maudlin mush of it all, some think rather jaundiced, “Nothing’s changed. It’s the same sick world”—as if Christmas was some sort of magic meant to make everyone break into song like some cheap movie. No. Here’s the point: Christ is come. He is here in this dark world. Hope begins in the darkness. Now there is hope. There is love that is true, and which will make your loves more real, if you’ll but love him. Poor as you are, if you’ll but give him your heart. Amen.

[1] Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, 155

[2] Ibid., 157

[3] The Wit and Wisdom of the Talmud, 55

[4] Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer, 71; cf. John Milbank, Being Reconciled, 90

[5] John 16:32

[6] Philippians 2:7

[7] Romans 5:8

[8] 2 Corinthians 5:21

[9] The Office of Readings, Monday in the Third Week of Advent, Responsory

© 2019 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield