CREATING CHARACTER
Romans 5:1-5
Luke 19:1-10
"Suffering
produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces
hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into
our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."
My friend John Morris, owner of the Book Cottage recently
introduced me to the novels of Arthur Joyce Cary. Described by some as
one of the finest English novelists of the twentieth century, Cary was a genius at developing characters, as he
does in Except the Lord (1953)
which John gave me to read. This got me
thinking about what it takes to write a good novel. Obviously the plot has to be a good, but equally
so the characters have to come alive and become plausible as the story develops. Think of any great novelist such Charles
Dickens or Chinua Achebe, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Elliot or Marilynne
Robinson, and you immediately think about the characters they create in telling
their stories. Great novelists create
great characters whether we love or hate them, seek to emulate them as heroes,
or despise them as villains.
The God of the Bible is a great novelist for the Bible is
packed full of stories about memorable characters, as is the teaching of Jesus:
Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, David and Goliath, Elijah and the prophets of
Baal, Daniel and Noah, Peter, Thomas, Judas, Paul and Timothy, Mary Magdalene,
Martha, the Samaritan woman, the Prodigal Son, and, the favourite of many, Zacchaeus the tax collector who climbs a tree
to see Jesus. Of course, not every Bible
character responds positively to God's character building, some rebel,
preferring to make their own way, just as not all characters in a novel are equally
attractive or not at all. Though it is
also true that often characters change character as God gets to work and turns
prodigal sons into grateful and renewed sons.
In fact, the good news stories in the Bible are all about the way in
which God like a potter working clay on the wheel recreates characters who have failed and
decides to start again. We identify can
identify with biblical characters because they are so much like us, for we too
are all characters in the story God is
writing. Have you ever considered that ? You are a character in a divine novel being written
even as I speak, a character being constructed in the image of the author.
Of course, the word "character" has different
meanings. We use it to refer to a
person's handwriting, or to someone we call a character because he or she is a
little odd, perhaps a clown or a crank. There are, in fact, characters of all
kinds, all sorts and conditions of humanity which we read about in novels,
watch on TV, or encounter on the street. But character also has another
meaning. When we refer to a person of
character we think of someone who is known for moral courage, honesty and
integrity, a person of good reputation, someone for whom we might vouch in
writing a testimonial, a model for our children and grandchildren. This is what character formation is about in the
gospel story, and why St. Paul says that "if anyone is in Christ there is
a new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17) He or she has become a renewed character. For when God recreates our characters, as he
did for Zacchaeus, he sets us on a new
path of becoming more truly human in the image of Christ, the true human, the
icon of the characters God is seeking to write into his story. And as in the Bible or a novel, every
character is different, so God graciously develops our character in terms of
who we are and the contribution we make in the story as a whole.
Yet while God creates each character lovingly and
graciously, our character formation
takes place only as we follow Christ in discipleship. Character formation does not come about without
our co-operation nor does it come easily; it is the outcome of costly grace
which hones and shapes us, often through suffering and struggle. As Paul puts
it: "Suffering produces
endurance, and endurance produces character." The great novelists know this. Adversity creates character.
Normally we think of bad characters as the products of poverty-stricken
slums, the breeding ground gangsters.
And yet how many people have learnt
to rise above their circumstances and make a real success of life in response
to adversity. How many successful
Olympic Games medallists have overcame hardship to achieve their goals? By contrast privilege, wealth and luxury often
produce people who lack moral fibre, selfish people who make no real
contribution to the common good and too often succumb to corruption. Poverty, bad schooling, poor social
conditions might produce criminals, but often against the odds or because of
them, they produce people of great character.
People who are also humble enough to acknowledge that their success is not
only due to their own skill, but to the help of many others and the grace of
God. When St. Paul says that "suffering
produces endurance, and endurance produces character, " he is right on the
money.
For St. Paul suffering and endurance not only produces
character, character also produces
hope. The hope which enables us to live
and work expectantly, not giving up when the odds are against us but enduring
until we have crossed the finishing line. Paul adds a further comment which takes this
process of character formation to a new level.
This hope that emerges from suffering and empowers endurance, "does
not disappoint us." Yes, a great
deal does disappoint us. Sometimes our
heroes in novels or on the sports field, and even our friends, let us down.
But the hope that develops out of struggle for what is right and good,
or out of suffering and pain, does not disappoint because in the process, "God's
love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to
us." In other words we discover
that the whole process of character formation is activated, guided and empowered by God's
love at work through the Spirit! So as
we think about our own stories in God's novel, the character we are and the
character we are becoming, let us give thanks that God is at work through his
Spirit seeking to recreate us in his own image to make us truly who we are
meant to be before the story ends.
John de Gruchy
Volmoed 25 August 2016
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