Monday 29 August 2016

Meditation: CREATING CHARACTER by John de Gruchy

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

Thursday 4 August 2016

Meditation: WITHOUT APOLOGY by John de Gruchy

WITHOUT APOLOGY


I Peter 3:13-16
Matthew 22:41-46

"Always be ready to make your defence (apologia)  to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with reverence and gentleness".
"No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions."

Isobel always asks me the most difficult questions at breakfast.  I guess she knows that if she asks me at night time I would simply close my eyes and pretend to be asleep.  But at breakfast I am supposed to be wide awake and know all the answers to all life's most perplexing questions, especially theological, philosophical and political.  The fact that most of these have been asked many times over the centuries and have never been fully answered by the best thinkers  does not satisfy her enquiring mind.  If I say "I simply don't know," she invariably replies, "well you are supposed to know!"

The truth is, the really difficult questions about life and death, suffering and pain, the seeming inability of people and nations to pursue what is right, good and just, about why the poor suffer harshly and the rich get away with so much, and about God, perplex all of us.  And they do so because they are complex questions that defy simple answers.  In fact, every attempt at an answer raises more questions ad infinitum.  One of the greatest teachers who ever lived, the Greek philosopher Socrates, refused to answer his students' questions.  He simply put further questions to them, forcing them to search for the answers themselves. In the process he opened up fresh perspectives which enabled them to see their questions in a new way that took them further in their journey of knowing, and deeper into the truth beyond words.  No answers would have done that.

When Jesus was asked questions he often replied by telling a story or parable which not only forced his enquirers to think more deeply, but more importantly challenged them to live and act differently.   Jesus did not provide them with brilliant responses that satisfied their minds, but took them beyond their comfort zones with a challenge that unsettled them.  No wonder they stopped asking him questions.  As Eugene Petersen translates our text: "That stumped them, literalists that they were.  Unwilling to risk losing face again in one of those verbal exchanges they quit asking questions for good!"\

In the second century after Christ there was a small group of Christian theologians who came to be known as the Apologists.  They tried to convince unbelieving but well-educated pagans about the truth of the Christian faith taking seriously the admonition of the first letter of St. Peter: "Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you."  The Greek word which is translated "make your defence" is apologia, from which we get our word "apology."  The apologists were not apologising for their faith; but defending it from intellectual attack. Reading their writings today I don't think that their answers were always very convincing.  But it was then as it still is today important to give a reasoned account of what we believe to be true.  Yet it is also true that such arguments seldom make converts. In the final analysis it was the death of the martyrs rather the reasons of the apologists that was the seed of the church.  Courageous and compassionate deeds carried more weight than words.  That is why the witness of Pope Francis is so powerful.  When he went to Auschwitz last week he did not make a speech apologising for the failures of the church to prevent the Holocaust, though he had previously done so.  He simply prayed in silence.  He knew  that the best Christian witness is to do what is right and to pray without denying that there is a time and place for words, that is, for apologia.

I am ashamed of much in Christian history, but I make no apology for speaking about faith in Christ in a time of doubt, of hope in God in a time of despair, or of love for one's enemies in a time of violence.  I do not claim to have all the answers to the questions that are being asked with good reason by many people, but with St. Paul, "I am not ashamed of the gospel." (Romans 1:16)  I do not claim that we Christians have all the truth, but I do claim that faith in God is fundamental to being human in a world that is marked by great inhumanity, a world that no longer believes in the God-given dignity of all people; I do claim that hope in God's future for the world is fundamental to saving us from plunging headlong into global chaos;  and I do claim that love is the only antidote to fear, greed and hatred that is tearing global society apart.  For these fundamental truths I am without apology.  These are not truths which only Christians cherish, but they are fundamental to being Christian.  They have to do with the way we live and the way we act in the world. "Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet" says Peter, but when you do so, "do it with reverence and gentleness".

John de Gruchy

Volmoed 4 August 2016

Meditation: VOLMOED YOUTH LEADERSHIP TRAINING by John de Gruchy

VOLMOED YOUTH LEADERSHIP TRAINING PROGRAMMEGRADUATION MEDITATION

Matthew 4:18-22
Read in Xhosa, Sesotho, Afrikaans, Arabic, Tamil, English
(Home languages of the VYLTP participants)

"Come follow me and I will make you..."
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me."
"Go and make disciples..."

The ten weeks have sped by.  At times you thought it might be too long.  Now some of you think it should be longer!  You came as individuals, you leave as a community of friends. You also leave on your own admission as changed people committed to make the world for a better  place, a more just and peaceful place, a more caring and loving space. And you go in the name of Christ.

Jesus was under 30 when he called his first disciples ro follow him, and most of them were also young.  In fact, Jesus led a youth leadership training course as he journeyed with his companions from Galilee to Jerusalem.  He called them each by name to follow him and form a community.  He called them to learn from him, to discover a new way of being in the world, to find new meaning and purpose for their lives.    He told them stories, he gave them words of counsel and advice, he challenged and even rebuked them on occasion. But above all he showed them what life was all about.  They began to take his yoke or discipling upon themselves and so learnt from him.  In the process they began to change.  It took them not just two weeks but at least a year to get the message and discover what leadership in the kingdom of God is all about in daily life.  But even as their training course came to an end, when Jesus was arrested and killed, they had still not all got it quite right! 

So he made them a promise.  His Spirit would fill their lives, lead them deeper into his teaching,  empower them to do as he had done, and so make more disciples and expand their community of love, justice and compassion.  He told them to go and help others discover what it means to be a follower of Christ, to witness to God's reconciliation, and so become agents of healing and transformation. 

The process of learning to be a disciple does not end today.  It never ends whether for you or for me.  The VYLTP is only a catalyst, an intensive course in leadership, but not the whole journey.  Like the rest of us you will never stop learning to be a true human being and follower of Christ.  You now have some new skills, new inspiration, new insights -- a new knowledge of yourself and others.  But while this may be the end of the VYLTP for you  it is only the beginning of the rest of your life.  You will continue to learn, to grow, to discover.  Becoming a Christian leader is a never ending process.  You learn as you journey.  Our hope and prayer is that you will now do so with greater understanding of yourself and the world, with fresh courage and hope, and with a growing love for Christ and those you will serve in his name. You are not going alone.  You go not just in the name of Christ but in the power of his Spirit.  You go as part of a community of faith, love and hope.  You go as members of the Volmoed community full of courage.  You go as "voeltjies" with new wings.

Come follow me, says Jesus in whatever language you speak.  That is the call we all need to heed every day and wherever we are.  Take Jesus' yoke upon yourselves and learn from him  That is the discipline we accept and, to our surprise, we find that it is a light and joyous burden.  Go into the world and proclaim the good news ... that is the task that awaits us each day.

John de Gruchy

Volmoed 28 July 2016