WHEN DOES OUR TRUE

CHARACTER SHOW ITSELF?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “When Does Our True Character Show Itself?”

TODAY’S FIRST READING

Today’s readings are very interesting – containing very detailed down to earth incidents. I’ll leave the gospel story about Caesar and coins to Father Jack Kingsbury – who has made it his specialty and interest to concentrate on Biblical Coins.

The last line in today’s first reading from Tobit hit me: “See! Your true character is finally showing itself!”

Tobit goes blind and when Anna his wife brings home a goat that someone gave her – it gets Tobit’s goat. Tobit gets testy and gets nervous. He thinks it was stolen. Anna says it was a bonus – an extra – from those who paid her wages for work she did with cloth for them. Tobit doesn’t believe her. He gets angry with her. So Anna fires back, “Where are your charitable deeds now? Where are your virtuous acts? See! Your true character is finally showing itself!”

As I read that I asked myself, “How many times in the history of the world has this kind of an exchange taken place between husbands and wives – family members – fellow workers – church members?

It sounds so real – people being feisty and testy with each other – people challenging each other on the truth of some matter – one person not believing the other person – and who’s your true self?

Who am I when I’m alone? Does everyone have a real self and a public self? When am I in character? When am I out of character? Do we all put an act on at times? Have we ever been sick or out of sorts and we say the wrong thing – and those who know us say of us, “Relax. Don’t worry. He’s just not himself today.” Or, “She’s been a different person lately, but she’ll be back to her old self soon.” At our funeral will someone say of us, “Whom you saw is whom you got?” Or will someone not say: “You never knew who would show up when he showed up.”

CHARACTER

Then last night as I was putting together these thoughts I began wondering about that word “character” in today’s first reading. I asked myself, “What is character?” This English word is used in several ways. “She’s out of character.” or “He’s quite a character.”

So when the translators used this word “character” at the end of today’s first reading, I was wondering about it. In fact it seems to me that it’s a word and a concept that is out of character for our Bible.
That was my first reaction to this word. I also wondered about “cataracts” from bird droppings and could they have chosen a different English world – like eye problems.

Back to “character”. It’s probably grabbed me because it sounds Greek to me – something that would come out of Greek Philosophy – and not Hebrew thought. And sure enough the book of Tobit goes back to around 200 B.C. when there was heavy influence of Greek thought in Israel. Next I found out that some scholars say this book of Tobit was written in Aramaic – and translated into Greek and Hebrew. Up to modern times we didn’t have a Hebrew text for Tobit. It’s not part of the Jewish Bible. With the Dead Sea Scroll discoveries they now have Hebrew and Aramaic fragments of Tobit – which then brings me back to one of my original questions: what is the Hebrew context of this text? And after a tiny bit of research it seems that the New American Bible has a decent translation of the text – using the word “character”. It simply means who a person really is. (1)

It seems that Tobit got antsy when Anna brings home a goat – and into the house – and the new – the new sounds “baah” or “eeeh” or whatever goats sound like, caused conflict. Then his wife got in there under his skin – when she said, “You walk around with this pious look – and you’re so nice to others – but here you are not being nice and charitable to me – your own wife.”

CONCLUSION

So I would assume the challenge for all of us here – especially when we get older – and our sight goes or whatever goes – is that we better be nice to each other – especially if we know how to be nice to others – avoiding fitting the description of being a lamb abroad and an old angry goat at home. Amen.

Painting on top: Tobit Sees a Flock of Birds by Robert Lenkiewicz, from Paintings Painted Blind - on the Theme of Tobit - year 2000. He painted this series - called, "Project 21".



(1) “Tobit, Book of” John L. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible, McMillan Publishing Company, New York, 1965, page 895; “Tobit” Irene Norwell, O.S.B. in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, 1990, p. 568