In a discussion earlier this week, a person commented on historical books (his favorite) as reading about “real things” as opposed, I suppose, to reading fiction. I enjoy reading history and memoir. But the subtext to comments like that is the idea that fiction cannot be real. He may not have meant it that way, but it’s easy for us to say that fiction is not real and historical writing is.

I am sensitive to this kind of language because years ago, a colleague at another workplace made an even more horrifying comment on theater and acting. The person said to me that all acting is a form of lying because the actor is pretending to be something he’s not. I thought at the time that he had to be joking. I looked at his face for the beginning of a grin that would signal that he was playing with me, but no. He was serious.

As a lifelong theatergoer this was unimaginable. Going to plays has been an important part of my life. I love doing it and spend time checking what is playing in London, New York, Stratford, Chicago. It was a triumph of God’s Spirit that I did not get mad at that man.

And as a reader whose life has been shaped by some great pieces of fiction, I cannot say that the imaginary people of fictional works are not real.

Never mind Raskolnikov or Hamlet or Gandalf. What about Atticus Finch or Ebenezer Scrooge or Sherlock Holmes? When we read good books, we easily embrace the people in them one way or another. Either we see in them ways to live, virtues to aspire to, or bad choices that we don’t want to make. Sometimes we see both good and bad in one character and read through the suspense of what’s going to become of him. I want to be Scrooge at the end of the book, not the beginning, but the “real” me right now might not be there just yet.

The characters in Jesus’s fictions are so real that we easily forget that they, by definition of the people I’ve quoted, weren’t real. They’re fiction.

So maybe they’re hyper-real. In some ways, we can become them.

In real life, we can take on their roles like an actor becoming Hamlet or Willy Loman, but with these Scriptural characters born from the mind and mouth of Jesus, they may not be us at all, and yet, they could be pointing us to the way we might be, even should be.

We are like a sower who sows seeds that grow over time--as we did last weekend at the Cream of Wheaton when we gave away Bibles to people. Or when we teach in Kids’ Harbor we’re sowing seeds that will grow over time.

We can be the Prodigal Son’s brother or his father. We can be jealous of our brother or kill the fattened calf and throw a party. We can bandage and house the wounded man, taking on the role of the Good Samaritan, but not in some theoretical fiction, but with living, hurting people who are not at all like we are. We can knock on the door of prayer and not stop. Or we might need to play the part of the shepherd who drops everything for one lost sheep.

When we take on these roles like actors playing parts written by playwrights, it may not feel like us, but that doesn’t mean we’re lying. Perhaps we’re moving closer to heaven than earth, living as members of a kingdom that has come and is yet to come.

Consider Abraham and his promised descendants—they auditioned and got the starring roles as strangers and exiles on earth (so-called real life). They played the part, because “as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:16). Abraham was not a fictional character, but he went to places he never dreamed and God gave him a new name.

What role will you act today? Sower, father, Good Samaritan? Stranger or exile? Sometimes acting, like fiction, can be a pathway to truth and becoming a new you that’s more like Jesus and less like the natural men and women we are so accustomed to being.