Use your talents!

Matthew 25.14-30 

A couple of years ago, my daughter gave me some coffee beans.  These were not roasted, ready to grind, intended to make a beverage.  These were raw coffee beans, the seed of the coffee plant, and they came with compost and a little pot, all nicely packaged in a box.  It was a nice gift for a coffee-lover and it sat on the shelf, until it got put it in another box, ready for our move to Overton.  Once it was here, it was unpacked and placed with the other seeds and gardening accessories, still in the gift box.

When the businessman in Jesus’ parable packs up for his long journey, he gives responsibility for his property to his slaves.  He knows that they have different skills and so he gives them varying degrees of responsibility, represented by the weight of the raw ingredients with which he leaves them.  A talent is an ancient unit to measure weight – probably something like 59kg in biblical times.  If these talents were pure gold, then the master left a small fortune behind; but whatever the talents represent, even the one talent given to the least trustworthy slave had huge potential.

The English word ‘talent’ is derived from this parable – the result, apparently, of a sermon preached in the fourteenth century, Well, that just goes to show how powerful sermons can be!  A unit of measurement became synonymous with the idea of a natural skill or gifting; as if I had said to you, what kilograms has God given you?  Has God given you 295kg, 118kg or 59kg?  And how will you use these kilograms?

A few months ago, I unpacked my coffee beans and decided it was time I planted them.  They had been sitting in the box for too long, useless, inert.  They needed watering and they needed the food from the soil.  I planted them and left them to germinate, warned that this can take some time.

In the parable, the first two slaves put the raw materials that they have been left, their talents, to work.  Later in the story the master refers to these talents as money – so maybe they started a business, using their skills to grow the investment.  What they had been left was a huge amount – this is a typical piece of exaggeration on Jesus’s part, somewhat lost in translation.  But these two slaves manage to double their money, a couple of very successful entrepreneurs.

Business doesn’t always run smoothly, though, as farmers are particularly prone to discover.  Christian Aid focuses this year on the story of coffee growers in Nicaragua.  Angela’s farming community of Santa Rosa has grown coffee for generations. Now this generation could be the last. Angela explained: ‘With climate change, the coffee suffers from many diseases and pests. The sun has scorched the coffee beans, we cannot sell them and we're losing more every year because of climate change.’ 

Angela is worried about how she will care for her daughters, Johaira and Ariana. She said ‘It will be a total disaster and failure for us because as farmers, growing crops is how we survive. Where will we get our incomes?’ 

But there is hope. With the support of Christian Aid and their local partner, Soppexcca, Angela’s community is coming together as a local cooperative, with lots of different initiatives and projects, from school vegetable gardens to gender workshops.  And one of the main ways they are helping farmers protect their livelihoods is by shifting from coffee production to climate-resistant cocoa.  

Now, Angela is looking forward to the future with hope: ‘The income from the cocoa crop is very important. It means we can buy clothes, medicines and food.’

Our community in Overton has pulled together during the crisis that we have been enduring this year – a global pandemic that has affected nearly every community on the planet, including communities like Angela’s that were already vulnerable.  I know that some of you have volunteered to help vulnerable people in our community, which has been greatly appreciated.  In a more light-hearted way we’ve picked up something of a ‘talents’ theme here at St Mary’s as we have tried to encourage our community this summer.  We know that we have some very talented and gifted people in this community, and we have encouraged some of them to come forward and enter our talent competition.  It seems that some of those talents have been buried, as we haven’t had a huge response, but you will soon be able to see the performers who entered, on our website.  But this weekend we have seen a fresh demonstration of Overton’s talent as, despite changes to our plans because of the local lockdown, community groups have created these wonderful harvest baskets for us, to be auctioned for Christian Aid and Wrexham Food Bank.

Harvest Festival as an Anglican celebration began with an idea in the mind of a clergyman in Cornwall in the nineteenth century; these baskets started out as an idea in my head this summer.  Small beginnings can lead to much greater outcomes, so even if we think that we only have one talent, Jesus encourages us to use it.  Of all the coffee beans I sowed, only 2 germinated – and this is one of the little coffee plants I now have.  I don’t think I will be getting a harvest from it yet, but it has already given me pleasure.  It was worth doing.

In a number of his parables, Jesus makes the figure of authority into a kind of villain; here, he is described by the third slave as “a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed.”  He seems to do this by way of contrast – if this human, with all his faults, does this, then how much better will God treat you.  And maybe he also does this in acknowledgment that sometimes humans rail against God in much the same way as this slave complains about his master.  “It’s not fair!” we often say.  But even if we think or feel that, we are encouraged to use what talents we have, rather than burying them or hiding them.  The good things that we have can be taken and used in the service of others and in the service of God.

At the end of his gospel, Matthew reminds his readers that Jesus, who they will see crucified, will rise from the dead, ascend to heaven and then return again at the end of time.  Harvest is a powerful biblical image for this final reckoning; as the harvest hymn puts it,

Even so, Lord, quickly come
Bring thy final harvest home
Gather thou thy people in
Free from sorrow, free from sin   

This parable makes strong reference to this tradition, ending as it does with the judgement on the slave.  “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”  This is not a prosperity gospel – the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer – but quite the opposite.  It is a recognition that those who cry “It’s not fair!” will be heard and there will be justice in the final weighing of the world.  Those who have given generously, out of gratitude for all they have been given, will be rewarded generously. “..enter into the joy of your master.”, as the parable says.  But those who hoard and refuse to share what they have received will be condemned.

It should not be the fear of condemnation, though, that stops us from giving generously.  Harvest Festival celebrations, in whatever form they come, encourage us to appreciate the richness of God’s creation, the fruitfulness of the land and the labour of those who serve us in it.  Our giving to God flows from our gratitude for all of these things.  Whether you give to your neighbours in Nicaragua by placing your gift in a Christian Aid envelope, or give to your neighbours in Overton by showing love and care in tough times, may your talents bear much fruit.