# 28 - Talents and Figs

Day 28 - Talents and Figs

Do you remember when Jesus really wanted to eat some figs, but the fig tree didn’t have any to give, prompting Jesus to curse the tree, which, withering perished. That’s an extraordinary occasion. Jesus’ ministry is full of him blessing people, forgiving and healing people, warning people, and condemning hypocrisy, but I think that’s the only time we see him curse something!

From Mark chapter 11: “The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.”

I’ve often heard this passage preached on with regards to being fruitful, and used together with this verse from John 15: *"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”*

They might go together well. Looking at the Mark chapter today, I’m noticing for the first time that figs weren’t actually in season, ‘for the time of figs was not yet’. Was Jesus being unreasonable to demand figs out of season? Was this a tree that resisted a miracle, and gave its refusal when the Messiah requested a fig from it? That raises the question of whether vegetable matter has free will and can sin.

Nonetheless, I think quite a bit of Jesus, with low blood-sugar, cranky and in need of a snack. We all have that sometimes. I’ve friends and relatives who become listless, despondent and belligerent if they just need a sugary drink or a sandwich. And I think occasionally, and worry sometimes, about what it means not to bear fruit, because I’m never really sure that I do.

A favourite parable that gets into the question of fruitfulness is the parable of the Talents, in Matthew 25, and a couple of other places. It just after Jesus has been talking about the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Kingdom of God. He begins:

“It will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants
and entrusted to them his property. 
To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.”

Talents are money, in this case. Big coins. They have a double-meaning in English, since the 16th Century, but I don’t think it was intended in the original. I’m reassured by ‘to each according to his ability’, if that means we’re not given more than we can handle. The phrasing also sounds like Marx, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.

So anyway, the three servants, with 5, 2 and 1 coins respectively, have to look after them. They aren’t explicitly told to put their money to work, but maybe that’s the implication of a servant being entrusted with funds. While the master is away, the first two servants double their money by trading - which is arguably the most capitalist thing we see in the Bible, they’re commended, and the 1920s James Moffatt translation of the New Testament includes a joke: ‘You handed me five hundred pouns, sir, here I have gained another five hundred’. His master said to him ‘Capital, you excellent and trusty servant. You have been trusty in charge of a small sum: I will put you in charge of a large sum. Come and share in your master’s feast’, which is a lovely piece of translation.

I’m pretty sure the passage isn’t really espousing capital and the stock market, as much as saying ‘do your job, and don’t not do your job’. Use what you have, and make something good of it - but not necessarily ‘enrich yourself and your family without working for it’.

The third servant was afraid - afraid of the master, afraid of messing up - and merely buried the money in cloth in a hole in the ground. The KJV says ‘he laid it up in a napkin’, which is another favourite phrase of mine, and the master tears this servant a new one. ‘You rascal, you idle servant! You wicked and slothful servant!’. He has the money taken from him and given to someone else more trustworthy, and he’s told to get in the sea. The passage around this parable makes it clear this is about a time of judgement that is coming for all humankind. So how ought we to be investing our money and talents - which, per the parable, aren’t really ours, we’re just being trusted with them until Jesus returns.

I’m never sure, actually. In the West we all tend to use more than we produce, on a purely physical level. I don’t grow vegetables, or turn a profit on anything, and where I have savings I spend them, and not always wisely. If we assume the development of the English language was fore-ordained, and the double-meaning of talents is intentional, well I don’t mind saying, I have a lot of talents. I write, I make music and clothes and videos and audio-dramas and such. I’m not especially good at any of them - not to an employable level, as it’s usually judged. Most of what I produce could be written off as vanity, if you’re judging harshly, from a point of view of what benefits the people of the world, or what benefits the Kingdom of God. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been so keen to make this Lent series, or something like it. Because I have been given and given and given since before I was born, and I’m not sure I can come back and be told I’m a god and faithful servant. Have I laid my talents up in a napkin? Would Jesus come to me, his stomach and blood crying out for figs, and instead find a tree containing sloppily-sewn dancewear, lurid and impenetrable short films and a podcast about cowboys and cowgirls, and any other cow children? You can’t eat podcasts. That’s for sure.

I suspect I’m being too literal, in ways. I said, when I was talking about the failure of St Helga a week or two ago, I think my ability to wow the world or to bring anyone to faith is next to zero. If my fruits are direct, tangible results, then I am only a silly tree. But parables are very simple things, and I hope by working within society, rather than in isolation like the two good servants, I can have a net positive effect, even if it’s very indirect, via people whose lives I’ve somehow passed through.

I’ve been learning to use a sewing machine recently. I inherited it from my friend Kirsten who did not die, and it has sat gathering dust for half a decade, but it pained me to have a valuable resource - like a sewing machine, like a camcorder, like editing software - and not to use it. Fiddler on the Roof told me what a boon and a blessing a sewing machine can be to life and prosperity. I mean to learn it and to master it, because I could no longer let it lie fallow. For me, in this case, the talents are neither skills nor money, but the tremendous assets we have been left with, that we can choose to use or to neglect. I have a home, which I did not exactly gain by the sweat of my brow, and I try to ensure it’s a safe space for people who need a supportive home, and I hope in this small way, over years, I can bear — maybe not fruit. You won’t find a lot of bananas on me in any season, but I like to think I produce supportive sap, like a maple tree, and that in the Kingdom of Heaven I may at least service some pancakes.