Sunday 23rd October
Before embarking on a journey a man entrusts his servants with three different amounts of money. When he returns he either rewards or punishes them depending on whether they successfully invested it or just preserved his wealth. I wonder if we draw the teeth of this story by equating the talent simply with some ability that we have. A talent was a measurement of money equivalent to 20 years wages for an ordinary working person. So the master was investing several hundred thousand pounds with his servants. The stakes are high in this story and the difference between success and failure is awesome.
We went over to Fountains Abbey in the early October sunshine. Its such a fabulous place but it also impresses me with the way that a Christian community became a powerhouse for the local economy. No doubt there were lots of abuses of the power that the monastic system gained but they did demonstrate an entrepreneurial spirit that we could learn from. Maybe if we really want to change our community we should begin to respond to the parable of the talents in a more ambitious way.