SQUANDERED TALENTS

With the success of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ, I’ve heard and read a number of criticisms of Mel for making money with the film.

Do they criticize him for putting his own money into a project that no one else wanted to touch? No. For getting the film in front of audiences when no studio really wanted to deal with it? No. For being very careful and savvy about presenting it to his primary audience, fellow Christians? Well, yeah, there seems to be a bit of feeling in the Entertainment Industry that he was really devious and sneaky in giving church groups previews of it, in order to generate word of mouth. Because it worked.

But mostly, the criticisms seem to be about what the critics call the “commercialization” of the Gospel. Except that, from what I can tell, the people saying that the most are the people who are least invested in that same Gospel. It puzzles me.

I guess it puzzles me because it strikes me as only fair and reasonable in the Big Picture that Gibson be rewarded for his commitment to his project. Because it seems very much in line with the Parable of the Talents.

The Parable of the Talents has always weighed heavily with me. Although Sunday School classes pointed out that the talent mentioned in Scripture was a unit of money, I was conscious from a young age that our use of the word for the special abilities people have was somehow connected to the older word. I thought about it a lot, because I knew I was talented (in our modern sense).

I don’t mean to imply that I had a huge ego about it. I have three siblings, and we are all musically inclined. Good singing voices and the ability to learn to play instruments and actually make music with them. That much seemed par for the course in our family. But beyond that I also had considerable artistic ability. I was always drawing, or making things. And I did well in school, absorbing information rather easily, doing assignments without painful endeavor.

I knew I was talented. And the Parable of the Talents worried me. Because it indicated that much was expected of those who receive much. And that burying one's talents was not a good idea in God’s eyes. He gives out those gifts in expectation of them being expended, put out into the world. I worried about how to address that for myself. How was I supposed to use all the talents God gave me?

Eleven year olds worry about strange things.

Even though I was aware of how important God considered the talents and abilities he gives us, it wasn’t until I was an adult that the point was made even more strongly. Because it was when I was in college, and starting to really pay attention to the details of my faith, that I learned that historically, a talent was 75 pounds of precious metal (it could be either gold or silver). 75 pounds! So even one talent - that single talent that the third servant in the parable buried in the ground - is a lot of money. Apparently, in God’s eyes, a little talent can go a long way, if it’s put out into the marketplace.

Modern American society has a very ambivalent response to talent. On one hand, we glorify those who are exceptionally talented. On the other, we treat “ordinary people” who are talented as if those people have “interesting hobbies.” It’s almost as if we expect people to be burying their talents in the backyard. As if we think that is actually the proper thing to do with talents. “Keep it at home. Don’t bother the rest of us with them.”

It isn’t easy to get one’s talent into the marketplace. It takes work and preparation and continual attention to the craft. Tiger Woods is a talented golfer, but he still has to keep in practice and work at it. Picasso was a talented artist, but he also exercised it every day in one fashion or another. Mel Gibson is a talented film-maker.

Matthew 25: 29 says: “For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.”

That’s a very disquieting challenge. Much is expected of those who have been given talents (of any sort). But God is ready to reward our efforts at using the talents, if we’re ready to do the work to get them into the marketplace. But if we’re sitting on our hands, burying our talents, we run the risk of losing even what we do have. We aren’t promised that we’ll make a lot of money if we put our talents into the marketplace. We are promised that we’ll get a very good return, though.

So, I have no problem with Mel Gibson making money, even a lot of money, as a result of his film about Christ. He took his talents, his abilities, made an excellent film, got it into the marketplace, and is now getting a good return for his efforts. I don’t see how God would be displeased with that.

My only problem is that the success of the film has once again forcibly reminded me of the Parable of the Talents. And I’m again worrying about whether I’m doing all that I can to get mine out into the marketplace.