There are visionaries in every age, men and women who see the future and do something to make it happen. Whether they be scientists or engineers, philosophers or artists, entrepreneurs or authors, these men and women invest in that future before most of us even know that it has arrived.

All of us, somewhere will have a poster of Van Gogh’s sunflowers and if we don’t have a poster we will instantly recognise it when we see it. If I was to ask you to name an artist, then most of us would be able to name Van Gogh. His art is the most recognisable and the best loved art work in the world. It could be said without exaggeration that Van Gogh brought art to the masses and it was that vision that inspired his work. It was a vision at first conceived of as a religious calling that he had tried to work out through his outreach amongst the poor in the grim Victorian streets of London and as an evangelist in the coal mines of Belgium.

There Van Gogh worked with a missionary zeal to bring to ordinary folk a vision of ‘heaven’. But it was not as an evangelist that Van Gogh realised his mission but as an artist. His art, he said, was ‘a revelation of heaven on earth’. But it was only in Provence that he himself discovered the light and colour he had been searching for all his life. Here he began to paint just as he worked as an evangelist, and his mission was the same, to reach out to ordinary folk, not the sort who went to art galleries but those who never would. The irony, of course, is that he only ever sold one painting in his life.

That, though, was not the point. By the time he arrived in Provence he saw himself as a prophet investing in a future he would not see. His passionate belief was that people would see and feel the rush of life in the fields and trees, the flowers and faces he painted and open their eyes and hearts, as his eyes had been opened. He wrote these words to his brother Theo:

“What am I in the eyes of most people, a non entity, an eccentric, an unpleasant person, somebody who has no position in society and never will; the lowest of the low. Well even if that is true, then one day I would like to show what such a non entity has in his heart.”

Van Gogh had invested his talents in a future he did not see but which like our parable today has enriched us all. The stories Jesus told about the Kingdom picture a world that is coming into being through the work of his disciples, a future that they themselves would not see.

In the parable of the talents Jesus tells of a Landowner who entrusts his property to his servants. To one he gives five talents, to another two talents, and to the third, one. A talent was the equivalent of about £1,000, so this was a considerable investment in those he left in charge of his property. He clearly has confidence in them to put this investment to work.

Jesus, too, was confident that those he left behind would work to build the Kingdom. There was to be no waiting around for the Kingdom to arrive, instead he gave them all that was needed to make the Kingdom a reality in our world. The servant who decided to bury his talent and wait for his Lord’s return is roundly condemned!

For us too Jesus entrusts us with an inheritance that we are urged to use and indeed pass on to the next generation. Whatever our ‘talent’ may be, whether great or small, whether recognised or unknown, whether appreciated or ridiculed, we work and live, like Van Gogh, for the joy of what we can give to those who we may never know.

A prayer for peace in the Holy land

O God of all justice and peace
we cry out to you in the midst of the pain and trauma
of violence and fear which prevails in the Holy Land.
Be with those who need you in these days of suffering;
we pray for people of all faiths – Jews, Muslims and Christians and for all people of the land.
While we pray to you, O Lord, for an end to violence and the establishment of peace,
we also call for you to bring justice and equity to the peoples.
Guide us into your kingdom
where all people are treated with dignity and honour as your children
for, to all of us, you are our Heavenly Father.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.