Matthew 13:34-35 & 52
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Jeremiah 6:16-21

I wonder if you’ve ever noticed how the distinction between old and new has become very strange these days? I think it’s become something which seems to trouble both the world we live in today, and the church. Sometimes we’re encouraged to buy something because it’s ‘new’, the latest thing, you’ve never seen anything like it before, and sometimes we’re encouraged to buy something because it’s just like things used to be, it’s traditional, what your granny would have known.

We drink tea ‘like tea used to be’, and our washing powder is forever ‘new’ and ‘improved’. We dread being ashamed of our mobile phones, but we want antique, distressed pine in our kitchens. In the strange patchwork world that we now live, we can’t decide whether old or new is best. And in the strange world of the church we often divide ourselves up according to whether we like ‘traditional hymns’ or ‘new worship songs’, or whether we’d rather have the old pews or buy new chairs, or whether we want our theology and faith more than anything to be faithful to our reading of the tradition, or to be led by the concerns of the world. Sometimes in the church we marginalise those who are ‘older’ and long only for ‘young’ people and ‘new families’ to join us, and sometimes we are desperately frightened of anything new. We can’t decide whether to sing a new song or to the Lord, or to tell the old, old stories. We can’t decide whether old or new is best.

Our Bible readings today have something to say about this. Jeremiah encouraged people to seek the old ways, to walk the ancient paths. Jeremiah would certainly be in favour of taking the best from our long and distinguished pasts. Paul, in complete contrast, promises and declares that if we are in Christ we are a ‘new creation’. Everything old has passed away, and all is new in Christ. Jeremiah would surely be advocating the retro 1950s style fridge freezer, while Paul would surely be buying the sofa that you need to plug in, because it has charging sockets for your phone and your iPad in the arms.

Yet, we mix these up so much today, I think it’s impossible to separate them out, which is why it’s such good news that in our gospel reading, we heard Jesus say, “every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure-store both the new and the old.”

Many of us, like that good scribe, know the traditions of our faith, and of our particular flavour of church. Many of us are also deeply aware of, and sensitive to, the needs and concerns of the new, of the contemporary world. God speaks to us now, through our experiences and through the communities where we live, as God spoke to our ancestors. The old and the new are not mutually exclusive, but are both essential for life and health. If we’re only living in the past, then we aren’t the good scribe, if we’re only interested in the new things, then we aren’t the good scribe. The good scribe is interested in both the old and the new. It can be tempting to want to choose one or the other, either to hold on to the comfort and reassurance of the past, or to sweep it away in a grand step into the unknown. It can be tempting to find our identity either among the traditional, or among the fashionable. But in the things of faith, a broader landscape lies before us.

We’ll always need the old as well as the new in our storehouse of faith. It’s easy for people who live today to think those who lived before us simply old fashioned, strange, unenlightened. But they have wisdom to pass on to us and we are foolish to ignore it. Of course we’d also be foolish to think that what they thought and shared and lived can simply be taken over and used now. We need to make faith and life new again in our day – but not by turning away from all that is past. Imagine that all the people who have ever worshipped in these congregations were here today – there would be many hundreds of them with many different experiences and stories to tell. And in a way they are here – part of our storehouse, part of who we are now. But our faithfulness to their witness lies in responding to the Gospel with integrity for our own times – while never letting go of their hands. The best of the old and the best of the new together. Jesus lived in times when no-one thought that the important thing was to be original – the important thing was to be faithful and to bring new life to the old traditions, the things known since the foundation of the world, but which every generation must hear again as though for the first time.

What I think we’re talking about in our plans and hopes for unity between our two churches, I think this idea of taking the best of the old and the best of the new is very important to us. We won’t be throwing away everything that has gone before. There is much of value that we will take with us on our journey. In the same way, things will be different because we won’t bring everything from the past with us, and ignore all the new possibilities that God has in store for us. There will be many new things that will become loved and valued, that God will offer us.

Methodism and the United Reformed Church didn’t exist when Jesus was talking, but if we can translate his saying “every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure-store both the new and the old” into our situation today, I’d like to think that might include the best of Methodism, and the best of the United Reformed Church. I hope and believe that there is much in Methodism that is a gift to other traditions, and from which the United Reformed Church can learn and grow. I also hope and believe that there is much in the United Reformed Church from which Methodism can learn and grow. The best of the old, and the best of the new; the best of the United Reformed Church, and the best of Methodism; this how I hope and I believe we can advance God’s kingdom in this our little patch of it.

Aristotle talked about “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. What that means is that when you add things together, they are more than ought to be. If you take two apples, and add two apples, you ought to get four apples, but if you follow Aristotle’s logic, then you get at least five apples. That might be nonsense in parlour games with fruit bowls, but it certainly isn’t in more serious matters.

This business of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts is called synergy, and it’s the only way that science can make any sense of the universe and how it operates. To give you an example from biology, if flu virus A kills 10% of the people who catch it, and flu virus B also kills 10% of the people who catch it, then if virus A and virus B are both going around at the same time, you’d expect 20% of the people to be killed, but in reality it’s more than that, because the two flu viruses together have a greater effect.

This applies in church as well, and to explain what I mean I’d like to tell you about two United Reformed Churches that united in Woking, eleven years ago. When they came together they found that they had more people to do things, so instead of feeling stretched to have enough people to do the jobs and keep the show on the road, they people with spare energy and time to serve the church not just in keeping the institution going, but in more creative ways. They also found that they had more money, because they were only paying one gas bill, one water bill, one electricity bill, and the maintenance of one building. So, they had more members doing work with children and young people, involved in worship and Bible study, and pastoral care; they could employ a youth worker. And the result is that that church has grown in numbers, and also become a much younger church. This is what I mean by the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

The faith we share is a brave and moving story of a pilgrim people, always moving on to new places, taking with them the treasures of the old. This is, I suggest, what is meant when we are told that Jesus said, “every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure-store both the new and the old.”