Jesus said,

This remarkable church is certainly one of the older treasures of the United Reformed Church. Through the history of the congregation and through the building we are given a powerful reminder here of the particular witness we have inherited. But it’s also one of the places and communities where the insights and concerns of the very contemporary church are recognised and given space. The juxtaposition of the old church and the newer centre for reflection are a parable of Matthew’s very insight - that new and old belong together and can be brought out from the same treasure house.

The distinction between old and new is something which troubles both the world we live in today and the church. Have you ever noticed, for example, that products can be advertised in quite contradictory ways? 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 encouraged to buy something because it’s just like things used to be, it’s traditional, what your granny would have known. And so most of live in a world in which we drink tea ‘like tea used to be’ and in which our washing powder is forever ‘new’ and ‘improved’. We dread being ‘ashamed of our mobiles’, but we want antique, distressed pine in our kitchens. In the strange patchwork world of postmodernity, 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. Sometimes we make the terrible mistake of the thinking that the ‘old’ testament is simply superseded by the new, and then at other times we cling to an ‘old’ translation of the Bible even though scholars have found for us important new insights. We can’t decide whether old or new is best.

But Jesus said, when we are disciples in the kingdom of heaven we are like those who can produce both the old and the new. It is always tempting 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’s 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.

A while ago I was reading a Methodist journal when I came across an article by Rowan Williams. The article caught my eye because he was writing about what it means to be Reformed. He invites us, in the article, to forget for a moment the various labels we have given each other as Christians - and to remember instead the way Jews in Britain talk about their identity. There are three kinds of Jews - Orthodox, Liberal and Reformed. What if we were to think of our Christian identity like that? They would be caricatures of course, shorthand at best, but he believes that what it does is to bring into focus the importance of the word ‘Reformed’. And of course this is where our ears prick up, because although he was no doubt writing with the Anglican communion in mind, we are worshipping at the moment in a Reformed Church. Rowan Williams says, supposing we say that Orthodox Christians, broadly speaking, are those who are concerned with continuity, and with faithfulness to the traditions of the faith. And supposing we say that Liberal Christians are those committed to asking questions and making the faith new for today’s world. One brings out the old, if you like, and the other the new. And what if we think of ourselves as Reformed - what would that mean? He suggests that it means trying to hold the truth and insight of both the Orthodox and the Liberal, (or you might say the traditional and the modern, the old and the new) together, in faith, in love, in fidelity to the mystery of God. To be Reformed is to be strongly rooted in the traditions of our faith, but also to be open to the Holy Spirit who constantly questions and renews them. Or, if you like, it is to be a disciple in the Kingdom of God, like a householder bringing out of the storehouse both old and new. I hope there is something of this in our understanding of what it means to be in the United Reformed Church. And this is well demonstrated here in this place, where old and new are held together and where they can strengthen one another for good.

We will always need the old as well as the new in our storehouse of faith. It is 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 would also be foolish to think that they what they thought and shared and lived can simply be taken over and used now. We cannot live in second hand clothes. We need to make faith and life new again in our day - but not, I think, by turning away from all that is past. Imagine that all the people who have ever worshipped in this congregation 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 kind of distinctions we love to make between old and new are constantly challenged by the Bible and by our faith. Jesus promised a ‘new commandment’ - to love one another, but of course it wasn’t new in the sense that no-one had ever suggested it before. 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 to new life 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. St Paul promises and declares that if we are in Christ we are a ‘new creation’, but of course another way of saying this is that we are restored to what God always intended us to be, since the beginning of creation.

The faith we share is rooted in ancient and holy stories. It is also a brave and moving story of a pilgrim people, always moving on to new places, taking with them the treasures of the old. This congregation bears witness to the Christian faith in the Reformed tradition, rooted firmly in the Bible and in the experience of faith and always open to renewal and change. This minister is also one who has his own storehouse of old and new, of head and heart, of wisdom and holy fooling, and through whom God will be at work here.

I pray for this congregation a strong sense of your traditions and of your roots, a lively sense of the journey into new life to which God is constantly calling you on, and ‘under God’s good hand’ that you be ‘disciples in the Kingdom of God’, bringing out of the storehouse both the old and the new. And I pray for your new minister Leslie, that he will be given opportunities here to be not only a good, faithful, traditional minister of the word and the sacraments, but also to flourish as one who is always looking for the new, as yet unheard, voice - and whose connections and commitments lie far beyond the local. Good people of Aston Tirrold, you have a pearl of great price in Leslie - open your hearts to him. And may we all celebrate today that God is with us and always will be, loving, restoring, and renewing us. Thanks be to God. Amen.