The old and the new

In the Gospel lesson for Sunday, Jesus offers a number of parables, ending with this one:

"Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."

"A scribe who has been trained for the kingdom" sounds like a wise person, someone who we can admire. Jesus says this person brings out of his treasure both what is new and what is old. He seems to be saying that both new and old have something of value.

If you think of conservatives as those who hold on to what is valuable from the past, and liberals as those who strive to bring in new things of value, then Jesus is saying that there's something of value from both sides of the spectrum.

Jesus himself came to renew the Jewish faith, not to abolish it. He valued the old practices of Judaism but he wanted to give them new expression and make them inward instead of simply outward.

In our own time, we are struggling with what it means to be Anglican. We cherish our prayer book heritage which links us to our Anglican history, but we also know we must be relevant to the world around us. New challenges bring new solutions.

The challenge before us is how to be faithful to our Anglican heritage while giving it new life and relevance in a changing world.

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