Do you remember Henry David Thoreau's warning: "As if you could kill
time without injuring eternity"? Thoreau felt that our American obsession with business, consumption, moving up, making
it big, had the sad effect of ... well, Jesus put it best -- winning the whole world but at the expense of our souls.
And when churches themselves buy into this capitalist model of how life should be lived, but our last buffer against the insanity,
the one place previously dedicated to quiet, to peace, to reflection, to "I-Thou" values is subverted.
When I look at people on the street or sitting across from me on the metro
train -- often walking along with the cell phone pressed to their ears -- I see people whose faces show the unrelenting stress
of contemporary life and I want to provide for them a place set apart where they can experience the peace that passes understanding,
where they can come away for awhile to find refreshment and renewal. A place of grace, of warmth, of hope, of Christian
optimism that there is a way to live life that gives life, enhances life.
Our society is highly polarized right now -- more than any time since the 1960s.
Fear and mistrust seem to have taken over. Intolerance is making a massive comeback as a legitimate stance toward other
people, people who differ from us. Anger is boiling over. So we Christians have a real opportunity to ask if this
is really how we want to live and to call people to what St. Paul says is "a yet more excellent way." We can offer a Christianity
of grace for a time of war, hatred, distrust and breakdown.
CTS is a quiet little parish in an age of very loud mega-churches. But
perhaps that is our gift to the world. Years ago I was visiting Nuremberg
and had toured through the opulent and wonderful and overwhelming churches: Sebalduskirche and Lorenzkirche. They were
beautiful, but somehow exhausting. Then I turned down a quiet side street and there was a little and ordinary parish
church. I went inside. No tourists, just peace. A simple stone altar bathed in sunlight and a vase of roses
on the floor before it. I sat in the pew so thankful for a moment with God. I like to think CTS is such a place.
Not big, not loud, not aggressive. But a tired wayfarer can turn in here and rest for a moment and be in the Presence
and think about what life is really for.
Yours in Christ,
--Pastor Bastien
