Robert Benson Writer

THE BODY BROKEN
Answering God's Call
to Love One Another

Sometimes I wonder why Church people spend most of their time talking about what keeps them apart from other Church people. And it makes me so sad that it breaks my heart — and it made me take up my pen once to say so.

I have spent my whole life around Christian people of one stripe or another. I was raised in the Nazarene church, then I became a Methodist, and now I am an Episcopalian. Because of the work that I have done, first as a religious music publisher and now as a writer of books about Christian spirituality, I have spent a fair amount of time with people from all across the spectrum of Christian theology, doctrine, and practice. You name the group and some of them are sure to be people that I know by name. I have worshiped with them, argued with them, prayed with them, done business with them, wept with them, and laughed with them. I have been to retreats and conferences, camp meetings and mission trips, Bible studies and revivals, festive Eucharists and Jesus festivals. I have been a fellow pilgrim and seeker and traveling companion with one crowd or another of them for as long as I can remember.
    Church folks have loved me, supported me, comforted me, and challenged me throughout my days in ways that have made me what I am, for better or for worse. I hope and pray that remains true for me for the rest of my life. But from time to time that same crowd has broken my heart. I expect that I have returned the favor a time or two as well, I am afraid.
    “We Christians can be awfully hard on each other,” said my friend Reuben Welch once. “We are especially hard on each other when it comes to the things that matter the most. And we can be just as hard on each other about the things that matter the least.”

....My friend Reuben once said that “Sure, people need Jesus, but most of the time, what they really need is for someone to be Jesus to them.”
    We who call ourselves by the name Christian are to be the Body of Christ in this world. We are to be Jesus. I expect that it will take the efforts of all of us together….If the Christ is to appear incarnate in this world in these days, then it will be because we are Jesus to people. Most of us understand that, many of us even say it to each other and to ourselves from time to time. However, there is a terrible truth at work here in our world, in our Church. We are very often incapable of being Jesus to other Christians, which leaves me to wonder how it is we can be confident that we can be Christ to someone outside the Church.
    I have hope that we may yet, as the old prayer says, ‘become one with Christ and one with each other.’ But I think that will only be true if we tell each other our stories and ask each other our questions.
    Some of our stories involve things that no one wants to say or to hear about the crowd of people that we refer to as the Body of Christ. Some stories involve pain and hurt, even though they describe events that took place a long time ago. Some of them may be difficult because none of us, including me, want to entertain the notion that we are participating, even if unknowingly, in the daily dismemberment of the very Body that we claim to be.