Unity Deepens Shared Life in Christ Jesus

5.17.2026

7th Sunday of Easter

[Texts]  

Acts 1:6–14 ┃ Psalm 68:1–10, 32–35 ┃ 1 Peter 4:12–14; 5:6–11 ┃ John 17:1–11

Resurrection Blessings!

As we get ready for Pentecost next Sunday,

we find ourselves right there with the disciples in the upper room,

waiting, unsure of what comes next,

yet held together by Jesus’ promise

that the Holy Spirit would be with them.

The same Spirit who once rested upon Mary

to bring forth Jesus, the head of the Church,

is now preparing to give birth to the body of Christ,

the church, through these ordinary disciples.

I picture their hearts being all over the place,

hope mixed with fear,

longing mixed with confusion.

They wanted to act,

but they didn’t know what to do yet.

So instead of jumping ahead,

they came together and prayed.

They held on to what Jesus had taught them:

that God’s work starts with unity.

Not uniformity, but a shared life rooted in him.

And it’s from that unity that the body of Christ

can grow, multiply, and carry his witness

from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria,

and all the way to the ends of the earth.

The unity Jesus is talking about

is meant for his followers

for all who trust the God

who comes to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

Jesus prays for it as a gift we receive, not something we manufacture.

It’s the very life of God being poured into the Church, again and again,

until our divisions loosen and our sense of belonging deepens.

And unity sounds beautiful until

we’re tired, or stressed, or disagree, or feel unheard.

That’s when unity becomes a choice to receive or reject, not a feeling.

So what happens when the body of Christ gathers to pray?

This is where the story starts to come close to our own lives.

Jesus tells us that whenever two or three gather in his name,

he is right there with them.

So when we devote ourselves to prayer,

we step fully into that shared life with Jesus.

And that shared life looks like what 1 Peter describes:

we humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand,

we place our worries on the One who cares for us,

and we stay alert to the voices that try to pull us apart.

Because whenever the body of Christ is divided,

the suffering of Christ continues.

Our fractures still wound Jesus.

So where do you see division today in the body of Christ?

And the truth is, we all feel those places of division.

We all know how easily we drift apart.

And here’s the Good News: God really does protect us.

God protects us through a community

committed to living the way of Jesus

people who choose, again and again, to do what Jesus did.

As St. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 12,

every member of the body works for the good of the whole.

And that takes commitment,

commitment to carry each other’s burdens,

to pray for and care for one another,

to show up when it matters,

to forgive and build one another up,

to stay faithful even when it’s hard,

and to become Christ’s hands and feet in real, everyday ways.

That’s how God shelters us: through a community

that refuses to let anyone walk alone.

It’s through those commitments,

offered and received within Christ’s body,

that God’s protection becomes real and tangible among us.

And that’s exactly the kind of protection we need in seasons of waiting.

It’s the kind of protection every church needs

whenever we’re in a time of transition,

whether it’s leadership, ministry, or pastoral transition.

After our congregational meeting,

we now have a newly formed Church Council,

a newly elected Nominating Committee,

a Personnel Committee still taking shape,

and a Call Committee getting ready to interview candidates

all while the congregation continues in this season of waiting.

So many ministry teams,

each carrying real responsibility,

each trying to discern

how to work together faithfully

for the sake of Christ’s mission.

And with that responsibility comes

real pressure, real hope, and real longing for God to guide us.

And just this past week,

I saw a glimpse of that unity in real time.

Our Call Committee has been meeting faithfully week after week,

often for more than an hour at a time.

And last Wednesday,

they made a choice that most people will never see.

They decided to go deeper than a simple devotion;

they chose to pray, every person lifting their own prayer

and to share communion together before their discernment.

Bread and Cup united them and centered their time of listening.

Don’t we have that every Sunday?

Yes. And that’s exactly the point.

What we practice together in worship

becomes the pattern we carry into the rest of our life in Christ.

Worship begins on the first day of the week

and continues in every day we live, until we gather again.

We might not notice right away

how God begins to do God’s wonders,

but this is how it happens

quietly, gently, through people

who choose to center themselves in Christ

before they make decisions for Christ’s church.

That is unity becoming a practice, not just a hope.

Any transition is holy and tender.

We’re learning how to collaborate,

how to listen,

how to trust the Spirit more than our own preferences.

And just like those first disciples,

we’re discovering again that

the work of God doesn’t begin with certainty,

it begins with unity.

Not with rushing ahead,

but with gathering ourselves before God in prayer.

Let us think about this:

Where might the Spirit be inviting us

not just our committees, but each of us

to move from anxiety into prayer,

from preference into unity,

from control into trust?

So as we stand on the threshold of Pentecost,

we find ourselves not far from that upper room.

We too are waiting, discerning, listening for the Spirit

who still gathers the Church and sends it out.

And in this season

new Council,

new Personnel Committee forming,

a Call Committee preparing to interview candidates,

we are learning again that the work of Christ

does not begin in our plans.

It begins in our unity.

Unity is not agreement on every detail.

Unity is the shared life Jesus prays into us,

a life rooted in him,

shaped by prayer,

held together by love stronger than our preferences.

Unity begins when we acknowledge the table

where Jesus was broken for each one of us.

As we receive with grateful hearts,

we recognize the grace and the faith we share,

and by grace through faith, God makes us one.

Unity is trusting that the Spirit is already at work

in the places we cannot yet see.

So this week, I want to invite you into one simple practice.

Choose one person in this congregation

or choose a ministry team you’re part of

and hold them in prayer.

And as you pray for them, also pray for yourself.

Pray for joy, love, faith, and hope.

Pray that the Spirit would strengthen all of us

and knit us together in ways we can’t yet see.

Because every prayer we offer for one another

and every prayer we offer for ourselves

strengthens the whole body.

Every moment of humility makes room for the Spirit to breathe among us.

Let us pray.

As we wait for Pentecost, 

may the God who calls us into one body 

guard our hearts, 

keep us in the unity Jesus prayed for,

unity that becomes a witness to the world,

a blessing to our community,

and a sign of the Spirit’s renewing work among us,

individually and communally.

May the unity Christ prays into us 

become the unity we live

for the sake of the world God loves.

Amen.