Lectionary for June 1, 2025
Seventh Sunday of Easter
Acts 16:16-34; Psalm 97;
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21; John 17:20-26
Pope Leo XIV was just elected as I write this reflection. Of course, as a former resident of the extremities of Chicago, I’m happy someone from my part of the world was chosen. I’m also overjoyed to see folks on social media talking about what being a Christian, especially a Christian leader, is really all about. What characteristics do we look for in someone who will lead the faithful? More than that, what traits do we want in one of the most prominent faces of Christianity to those outside the faith?
When we think about what kind of leaders we need, we’re really asking ourselves who each of us is called to be and how we are called to live together in the kingdom of heaven. Those questions are profoundly important for the 1.4 billion Catholic Christians as well as for the millions of ELCA Lutheran Christians. This week’s lectionary passages address who we are called to be and how we are to live together.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus began to pray for the people who would follow him based on the disciples’ work after his death and resurrection. That’s us! Jesus prayed three times for unity—literally oneness—for you, me and all who follow Jesus around the world (17:21-23). Why does Jesus care about oneness in all Christians? The answer is in his prayer: so that the world may believe (21) and know (23) that God sent Jesus (21) and that God loves us, just as God loves Jesus (23).
Unity, Jesus says, is the thing that allows people to know and believe that he was sent by God and that God loves us. Unity is essential for Jesus’ work in us. It’s not sound apologetics, it’s not cool worship, it’s not even correct theology. Revolutions and political movements fracture and fall apart because, as writer William Butler Yeats put it, “the center cannot hold.” Unity across the rest of the world is elusive. Oneness, when it happens and is sustainable, is a gift from God so that the world may witness Jesus.
Jesus says that when all who follow him are one, the world will know that God really sent him and that God really loves us.
We see a couple examples of this strange oneness in the Acts account. First, Paul and his companions met an enslaved woman who brought her masters great profit by soothsaying. She told the truth about Paul’s mission. Paul was greatly annoyed (16:18). Too many interpreters make the woman the object of his annoyance, but I think that’s the wrong way to view this passage. Instead, we should let Paul’s actions guide us in understanding his emotions.
Paul exorcised the spirit that empowered the enslaved woman to earn a great profit for her masters. When the masters saw that Paul had freed the woman, they were upset by the loss of their revenue stream (19). Paul was so annoyed at the woman’s double enslavement that, even though she proclaimed the truth of his mission, he couldn’t stand that anyone would be used thusly. He wasn’t annoyed at her, or even necessarily at the spirit, but at the evil of men forcing an enslaved woman to earn a profit through possession of her body, mind and spirit. The masters brought the matter to court and complained that Jews (and in this case, Jewish Christians) did things that Romans weren’t allowed to do (20-21), namely, freeing enslaved people! That was some strange unity across class and gender in the Greco-Roman world.
The second strange unity happened after Paul and his companion were arrested. They were stripped, beaten, and then thrown into prison and immobilized in stocks. Although an earthquake opened every door and broke every chain, Paul and the other prisoners stayed in jail. The jailer was about to kill himself because his charges were gone. But Paul told him that they, in fact, had not seized the opportunity to escape. The jailer couldn’t believe they would sacrifice their freedom for his life and reputation. He asked what he needed to do to be saved, and Paul told him to believe.
How could the jailer do anything but believe? When someone stays in prison after almost getting lynched to save the lives of those who unjustly imprisoned them, there’s some kind of supernatural unity in place.
Jesus says that when all who follow him are one, the world will know that God really sent him and that God really loves us. Paul gives us two examples of unity that would have shocked the Roman world—and our own. He can’t help himself from feeling compassion for a woman and freeing her from spiritual slavery, making her physical slavery instantly unprofitable. At the same time, he feels compassion for his own jailer and refuses to escape to spare the man punishment. Paul could have said that those others had nothing to do with his mission or were hindering the ways of Jesus. Instead, he saw an enslaved woman and a participant in systemic injustice as part of the one human family that Jesus came to save. Who are you called to exercise surprising unity with?
