"Are you family?" the nurse asked. The two women looked at each other. Neither one understood the other's language. But both of them knew the answer.

Manmi Lisette was seventy-two when she came from Haiti to live with her son in Philadelphia. The city was cold. The streets were loud. And on Sabbath, the little church near her son's apartment preached in English — a language she did not speak.

The first week, she sat in the back row, alone. She held her Kreyòl Bible on her lap and tried to follow. She could not. She felt like a guest at someone else's table.

The second week, a woman sat down next to her. Rosa was from Guatemala. She cleaned offices at night. She spoke Spanish — and only Spanish. Rosa smiled, pointed to the hymnbook, and opened it between them.

When the piano started, Lisette knew the melody. She had sung it since she was a girl in Haiti. So she sang — in Kreyòl. And next to her, Rosa sang the same tune — in Spanish. Two languages. One song.

After that, every Sabbath, Rosa saved her a seat. They could not have a conversation. They shared the hymnbook, a smile, and sometimes a mint from Rosa's purse. That was all.

Then one Sabbath, Lisette's seat was empty.

Hold on to that empty seat. Because what Rosa did next is a small picture of something Jesus asked His Father for — on the last night before the cross. And He was praying about you.

Why we build walls

Be honest. In a crowded room, where do you sit? Most of us look for people who look like us, talk like us, and come from where we come from. It feels safe.

And little by little, walls go up. Haitian here, American there. Rich and poor. "Educated" and "not educated." Those who were born here and those who just arrived. Even in church.

This is not new. Jesus' own disciples argued about which one of them was the greatest. In the early church, some believers would not even eat at the same table as others. Walls are as old as sin.

But God's dream has always been bigger than our walls. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came, and people from many nations heard the good news. Look at what happened:

Notice: God did not make everyone speak one language. He spoke to each one in his own language. He did not erase who they were. He brought them together.

The prayer Jesus prayed for you

On the night before He died, Jesus prayed a long prayer for His disciples. Then He did something beautiful. He prayed for all who would believe later — that includes you and me (John 17:20). And this is what He asked:

Read the end again: that the world may believe. Our unity is not just nice. It is a message. When people who should be enemies love each other, the world sees something it cannot explain — except by Jesus.

Not by our big buildings. Not by our perfect music. By love — one to another.

One body, many parts

The apostle Paul used a picture everyone understands: your own body.

Your hand is not your foot. Your eye is not your ear. They look different. They do different jobs. But they are one body, with one life flowing through them.

That is the church. Unity is not uniformity. God does not want a church of copies. He wants a body — Haitian and French, American and Latino, young and old — each one different, each one needed. Paul says, "The eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee" (1 Corinthians 12:21).

And in a body, pain is shared:

The walls Jesus broke down

In Paul's day there were deep walls: Jew and Gentile, slave and free, man and woman. People were ranked. Some were worth more than others. Then Paul wrote one of the most revolutionary sentences ever written:

Paul was still a Jew. Men were still men, and women still women. Differences did not disappear. But in Christ, they no longer rank us and they no longer divide us. At the foot of the cross, the ground is level. No one is worth more there because of his passport, his diploma, his bank account or the color of his skin.

Peter had to learn this too. When God sent him to the house of a Roman officer — someone he had been taught to avoid — Peter said, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34).

How did this happen? Not by a program. By the cross:

In our last study, we saw Jesus die and rise to bring us back to God. Here we see the second miracle of the cross: it brings us back to each other.

A gift we keep

Here is something important. We do not create unity. God gives it. But we must keep it:

Count the word "one" — seven times. One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father. Our unity starts in God Himself: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one. He pulls us into that oneness.

How do we keep it? The verse just before tells us: "with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love" (Ephesians 4:2). And Paul shows the thread that holds it all together:

"Charity" in the old English means love — God's kind of love. Love is the bond. It is the stitching that holds different pieces of cloth together in one garment.

Unity does not mean pretending nothing is wrong. Paul tells us to speak "the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15), and to keep "forbearing one another, and forgiving one another" (Colossians 3:13). Real families have hard talks — and then they still sit down at the same table.

So what does keeping unity look like on a normal Sabbath?

• Sit next to someone you do not know yet.
• Learn to say "God bless you" in another member's language.
• When someone is missing, notice — and go find out why.
• Refuse to repeat the story that divides. Forgive quickly.
• Welcome the newcomer the way Christ welcomed you: "Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God" (Romans 15:7).

The Seventh-day Adventist Church sums up this Bible teaching like this: the church is one body with many members, called from every nation, kindred, tongue and people; in Christ we are a new creation, and differences of race, culture, learning, nationality, social standing or gender must not divide us, for we are all equal in Christ, who by one Spirit has bound us into one fellowship with Him and with one another; this unity has its source in the oneness of the triune God (Fundamental Belief #14, "Unity in the Body of Christ").

A preview of heaven

Where is all this going? John was given a look at the end of the story:

All nations. All tongues. Standing together. Same white robes. Same Lamb. Every time a church full of different people sings together, it is a little rehearsal for that day.

Unity is God's gift — one Father, one Lord, one Spirit. It is Jesus' prayer — that the world may believe. And it is our choice every Sabbath — to keep it with love.

What the nurse saw

That Sabbath, when Lisette's seat was empty, Rosa did not just go home. She asked the deacon. She found out Lisette was in the hospital with pneumonia.

On Sunday afternoon, Rosa walked into Lisette's room with a container of hot chicken soup and her Spanish Bible. Lisette was so surprised that she started to cry.

They still could not talk. So Rosa opened her Bible to John 17 and pointed to verse 21. Lisette opened her Kreyòl Bible to the same place. Rosa read it aloud in Spanish. Lisette read it in Kreyòl. Neither one understood the other's words — but both of them knew exactly what they were reading: "That they all may be one."

That was when the nurse came in. She looked at the soup, the two Bibles, the two women holding hands. "Are you family?" she asked.

Rosa answered first: "Sí. Familia."

And Lisette, smiling through her tears, said: "Wi. Fanmi."

The nurse did not understand either language. But she understood what she saw. And maybe — just maybe — she understood a little more about Jesus that day.

That is what Jesus prayed for. Not people who all look the same, but people from every nation who love each other so much that the world has to ask why. You belong in that family. Is there a seat next to you this Sabbath that someone is waiting for?

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