Love is the Thread. We Belong to Each Other

A reflection on John 17:20-26

I love old quilts.

I love their faded colors, unraveling edges, and spots so worn through the batting peeks out. Quilts like this don’t just keep you warm, they hold you. Each square has a story—someone’s shirt, a piece of a curtain, a scrap from a dress that belonged to someone’s grandmother.

They’re not beautiful in the same way a tapestry hanging in a museum is… but there is beauty in their crooked seams that, despite their wear, hold together across generations by the quiet, nearly invisible thread. The thread that does its job without applause or attention, passing through each square with relentless faithfulness.

I wonder if that's what Jesus thought about when he prayed for us.¹ Held not by agreement or alignment or even shared opinions, but by love. Love that keeps showing up. The kind that binds us together even when we fray.

The world feels like it's coming apart at the seams. Division has become currency. Belonging is conditional. And the loudest voices seem to be the ones pulling everything apart. Still, Jesus, at the end of his life, is not praying for power or protection or clarity, but for oneness.

Not sameness.
Oneness.

An ancient prayer, stitched together with a timeless thread.
A thread that still holds.

Jesus is drawing a thread from the very beginning of the story of God and God’s people, and pulling it forward into this moment.

Any Jewish listener, any disciple shaped by the rhythm of daily prayer, would have heard the echo: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” The Shema. Children learn this prayer, and families write it on doorposts. The Shema is as etched into the daily rhythm of God’s people as breathing. This prayer is an identity. It is a declaration: There is one God, and we belong to that God. Together.

When Jesus prays, “That they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us…” he’s not being poetic. He’s being profoundly faithful.

He’s reaching into that ancient river, into that long, sacred remembering, and placing his people inside of it. He’s not just praying for unity, he’s praying that we remember who we are.

This transcends sentiment; it's not a simple group project. This is what it means, at its core, to bear God’s image and be drawn into the oneness of God’s love. Jesus’ prayer is for God’s people to not live scattered and competing with one another, but as people held together in a larger wholeness. It’s identity and belonging that run deeper than our differences. Jesus' prayer is for oneness.

There’s a difference between sameness and oneness. Sameness is easy. You just gather with people who think like you, vote like you, read the same books, listen to the same podcasts, watch the same news channels and share the same social media posts. Sameness doesn’t require grace. It doesn’t stretch us. It heals nothing.

Jesus' prayer for oneness is about love, not uniformity. And real love always costs something.

“Love one another,” he said, “as I have loved you.”

Jesus doesn’t say, “tolerate one another” or, “avoid the hard stuff to keep the peace.” His prayer and his command aren’t for God’s people to smile through gritted teeth while holding a quiet grudge. His prayer and his command is for us to LOVE.

Love that expresses oneness kneels to wash feet.
Love that expresses oneness weeps outside a tomb.
Love that expresses oneness stays at the table with someone who’s already decided to betray you.

This is the thread Jesus offers us that will hold us together, even when the squares of our quilt are wearing thin. Not a thread of sameness, but one of love that binds what’s come apart.

And here’s the hard truth: You don’t need love when everyone agrees, you need love when there’s tension. You need love when it would be easier to walk away and when someone’s point of view is hard to understand. You need love when people are hard to love.

Love makes itself known, not in agreement, but in presence.

Jesus prays we’ll live like we’re part of each other.
Jesus prays that our joy and pain matter to one another and our dignity is all of ours to protect.

That kind of oneness is not cheap. But it’s the only kind that can bear witness to the God who holds all things together.

Jesus doesn’t say, “I hope they like each other.” Or, “May they agree on doctrine or decisions or how to load the dishwasher.”

He prays, “That the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Love is the thread. The presence. The binding agent.

This is love we choose… that takes root when it would be easier not to care. This is love that holds when everything else is coming undone.

This is the kind of love that existed before the world began. The love shared between the Trinity, woven into the very fabric of creation. It is ancient. It is eternal. And somehow, it is now inside us.

That same love is what Jesus offers as our home.

“May they be where I am,” he says, not just someday, in some far-off afterlife… NOW! Here! In this space, where divine love is present. Amid disagreement, grief, beauty, and becoming.

The strength of our institutions, the charisma of our leaders, the polish of our theology isn’t what holds us together.

Love holds us together and refuses to let go and makes its home in us. Love threads its way through our fear, through our cynicism, and the holes we try to hide.

It doesn’t erase our differences; it binds us despite them. And it’s what still holds the Church together even when we forget what we’re made of.

What Would Change If We Lived Like We Belonged to Each Other?

Imagine it.

Not a utopia or a naïve, conflict-free world, a Church. Imagine a community and a life held together by something deeper than agreement.

What would change if I looked at you and saw part of myself?
If your story interrupted my assumptions?
If your joy stretched mine wider?
If your grief demanded I slow down and sit beside you?
What if I really believed we belong to each other?
Would we stop seeing people as problems to fix? Or threats to avoid? Or votes to win? Or strangers to tolerate?

I wonder if we would start seeing God who lives in one another.

Maybe we would ask better questions, talk less and listen longer. Maybe we’d stay in the room when things get hard.

That’s the invitation.

Not to build walls of sameness, but to be a dwelling place for love.

Jesus prayed this over us, and still prays it in us—that we may be one, so the world will believe. Not because of our words, but because of our love that dares to live as if we really do belong to each other.

Because we do.

“Love is the thread. We belong to each other.”

1. For the full context of this post, read John 17:20-26