Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Before we sit down around the post-election Thanksgiving table, let us all agree that what unites us is greater than what divides us.  We don’t have to all be the same – thankfully we’re not! – nor do we have to vote the same way or have the same political opinions to gather together as one.  Just as the body of Christ has many parts, we can have a variety of voices.  So that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  1 Corinthians 12:25

While the level of divisiveness around the country has reached new heights, it is especially important to remember that Jesus is the one who reconciles.  We serve and glorify him when we also reconcile.  For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.  Ephesians 2:14-16

I praise Jesus because he has done this.  I’m encouraged like never before by his choice of disciples, both Simon the Zealot and Levi the tax collector, from opposite ends of their political spectrum.  I’m grateful to have friends and family across a broad landscape of our political spectrum so we can all learn from each other and learn to value differences, just as Jesus’ disciples had to learn to do.  I pray all of us will come together at Jesus’ table under his headship and authority, in humility and obedience, to his glory.  Amen.