A month ago, citizens of this country voted to select leadership for our nation and state. And for those who attended worship here at Faith Church 2 days before the election, you may recall that I cautioned us as a congregation not to endorse particular candidates or a specific political party. To maintain our tax exempt status and to affirm the separation of church and state, the Church cannot endorse candidates or political parties. We do open our building as a place where people can cast their votes so that a wholesome and neutral site can support a democratic process. And we the Church can speak to the issues from the perspective of our Christian faith, of course being careful not to endorse hot political issues so that will promote a particular candidate or a specific political party. The church only speaks before the world and its leaders to promote the issues from the perspective of how Christ would have us live our faith.

Commentators and analysts referred to the national election and its process leading up to voting day as highly divisive. Although I would agree with the experts, it has been my observation that all elections are divisive. Many citizens endorse candidates and political parties with passion because they believe their candidate or party can solve the pressing national and world problems or ensure a desirable future for them personally. Some even attempt to idolize their candidate or party as the world's savior. Worse still are church people who identify their candidate or political party with their Christian faith, or perhaps more accurately, they understand their Christian faith as being reflected in a particular candidate or party. So the divisiveness can easily seep into the church, distorting its understanding of sin and salvation, forming its teaching and proclamation from a political agenda rather than a spiritual mandate, and tearing apart its fellowship as the Body of Christ rather than uniting it in our Lord and Savior.

The Apostle Paul wasn't speaking on the eve or the aftermath of political election, but he was speaking of divisiveness within the Church of his day, and especially the church in Rome. The issue was political in its own way, that is, who are the real people of God? Who were closest to God? Who had the right insight into how and the full requirement to become a child of God? The church in Rome was made up of Jews who had become Christians and non-Jews called Gentiles (by the Jews) who had become Christians. The Jews considered themselves to be a specially ordained people, people chosen directly by God to share God's grace in the world, so that only a person of the proper credential or party could become a follower of the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. All others had to become Jews and follow Jewish traditions and customs first before they could be accepted into the Christian faith. Others, like Paul for instance, believed that because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, all distinctions that separated people were no longer valid. Only faith and belief in Christ was necessary with no prerequisites. No matter what a person's background, acceptance of Christ as Lord and Savior makes one a member of God's people. And this acceptance makes all Christians equal and united in the fellowship of Christ.

In case we don't understand Paul's words, let me put it this way. Human creations and human organizations cannot unite the people of God nor can they unite the non-believers of this world. Now let me be clear. We human beings have all kinds of organizations, clubs, teams, political entities, and the admiration of particular persons who do great things in this world and help to serve our communities and humanity. They do a lot of good and we are blessed by their work and service. But these human entities and persons are not the savior of the world. There is only one savior, and that is Christ Jesus. And these human creations, despite all the good they do, cannot unite humanity, especially the people of God.

What Paul wanted the Romans to know and wants us to know today is that unity in the church, in our nation, in fact in the whole world can only come through belief in the work of God through Christ, the Christ whom we worship today.

And because of the unity that our faith in Christ brings, that all of us can agree and must agree that Christ is Lord and savior and the head of the Church, means that all of the other differences we bring into our politics, in our approaches to community work and service, cannot divide us. We live with our differences and fellowship with one another because Christ is our savior. Jesus is our model of Christian behavior and unity, for he came to save the world, not just some of us or the ones with the right credentials. All of us have the right credentials: all of us are sinners in need of the grace of God. And you can't get more equal than that.

Christ died for our sins. That's what we remember and celebrate in Holy Communion. This is the Lord's table Christ, regardless of who we are, regardless of what groups we belong to, regardless of where we came, regardless of our sin, regardless of whether or not we are believers. We are invited to the Lord's table and his fellowship so that we might believe and come to believe and be united in him to live like Christ wherever we go and in whatever we do.

Let us now eat together in the fellowship and unity of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.