I have preached to my parish for the past few months, maybe a year even, on the need for unity – and it is now that this word comes to bear. We have come to election day, we have cast our votes, and one side has won. Before the election, we were perhaps confused in our hearts to see people on the other side as fellow Americans. Maybe we had some reason to forget – though in truth we should never forget – the reality that we are siblings with every other human being, let alone other Americans.

Now, however, we are on the other side of the election, and we no longer have an excuse, if we ever did in the first place. We may grieve over the results, we may find joy in the results, but the preparations have now ripened, and we are truly called to put aside our differences and join together again as one nation.

In this, I do not mean that we should not hold true to our beliefs. Quite the opposite. You voted the way you did for a reason. You hold certain things – and certain people – dear to your heart. And you should still do so, without question. There is no sound defeat here, in other words, nor is there a sweeping victory. We all remain founded on our beliefs, even as we are called to join together as siblings of a single country who must work together for the good of all who call this country home (which turns out to be a lot of different kinds of people).

But now is the time that we are called upon to live together. Now is the time when the preparation of my sermons, of others in your life who have also preached togetherness, and of the Holy Spirit, who as always seeks unity and reconciliation – now is the time when all of these voices come to fruit. Now is not the time of division but of unity.

And many of you may ask, that’s very nice, Father Tim, but how do we find unity? How do we find unity with grumpy people who wished the results were different, or peppy people who might gloat about their winning candidate or measure? In a few weeks, we’re going to be around family who think and voted differently than we did, and I really don’t know if I can be in the same room with them. Look at what they’ve done, or look at what they wanted. Isn’t reconciliation a pipe-dream? Isn’t unity just something nice we all talked about in grade school but aren’t really expected to put into practice?

I read an article recently where the author said that there are two Americas in our country, two cultures that claim “America” and that live in the same space and claim the same borders – and never the two shall reconcile. But the reality of unity isn’t that we all agree, or that those who lose are beholden to follow in lock-step the wills and whims of those who won, but that we are all facing a single direction. 

What is that direction? I’m not sure, actually. I’m here preaching unity and reconciliation but don’t have much of a clue as to what that unity might look like. But I do know one thing, and it’s that we practice unity and reconciliation every week when we forget our divisions and come up to this Altar to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We also practiced it when we got those voter forms last Tuesday and filled them out and stuck them in the machine. And we show that unity – or maybe we practice it – when we decide to not check out, take our toys, and go home, but continue to engage in respectful debate, fight for what we believe in, and see the life of Christ in each and every human being. Caring for the less fortunate, even if that person is on the other side of a battle line, is the core of what it means to be a Christian – and I believe that it’s at the core of what it means to be an American as well.

We should not give up on what is good and hopeful in this world. We should not act out of fear but should live into love.