Sermon Notes — April 26, 2026
Acts 2:42-47 (CEB)
April 26, 2026
Rev. Dr. Mary Beth Bernheisel
Today is the day that I will introduce you to one of my favorite church visuals.
From the earliest days of the church, our forefathers and foremothers knew how important it was for the church to keep time in a different way. And so the Christian year begins on the first Sunday of Advent. It’s like Christian New Year’s Day. During Advent we prepare for the birth of Jesus at Christmas, and then Christmas lasts for twelve days until we celebrate Epiphany Sunday, which is the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God and promised Messiah. And around and around we go. But what I want you to notice today is this middle circle that divides the church year in half. Now in reality, it doesn’t divide so neatly, but for our purposes this morning we’re going to pretend like the church year divides neatly in half. From Advent to Pentecost, we tell the story of Jesus. His birth, his early life, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, his ascension into heaven, and–finally–Pentecost, the day that Jesus sends the gift of God’s Holy Spirit to us. After Pentecost we start telling a different kind of story. We start telling the story of the People of God. That’s us. We tell stories about the early church, how it grew, and how it spread. We tell stories about the challenges it faced and the challenges that it still faces, and what it’s really like to try to live together as the body of Christ when it seems like it should be easy but really, it’s often difficult.
So today we’re at the very end of the Easter season and we’re moving toward Pentecost, but our text today is from the second chapter of Acts and it actually takes place after the day of Pentecost – after God has given the gift of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’s disciples.
So in a way we’re skipping ahead. The scripture that David read for us this morning is very much a story about the people of God – a very interesting story about the people of God and how they lived and worshiped and fellowshipped together in those first days after the Holy Spirit had been poured out on them.
Will you pray with me and for me?
I want you to get your Bible and turn to the Book of Acts. Get the Bible from the back of the pew in front of you, or the one you brought with you, or the one on your phone. Turn to the second chapter of Acts. The story of Pentecost is in Acts 2 verses 1-21. We’ll get there in a couple of weeks so don’t spoil it for yourself now. Acts 2, verses 22-41 are part of the same story, but we typically break those two sections of the story up because no one wants to hear – or read – 41 verses of Acts in worship. But I want you to look at verse 41. At the end of the Pentecost story, we read that how many people did God bring into the community of believers that day?
(Wait for it)
3,000.
On the day of Pentecost the number of people who make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord goes from, let’s round up to 100 because remember in Luke Jesus sent out 72. So let’s say that we start with 100 and at the end of the day we’re at 3,000.
The text for today tells us a little about what the lives of those 3,000 people look like. I don’t think we can assume that the very next day – the day after Pentecost – their lives looked just like this. 3,000 people didn’t just wake up the next day and create this particular structure for their lives together. More likely, they got up the next morning and said to themselves and each other, “Now what do we do?”
And maybe – let’s imagine – that Peter and some of the first disciples felt like it was their job to help put a structure on this new community, maybe they thought back to what their life was like when they were traveling with Jesus – what did Jesus think was important, what did he do, what did he do that we should emulate? How do we make this new community look like Jesus?
Eventually the life of the community revolved around these four things:
The teaching of the apostles. This new community of disciples studied together – probably the Hebrew texts. There were no gospels. There were no letters – those would come much later. They also probably studied the stories that the apostles told them – first-hand accounts of Jesus’ life.
They prayed together. The apostles knew that prayer was the central activity of Jesus’s life. He was always trying to get away from the crowds so that he could be by himself and sit in God’s presence. This new community prayed together because they knew that Jesus could not have been who he was without connection to God his Father.
They fellowshipped together. They hung out together, they bore one another’s burdens. Maybe they played Dumb Bunny Bridge together, and
They broke bread together.
Let’s go back to fellowship. It’s easy to gloss over that phrase without thinking too much about it. But these new followers of Jesus didn’t just come together because they shared the same interests or were in the same stage of life. This fellowship could have only been initiated by the Holy Spirit. And not only did they fellowship with one another but they broke bread together. They ate together. In the time and place of the early church, you did not sit at someone's table – or invite someone to your table – unless you were prepared to be associated with them.
But that’s what Jesus did. He kept people confused everywhere he went because he was always eating with the wrong people, talking to the wrong people, hanging out with the wrong people.
The first followers of Jesus in this new community did what Jesus did – they broke down social and economic barriers – barriers that structured the entire society. They broke down all the barriers and structured their community in a new way. A way that looked odd – maybe even offensive – to those on the outside looking in. But this new way of living was how they chose to represent Jesus to everyone around them.
Every day, it says. Every day they lived like this: they went to the temple and listened to the apostles’ teaching and prayed together. Every day they shared meals together and sat at the table together. And God created a new community that could only be a result of the Holy Spirit’s power.
And a sense of awe came over everyone. Look what God is doing.
I wondered this week what the signs and wonders were that God performed among the apostles, and then I wondered if perhaps the signs and wonders were simply that God had birthed this new community of believers that wouldn’t exist under any other circumstance than that God made it happen. Perhaps a sense of awe came over everyone not because the people in this new community were performing miracles but because their life together itself was a miracle.
Fifteen or so years ago, when I still knew everything about everything, but was starting to cozy up to the idea that maybe I didn’t know everything, I wondered aloud what would happen if the church returned to this practice that we read about in verses 44 and 45. What if we all really did share everything in common? What if we really did sell everything we didn’t need and gave the money to people who needed it? After all, there are communities that do just that. Some of you may be familiar with Shane Claiborne. Shane is a native Tennessean who is really serious about Jesus and the Bible and just wacky enough to have tried to do what it says in verses 44 and 45. In 1995 he and some friends pooled their money and bought an old shoe store in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia and moved in. And over the years they have continued to move into neighboring buildings with a commitment to own only what they need as a community, to share what can be shared, and to serve their neighbors with everything that they have. Everyone is welcome and everyone is loved. The community is called the Simple Way.
What if that’s what we’re all supposed to be doing? I wondered. And a very kind, very wise saint of the church reminded me that perhaps that way of life wasn’t sustainable. Peter interpreted the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as the Day of the Lord. Perhaps those first 3,000 disciples understood the coming of the Holy Spirit to be a sign that Jesus was on his way back again. Maybe that way of life wasn’t supposed to be forever.
Here’s what I began to understand over the past week. The structure of this new community wasn’t the goal – the goal wasn’t to be a community that learns, prays, plays, and eats together. The structure – the way they lived – allowed them to listen together to the Holy Spirit and respond to the Spirit’s stirrings, and that was the goal. To hear and respond to what God was calling them to do.
And that’s how we get to verses 44 and 45. Those early believers did what God was calling them to do in that specific moment, and they knew that was their call because their life together allowed them to hear and obey the Spirit. One commentary I read even suggested that this way of life – having everything in common and selling their possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor – was their form of evangelism. That was the way they reached the community around them with the good news of God’s love and the miracle of salvation and reconciliation through Jesus Christ.
I went back and read a little bit more about The Simple Way and what it looks like now. And you might not be surprised to hear that it no longer looks and functions like it did back in 1995. Through deep discernment and listening to the Holy Spirit the Simple Way community began moving in a different direction. The philosophy is the same – live simply so that others can simply live – but the way they do it is very different from the way they began. In fact, one of the members of the community said that “we’ve gone through some major transition, and taken a lot of logs off our fire that had gotten pretty saturated, so that we can get the flame burning again.”
The Holy Spirit is always moving – through the first Christians, through the generations of believers that came before, and within us now – to show us who and what we are called to be.
Last Sunday the Church Council met after church. And while we voted on some things and talked about money, which you’ll get to hear more about next week, we also recognized that while there is business to be taken care of, we also do not believe that we are ever called to simply be about business as usual, to do the things we’ve always done, to assume that because God has called us to be and do one thing means that that is what we are called to do until the end of time.
I am so grateful to Liz Maden, our Church Council chair, for recognizing the call on all of us as a congregation to open ourselves to the movement and the direction of the Holy Spirit, to believe that we are not just called to start more programs but to listen to the voice of the Spirit who is guiding us and nudging us and pointing us to new ways of being in the world, and she gave us a prayer, which I have passed on to you in your bulletin. Put it on your refrigerator or stick it in your Bible or tape it to your mirror. Pray it every day. Use different words if these don’t work for you, but make this your earnest plea. Let’s make this our prayer for this season in our congregation’s life – make this part of our structure and our practices that open us up to the Spirit’s movement.
Believing that God is always working through the Holy Spirit to bring fresh winds and new life, let’s pray this together:
Dear Heavenly Father,
We come before you today seeking guidance and understanding of the plans you have for the life of Bethlehem United Methodist Church. We confess that we often feel anxious about the future and try to control it. Lord, we surrender our desires and timeline to you.
According to your word in Jeremiah 29:11, we know you have plans for our welfare and not for harm, to give us a future and a hope. Please sharpen our spiritual discernment to recognize your voice and direction. Open the doors that align with your will, and close those that do not, as encouraged in Proverbs 16:9.
Give us the wisdom to understand the path you have set before us and the courage to take the next step in faith, even when we cannot see the whole picture. When we face confusion or doubt, replace our worries with your perfect peace and help us trust in your goodness. Amen.