Acts 2:42-47

In the year 268 AD (268 years after the birth of Christ, about 1,758 years ago), the most powerful man in the world was named Claudius Gothicus. Claudius was the Roman Emperor who ruled from 268-270 AD. At the time, the Roman Empire was the most powerful and prosperous empire the world had ever known. 

Claudius liked to start wars. He had a big ego and a cruel personality. Almost immediately after becoming emperor, Claudius ordered the Roman army to destroy the Gothic army to the empire’s north in the Balkans. In that war, almost 50,000 Gothic soldiers were killed or captured. Shortly after that, Claudius ordered his armies to what is modern day France and Britain to reclaim those lands for the Roman Empire.

Claudius’ military adventures were bloody and unpopular. So much so that Claudius had difficulty recruiting young men to join the Roman Army. Claudius’ theory for the Army’s recruiting woes was that young men didn’t want to join the Army because they were distracted by love. He claimed that they were unpatriotic because they loved their fiances (or wives) and families more than they loved their country. So Claudius issued an executive order that canceled all marriages and engagements in Rome. 

A Christian priest in Rome saw the injustice and cruelty of Claudius’ executive order and refused to obey the emperor. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar and give to God what is God’s,” Jesus taught. But in the end when he had to choose between obeying God and obeying the state, the only real option was to obey God. So the priest continued to perform marriages between young men and women in Rome, often in secret. 

The priests’ name, according to legend? Valentinus. 

When Claudius learned of Valentinus’ actions, he was furious. He ordered his agents into the streets to arrest the priest and drag him to jail. Claudius would later order the priest to be executed by beheading.

When the Roman Empire largely stopped persecuting Christians about 100 years after Valentinus’ execution, the Church recognized him as a saint. Valentinus’ witness to the power of God’s love was celebrated on a feast day. Over the years, that feast day has changed and morphed into what we now call Valentine’s Day.

I share this story because the way of Christ, the Christian way, often comes into conflict with the ways of the world. That is demonstrated in our reading from Acts this morning. Listen to how Luke, the writer of Acts, describes the character of the early Christian community: “awe came upon everyone because many signs and wonders were being done…all who believed were together and had all things in common…they would sell their possessions and give to all, as any had need…they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts…they praised God and having the goodwill of all the people.”

Contrast that with the way of someone like Emperor Claudius and all of the leaders like him since. Where the world teaches us that might makes right, the message of Jesus teaches us that true strength is humble service to the least among us. Where the world wants us to give our ultimate loyalty to a product, leader, or government, the gospel message is that in Christ we are free to give our loyalty (our heart, mind, strength, and soul in the Bible’s way of saying) to God, who is good and just. 

Here is why I opened with this story of Claudius and Valentinus: our reading from Acts got me thinking about the conditions that are needed to create the possibility for us to choose love, goodness, righteousness, joy, and faithfulness over power, fear, and greed. Since it’s Spring, if we think about it like a garden, the question becomes what kind of ecosystem does the garden exist in? What is the soil like – is it full of rocks and clay, or light and airy and rich in organic matter? Does it get enough sun? Is the temperature right in the Spring for cold loving plants like broccoli and warm enough in the summer for heat loving plants like tomatoes? Does it get enough water, but is the drainage good enough that it doesn’t flood? 

It’s the same thing for our body and soul. Are the conditions in the church right for Christians to grow? Our reading from Acts gives us the basic conditions for maturity in Christ. Here is how the early Christians are described and the kind of things they do: “they devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

Learning. Fellowship. Eating. Praying. Those are the things the church needs to do to raise up healthy and mature Christians. 

Let’s take a look at each of these in more detail.

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching”. We need here to take a step back and think about how we learn to be Christians. We learn to be a Christian, to follow in the way of Christ, because someone teaches us and shows us what that looks like. No one becomes a Christian and grows and matures in faith through magic. Instead, it happens by osmosis. It happens by learning from people who themselves learned how to be a Chrisitans.

The apostle’s teachings are the teachings of the first disciples of Jesus. The earliest Christians only had the Old Testament for Scriptures and what the apostles taught about Jesus from their own experience of him. Those teachings and ways of reading the Bible were passed down from one generation to the other. Take for example the topic of violence. Of course, Jesus teaches us that his way is a way of turning the other cheek when you are wronged. But the Church has passed down from one generation to another that violence, the taking of someone’s life, the destruction of property, violent language, war, and glorifying weapons is wrong. For 2,000 years, the church has resisted violence and encouraged peace, and we are people who have grown up with that.

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship.” The first question we might ask ourselves about church is what are we doing here? We might all give somewhat different answers, but the common thread probably involves community or being together and Jesus. Put in a very dramatic way, could you have a church without people? The answer is ‘no’. Similarly, could you have a church without God made known in Jesus of Nazareth? Again, the answer is ‘no’. The church then, is the gathering of God’s people. This gathering happens because of Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection. The earliest Christians gathered together in his name. So the church is the body of Christ, the gathering of God’s people, by the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

Practically, what this means is that being together on a regular basis for worship, fellowship, helping one another, and growing in friendship is very important to our spiritual health. We help one another with our burdens, we share in the good things that happen to one another, we learn how to forgive when we are wronged, and how to cooperate and work together.

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread…” The breaking of bread can refer to communion, the Eucharist, the Last Supper where Jesus taught us to bless and break bread and pour wine to remember his body broken for us and his blood spilled for us.

We’ve been talking about the church for a while. We can sometimes make it out to be this flawless, perfect thing. It is not. One of the earliest conflicts in the church involved communion and the breaking of bread. In Corinthians, Paul tells about how the earliest Christians would gather in their homes to worship and eat together. But controversy came when the richer and wealthier Christians who were part of the church in Corinth would come early (because they didn’t have to work) and finish all of the food before the people who worked came. You can see how this would create controversy and hard feelings. The apostle Paul’s instruction to solve this problem is to first remember why they gather together (to remember the Lord’s sacrifice and death for them) and two, to do so in a worthy way, remembering who they are and one of their core values that everyone is equal before God. Eating together, sharing in communion together, helps us remember and learn that in spite of how different we are, we are equal before God.

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers.” Prayer is the last thing that Luke the writer of Acts lists as an important marker of the early church. Admittedly, prayer can be hard and sometimes scary. The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to prayer (because presumably they didn’t really know how) and it’s then that he taught them the Lord’s Prayer.

A few weeks ago in Bible study, we talked about prayer. We talked about how we can pray to God about just about anything, at any time, or really in any place. We also talked about how our prayers often fall into four types:

• Thanks – praying to give thanks to God is an important part of the Christian life. 
• Sorry – Confessing our sins, facing our flaws, dealing the worst parts of ourselves and the worst decisions we made is not easy. But it’s vital. I think it’s one of the reasons that Jesus was often inviting people to repent and believe. It’s not that Jesus was a moral scrooge or that he wanted to cancel people. It’s that he wants us to change, in biblical speak, to become holy and Christ-like, and to have deeper and more intimate fellowship with God. Admitting how we have been wrong and choosing to go in a different direction is an important step in that process.
• Help – Asking for help doesn’t come naturally to many of us, myself included. But God is our Father. He wants to help us in our times of need. Now that is not to say that the help always comes in the way we’d like it or on our schedule. But it is to say that God wants us to pray and share our troubles with him and listen for a word of help to us.
• Wow – The old school word for this is adoration. As brutal and dark and scary as the world is, God’s creation is also filled with joy and wonder and amazing things. When we say things like ‘That is amazing!’ or ‘I’ve never seen anything so cool before’ – those can be prayers of wow because God is creative, lovely, joyfilled, and orderly.

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers.” It is no secret that we live in difficult times. Chaos, cruelty, and never ending change seem to be the hallmark of this era we live in. But one of the things that coming to church week in and week out, especially to a church built with stone over a hundred years ago, reminds me is that for most of its history, the church and Christians have practiced their faith and tried to follow in the way of Jesus under very difficult circumstances. There has never been a golden age when the world was this ideal utopia, the kingdom of God on earth. 

That is also not to say that the church is this perfect place or institution. It’s not. It’s failed many times. It’s harmed people. It’s been complicit with evil and even done evil at times. 

But it is to say that when God brings people together, and people come together in Christ’s name, and they learn from the apostle’s teaching, and be in fellowship and join in solidarity in brotherhood and sisterhood with one another, show goodwill, break bread and share bread with others, and pray, God does something important and special. That something important and special is the Church. Jesus’ promise is that when two or three are gathered together in his name, he’ll be there too, present. The Church, even this small church, we believers (as challenged and half-hearted as we all can be at times), through the power of the Holy Spirit, have the power to be a force for goodness, truth, beauty, love, and joy in our small part of the world. 

Amen.

Works Referenced

https://saintpeterscolumbia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Our-Valentine.pdf

“St. Valentine Dies by Beheading | February 14, 270 | HISTORY.” History.com, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/february-14/st-valentine-beheaded. Accessed 28 April 2026.

“St. Valentine – Saints & Angels.” Catholic Online, https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=159. Accessed 28 April 2026.