3rd Sunday of Easter

The Revised Common Lectionary passages for the Lord’s Day are:

First Reading: Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23:1-6
Second Reading: I Peter 2:19-25
Gospel Reading: John 10:1-10

The liturgical color for the day is: White

The seemingly utopian picture of the early church in Acts can feel impossibly distant today. The stark division between a “Christian” nationalist church and the true Church of Jesus Christ has revealed just how profoundly the Gospel can be distorted. In Acts, the church’s defining characteristics are devotion to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, prayer, and the sharing of life in common. These are not programs or strategies; they are the natural, almost reflexive responses of people who have truly heard and seen the good news of Christ.

Today, however, the message of the Gospel—when cloaked in the language of “Christian” nationalism—is often used to cultivate precisely the opposite posture, both within the church and toward the world. When we look at the early church, we see a community filled with hope and transformed by grace. People risked everything to be part of it. They sold possessions, reordered priorities, and entrusted their lives to one another because something unimaginably good was breaking into their world.

One of the clearest expressions of this transformation was their day‑by‑day sharing of life together. Acts tells us:

“Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people” (Acts 2:46–47).

The unity, respect, and interdependence of this community did not produce fear or scarcity, but glad and generous hearts. Their common life fostered trust, joy, and mutual care.

The use of distorted versions of the Gospel to justify hatred, violence, or domination is not new. Throughout history, Nazis, racists, corrupt political leaders, and crusaders have attempted to baptize their actions with God’s Word. Perhaps this history helps explain why the church today so often bears the inverse witness of Acts. Where love and unity once prevailed, suspicion and hostility now too often dominate. Yet Acts tells us that it was precisely the church’s visible love that opened space for God’s work: “Day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

The message of Christ is a message of love, forgiveness, and God’s expansive, universal love for all creation. This was evident and tangible in the life of the early church. So the pressing question remains: How do we return to that way of being church?

One answer is to refuse to allow the gospel of “Christian” nationalism to be the loudest—or only—Christian voice the world hears. We must actively bear witness to the love of God we have experienced, reminding the world through both word and action of the grace, mercy, and hope that are at the heart of the Gospel.

Finally, I believe the Presbytery of Tropical Florida has been striving to embody the church we see in Acts. Through intentional relationship-building and shared life, we have sought to remember that it is nearly impossible to vilify one another when we are truly in relationship—when we see one another as people created in the image of God. This relational faithfulness may not look dramatic, but it is deeply theological. It is, I believe, one of the most faithful ways we reclaim the witness of the early church in our own time.

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Rev. Geoff McLean
Associate General Presbyter