Building the Table Together

Texts: Nehemiah 2:17–18, Ephesians 2:13–22

Rev. Nora P. Elliott

Sept 28, 2025, World Communion Sunday

A few summers ago, I took a group of youth on a service trip to Alaska. We were staying at a small church that had been so generous to host us, Aldersgate UMC. Sleeping bags on fellowship hall floors, pancakes on the griddle in the mornings, and coffee on a porch under the auspicious mist of Mount Juneau.

Outside the building, there was a play area for children. You could tell it had once been the pride of the congregation, a bright little space where laughter once filled the air. But by the time we arrived, it had gone to ruin. The childcare center had closed due to a lack of funding for teachers. The playground equipment was weatherworn. A raised platform covered in torn artificial turf sagged under the weight of time. Toys were scattered here and there, sun-bleached and forgotten.

It looked, in every sense, like something left behind.

Our hosts didn’t ask us to do anything about it, they were just grateful to host a group of teens to learn more about Alaskan native culture. But one of my teens said, “Hey, could we clean this up?” And that question was all it took.

One day, while we were there and had a solid afternoon of downtime, we worked together. We raked and trimmed. We pulled weeds, hauled away trash, took a sledge to the old platform, organized the toys, and even tore out a deeply rooted piece of rusted and broken play structure. What had been a patch of neglect slowly turned into something inviting, usable, and hopeful again.

And I’ll tell you what, those teens came from every walk of life. Different schools, different social circles, different home lives. Some on scholarship, others paid in full by their families. But that week they laughed, they sweated, they struggled, and they built something beautiful together.

By the end of our stay, that little patch of ground looked like new life. I could imagine the joy it once held and the joy it might hold again. Renewed, for a new time.

And as I watched them work, I thought: This is what faith looks like in real time. Seeing what’s broken, and still believing it can be made whole again.

That’s the same spirit that moves through Nehemiah’s words to the people of Jerusalem:

“You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins… Come, let us rebuild, so that we may no longer suffer disgrace.”

Nehemiah doesn’t pretend things are fine. He points straight at the rubble and names the truth. Friends, that’s the first act of faith, honesty.

We know our own ruins, too.
Families that don’t speak to each other anymore.
Communities where politics have cut deeper than kindness.
A world where wars rage, refugees flee, and dignity is too often stripped away.
Even within the church, buildings age, budgets tighten, energy wanes.

And yet, here’s the good news: God does not leave us standing in the ruins. God calls us to rebuild; not for prestige, not to protect our turf, but to restore dignity, community, and hope to the beloved kingdom.

Paul takes that image even further in his letter to the Ephesians:

“In Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near… For he is our peace. In his flesh he has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”

Think about that. The very walls humanity builds: walls of fear, suspicion, class, race, or resentment. Christ tears them down.

In their place, God builds something new: not a fortress, but a household. A dwelling place for the Spirit. A community knit together not by uniformity, but by grace.

And what’s remarkable? This new dwelling isn’t built from stone or steel, it’s built from us.
Imperfect, weary, hopeful people who somehow, in God’s hands, become the living bricks of belonging.

That’s the heart of faith: God making a home out of our togetherness.

That’s why I think World Communion Sunday is so powerful.

Today, across the globe, Christians gather at one table; different languages, different songs, different bread, but the same grace. Some will break tortillas, some will tear baguettes, some will share rice cakes or flatbread. Some will sip wine, others juice, others tea. But it’s one meal, one Spirit, one body.

The table is God’s most radical act of rebuilding. Because here, the dividing walls fall. Here, differences don’t disappear, they’re redeemed. God turns strangers into siblings, foreigners into family. Even if some churches feel like they have to put up walls even here. But we don’t.

This is what God builds, not walls of exclusion, but a feast of welcome.

As we gather around the communion table this Sunday, remembering that God’s work is always about restoring community, not building walls, we also begin a new season of stewardship. Yes, this is also a stewardship launch sermon. This is the time each year when we prayerfully consider how our gifts of time and treasure can help sustain and grow the ministries that make Union UCC a place of welcome and hope.

And I know we can get bogged down by financial concerns, but I think that time in Alaksa, is what church stewardship is really about. Not because we love talking about money, not because spreadsheets stir our souls, but because every gift we give is a choice about what kind of builders we want to be. What kind of opportunities we want to create. I got to take that trip because the members had pledged, budgeted, and planned, to support the faith formation of those young people.

And I believe we care similarly. I mean really, do we want to build higher walls of hostility; investing in fear, division, or self-protection? Or do we want to build the table of welcome and development; where children learn they are a part of a larger beloved whole, where neighbors find compassion instead of isolation, where bread is broken and Christ is known? The answer seems clear to me.

For every pledge, indeed every offering, and even every act of service is a stone laid in God’s rebuilding project. With each one we say:
Here, let there be dignity.
Here, let there be community.
Here, let there be peace.

When I think back to that play yard in Alaska, I remember how hopeless it looked at first, like something too far gone to matter anymore. But then I remember those teens; laughing, hauling, hammering, and what they made possible together.

What was once a ruin became a space for joy again. And it didn’t happen because someone came with a perfect plan. It happened because someone said, “Hey, could we do something about this?” and others said, “Yeah, let’s.” And we figured it out, one step at a time, together.

That’s the call of God through Nehemiah. That’s the call of Christ in the church.
Come, let us rebuild.

Friends, God is still calling us, still inviting us to look at the brokenness of our world, and to believe that through grace and community, beauty can rise again. Our church is no aging, weather-worn playground lost in the woods. Hands and minds and spirits have been continuously tending it as we come to Christ’s table today.

So may we bring our stones, our hands, our hearts for the work that lies ahead this next year.
Not to build walls, but to build a table.
Not to close others out, but to make space for joy again.

Nehemiah said, “Come, let us rebuild.”
And the people answered, “Let us start building.”

May we answer the same. Faithfully, together.

Amen.