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Our Celebration of the Sacrament of Communion
Everyone is welcome to this table! The baskets near our communion stations are for our communion offering. This month, the communion offering supports our Refugee
Resettlement Ministry.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Spirit of Life, you have called us into being through love. You have joined us to one another in love. How good and pleasant it is when your people dwell together in unity! Our lives are but a breath, but our breaths are drawn from your Spirit. You have created us as walking paradoxes: specks of dust and images of the divine both. We pray with grateful boldness, in the spirit and with the faith of Jesus our brother. Amen.
One: Our celebration of life and love continues with our
sharing of bread and cup. When Jesus gathered with his friends to tell them of a re-imagined way of living and being, the conversations often went on into the time for a meal. Jesus ate and conversed with the high and mighty, with the pious and self-righteous, and with those considered outcasts and sinners.
All: His table fellowship included everyone. He often told them stories that caused them to wonder and ask questions.
One: He also welcomed these opportunities to eat with those who disagreed with him and engaged them in open
discussion.
All: In this way, the issues of life and death, justice and injustice, conflict and peace, goodness and evil, were talked through and made real to ordinary people.
One: Jesus used the meal as a demonstration of his
teaching. He urged his followers to include a wide
variety of people in what he called the realm of God. And he encouraged them to be open to the insights and understandings that come from honest and respectful dialogue among those who seek a worthy way of life. We are here to carry on this tradition of seeking for truth and recognizing goodness wherever they may be found. To this end, everyone is invited and encouraged to share in this symbolic meal.
All: We embody the Spirit of Life and Love when we gather around this table and pledge ourselves anew to each other and the remaking of the world.
Communion Song
Word About Life - II Corinthians 9: 6-15
The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap
sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap
bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not regretfully or under compulsion, for God loves a
cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every
blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of
everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. As it is written,
“He scatters abroad; he gives to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”
He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us, for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ and by the generosity of your partnership with them and with all others, while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
Words for Mission
One: Here and now: on the sixth day of the eleventh month, God blesses us all to be prophets. We can use this blessing to lift people’s spirits and stir people’s courage.
All: We leave this place, confident that God’s Spirit abides within us, and that we need not fear, for God fills this house with splendor looking out of every face.
One: These are the times!
All: We are the people.
One: All of Creation is blessed.
All: May we love all and serve all.
One: May God be with you.
All: And also with you.
One: Amen.
All: Amen.
Sending Forth Song ~ "Peace Prayer"
Spirit, make me a means of your peace.
Where there’s hatred grown, let me sow your love.
Where there’s injury, God, let forgiveness be my sword.
Spirit make me a means of your peace.
Repeat
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