Gifted to the UCFORUM by © Rev Rex A E Hunt, MSc(Hons).

Please acknowledge the author when using.

CELEBRATING SOLIDARITY IN THE TRADITION OF THE MEAL

“Wisdom has set her table.

          Come eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.

          Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight” (Proverbs 9:2,5-6)

          Introduction (Optional)

                   Members of the Jesus movements regularly ate a meal together

                   when they met as a community.

It was a characteristic that they had in common

with virtually every other social group in their world.

It was considered primary to the early developments

in the movements’ meal liturgy.

                   These meal traditions were not about personal salvation or payment for sin.

                   Instead, they were about actions and offering hospitality, social identity,

                   and being in solidarity with those around us.

The liturgical movements centred on celebration, presence, and joy.

I invite you into the spirit of those meals…

Welcome to the Table

          v1      At this table we give thanks for

                   justice, love, peace and freedom.

Mn    At this table we give thanks for friends and strangers

                   together in community in this safe place.

          Wm   At this table we welcome old and young.

v2      A place at the table.  And all are invited.

Thanksgiving

          v1      We give thanks for the unfolding of matter,

                            mind,

                            intelligence,

                            and life

                   that has brought us to this moment in time.

All     We celebrate our common origin with everything that exists.

v1      We celebrate the mystery we experience and address as ‘G-o-d’.

ground and sustainer of everything that exists,

in whom we live and move and have our being.

          v2      And we acknowledge this mystery embodied

                   in every human person,

                            aware that each one of us gives G-o-d

                            unique and personal expression.

All     G-o-d is everywhere present.

In grace-filled moments of sharing.

                   In carefully created communities of loving solidarity.

v2      We are one with everything, living and nonliving, on this planet.

Connected.

Interrelated.

Interdependent.

The Story

          v1      We remember the stories from our tradition…

                   How on many occasions the sage we call Jesus would share

                            a meal with friends and strangers.

                   Bread and wine shared in community.

v2      For everyone born, a place at the table…

          v1      How the bread would be taken,

                   a blessing offered, and then shared between them.

                            And all of them ate.

                   How, after conversation, some wine would be poured out,

                   a blessing offered, and then passed between them.

                            And all of them drank.

v2      The bread and the wine symbolised human lives

interconnected with other human lives,

and the power of giving and receiving.

          v1      May the passion for life as seen in Jesus,

                   and in the lives and struggles of many other

                            committed and faithful people then and now,

                            enable us to dare and to dream and to risk…

All     Together may we re-imagine the world.

                   Together may we work to make all things new.

All     Together may we celebrate the possibilities and hope

we each have and are called to share.

v2      For everyone born, a place at the table…

          Bread and White Wine

Bread is broken several times

          v1      And so now, in our time and in this place…

                   We break the bread for our broken earth,

                   ravaged and plundered for greed.

All     May there be healing of our beautiful blue and green planet.

v1      We break this bread for our broken humanity,

for the powerful and the powerless

trapped by exploitation and oppression.

All     May there be the healing of humanity.

v1      We break this bread for those who follow other paths:

for those who follow the noble path of the Buddha,

the yogic path of the Hindus;

the way of the Eternal Guru of the Sikhs;

and the descendants of Abraham, children of Hagar and Sarah.

All     May there be healing where there is pain and woundedness.

v1      We break this bread

for the unhealed hurts and wounds

that lie within us all.

All     May we be healed.

                   White wine is poured into a cup/s

v2      Wine, fruit of the vine,

nurtured, tended, harvested,

and pressed out for us to drink.

All     Wine, liquid sunlight, prepared for our delight.

v2      Wine, gift of nature,

offering earth-bound humans

hints of other worlds,

other realities,

other possibilities.

All     Pouring out this wine

                   we remember people of all ages

                   who searched down new paths, advancing

                            understanding,

                            compassion,

                            knowledge.

v2      Pouring out this wine

we are reminded of the call

All     to live fully,

                   to love wastefully, and

                   to be all that we can be.

Communion

v1      To eat and drink together reminds us

of the deeper aspects of human fellowship,

for from time immemorial

the sharing of bread and wine

has been the most universal of all symbols of community.

          The Bread and White wine will be served in four groups around the Gathering space

 

• Shaped from published resources created by and adapted from: Michael Morwood, Carter Heyward, L Bruce Miller, Shirley Erena Murray, David Bumbaugh, David Galston, John S Spong, the Iona Community… and others. With grateful thanks.

oOo