Communion PRayer for A Presbytery Meeting (service talking about God doing a new thing)

Communion Prayer

INVITATION

Here at this table we join in a ritual that stretches through time and space.

Here God invites us to share in the banquet of life.

This is God’s table, and God invites all who seek to follow the Way of Jesus Christ to eat and drink from it.

Come and taste the grace eternal, come and see that God is good.

GREAT THANKSGIVING

May the Peace of Christ, the love of God, and the Power of the Holy Spirit be with you.

God of life, in the beginning of our story you decided to do a new thing.

And so you spoke and creation came into being.

And we join with thousands who have gone before us to share words of praise and thanksgiving for this universe you spoke into being.

Then after a while you decided again to do a new thing.

You called Abram and Sarai into a new life, promising that through them the world would be blessed.

The new thing continued through the lives of their children and grandchildren through many generations.

Then the people were enslaved and you once again did a new thing.

Calling Moses and Aaron and Miriam to lead the people to freedom,

giving them a set of rules to guide how they lived with you and with each other,

covenanting to be with them always.

Over time the people would forget their part of the covenant, they would wander from the path.

And you would send messengers to call them back, men and women filled with your Spirit.

Remembering all these gifts, all these new things, all these ways you attempted to regenerate the people we join in the old songs of praise and thanksgiving.

THE STORY IS TOLD

Eventually, looking at the world you again decided to do a new thing.

You chose to become one of us, Word-made-Flesh, to share the joys and sorrows, the slings and arrows of our lives.

In Jesus of Nazareth, child of Mary you walked among your people

Jesus revealed a new way of being, Jesus revealed what it would look like to live a life based on love for all he met, Jesus challenged his peers and challenges us to live as though the Kingdom of God was really present in our midst.

But the world was not ready for Jesus’ message, for his challenge, for the Kingdom.

And so he was arrested, tried, convicted, executed.

But then you once again did a new thing!

You raised Jesus from death, shattering the bondage of the grave.

Here at this table we remember a meal Jesus shared with his closest friends.

During that meal he took bread, blessed it, broke it and passed ti to them saying:

Take, Eat, this is my body broken by the world. Whenever you eat this loaf remember me.

Then he took a cup of wine, blessed it and passed it to them saying:

Take, Drink, this is the cup of the new covenant, sealed in my blood. Whenever you drink from it remember me.

Joining with the community of Christian faith across the miles and the centuries we continue to eat and drink and remember.

As we share this bread and this cup send your Spirit upon and among us.

In the eating and the drinking may our commitment to living as people of The Way be strengthened.

Fill us with hope for the present and the future so that as people of hope we are ready to give of our selves so that your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

As we gather at this table, unite our hearts and souls with our brothers and sisters in faith across the country and around the globe.

We pray in the name and memory of Jesus, the man from Nazareth; whom we cal Christ and Messiah, and who encourages us to pray together saying:

Our Father, who art in heaven...

BREAKING, POURING, SHARING

The Bread we share is the Bread of Life.

The Cup we share is the Cup of Love

Gifts from God for the people of God.

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

God who invites us to the table,

We have eaten, we have drunk, we have tasted your goodness.

May the meal we share here today awaken our hunger for the Banquet of Life.

May the company of these brothers and sisters renew our commitment to live a people of the Kingdom of Love.

God who regularly does a new thing,

As we go out from this meal may we be refreshed and renewed.

When the next new thing comes along may we have:

the wisdom to discern if it is from you,

the courage to embrace what you offer,

and the energy to journey with you on the road.

We pray in the name of Jesus, our Teacher and Guide, our Rock and Redeemer.

Amen.