God of all creation, you call us into communion with all that is. We live in sacred connection with the cashier at the grocery store, the ancient redwoods, and the child in the refugee camp.We confess that too often we live as our self-interest is all that matters. Give us the courage to live our sacred calling to communion. Give us the grace to embrace this and every moment of our lives. Amen.
Dedication of the Offering
Giving and receiving we commune with all creation, Holy God. We thank you for this sacred practice that heals the world. Amen.
Holy God, you call us to make disciples, but how can we invite others to follow when we ourselves have such a tendency to stray from your way of love? Tune our hearts to your call to return to the boundless embrace of your never changing love. Amen.
Invitation to the Table
Jesus said: “I am the bread of life; anyone who comes to me shall not hunger; anyone who believes in me shall never thirst.” Nevertheless, we hunger; nevertheless we thirst. We hunger for justice on behalf of Black lives lost and Black bodies broken under the crushing weight of systemic racism. We thirst for righteousness that is necessary for all to live in peace.
This table is open to all who hunger and thirst for God. Come to this sacred table not because you must but because you may. Come not because you are fulfilled but because in your emptiness you stand in need of God’s mercy and assurance. Come not to express an opinion, but to seek a presence and to pray for a Spirit.
Come to this table, sisters and brothers, as you are. Partake and share. It is spread for you and me that we might again know that God has come to us, shared our common lot, and invited us to step past the bonds of hatred and fear into God’s boundless embrace.
The Great Thanksgiving
Holy God, we praise and bless you for creation and the gift of life and for your abiding love which brings us close to you, the source of all blessing. We thank you for revealing your will for us in the giving of the law and in the preaching of the prophets.
The prophet Amos called on the ancient Israelites to “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Centuries later your prophet Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called on the people of America to do the same.
We thank you for the prophets of this moment who call us to once again examine our hearts, to shake free of our complacency, to open our ears to the cries of those suffocating in the grip of racial hatred. We thank you for calling us to be the healing hands and passionate heart of Jesus to our world.
With the faithful in every place and time, we praise with joy your holy name:
Holy, holy, holy God of love and majesty, the whole universe speaks of your glory, O God Most High. Amen.
God of unconditional love, you tell us that heaven is a banquet where everyone has a place at the table. We look forward to that banquet in the world to come. But what if we could taste it right here, right now? What if we lived that reality today? What if we experienced that unbounded joy? It seems impossible, but you tell us that with you, all things are possible. We confess we live too much in our worries and fears. We worry that if more people join us at the table, there may not be room for us. We’re afraid that someone might take our place. Teach us a deeper truth. Teach us the reality that your love is limitless and that as we share it we will see that there is room at the table for everyone. Give us the tools to love people in the ways they need not the ways we would prefer because we know that love is the highest worship. Amen.
*Prayer of Dedication
We dedicate our offerings to the work of making room at the table so that more and more our earthly reality might reflect the heavenly one. Amen.
Todd Grant Yonkman 