Morning Prayer and Communion on Sunday Gatherings of The Welcome Table, between conversation and study and common meal

Morning Prayer and Communion: The Welcome Table missional community

Invocation
Today is the day which God has made:
Let us rejoice and be glad therein.
What does the Eternal require of us?
To live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. (from the Psalms and Micah)

Covenant
This is our covenant as we walk together in life in the ways of God known and to be made known, following our mission to make Jesus visible in the world, wherever we are, together or apart:
In the light of truth, and the loving and liberating spirit of Jesus, we gather in freedom, to worship God, and serve all.

Response For The Morning Hour of the Day:

The day is lit. Choose your course….My heart pounds in Your rhythm. Syncopate my life, O God….O Lord, let my soul rise up to meet you, as the day rises to meet the sun. The sun is up, stopping and praying shapes the day instead of the day shaping us. Each day is Resurrection Day; there can be an end to repetition. Bring forth the Song in you.

From Our Morning Songs
Spirit of Life, Dona Nobis Pacem, Ubi Caritas, I Know This Rose Will Open, Gathered Here, Morning Has Broken, Love Will Guide Us, Over My Head, Joyful Joyful, Immortal, Invisible, Tis A Gift To Be Simple, O Life That Maketh All Things New, Wake Now, My Senses, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, We’re Gonna Sit At The Welcome Table, All Creatures of the Earth and Sky

Morning Prayers For Your Life and For The People

O God, the sun has risen. With it, lift up our hearts and prepare us for all that the day will bring. Be with us in our humble and deliberate beginning of the day, in work as in prayer. O Come, let us sing to the Lord, let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Come into God’s presence with thanksgiving. Awake my soul. My heart pounds in Your rhythm.

Come Spirit, into our hearts. Into our thoughts. Into our work. Into this day. May God be gracious to us and bless us and shine upon us. Enter now into a time of prayer and meditation:

Eternal Spirit, we come with hungry hearts, waiting to be filled: Waiting to be filled with a sense of your presence; Waiting to be filled with the touch of your spirit; Waiting to be filled with new energy for service; We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.

Loving Creator, we confess what seems always with us: broken things within us that seem never to mend, empty places within us that seem always to ache, things like buds within us that seem never to flower. God of everlasting hope and forgiveness, help us to be open to your Presence within us, mending and tending to our aching hearts and to our hurt and wounded land. Help us to listen to others, and empower us to be your hands of action and healing, sowing seeds of compassion and justice into our families and communities and to support all those in need in our one world which you made and called good.

Pastoral Prayer
Let us pray for those who weep, and for those who cause their weeping. Hear our prayer, O God. For those who are without food, clothes, and a place of shelter this day and everyday. Hear our prayer, O God. For those who live without hope and meaning. Hear our prayer, O God. For those who live in fear or sickness. Hear our prayer, O God. For those who make gods of things and of themselves, Hear our prayer, O God. For those who are working to serve others this day, Hear our prayer, O God. For those travelling today, Hear our prayer, O God. For those in harm’s way, in homes and on battlefields, Hear our prayer, O God. For those who are finding their way again to love and laughter, Hear our prayer, O God. And for the great mission of God to bless the poor, to pardon the imprisoned, to bring sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to provide hospitality to the resident aliens, to clothe all, to visit the sick, and to proclaim the year of the Lord and end all debts, Hear our prayer, O God.

Lift Up Names For Prayers

Eternal Spirit of Life and Love and Liberation, may we be open to your presence in our lives, in all our joys and sorrows, fears and faith, dreams and disappointments, hurts and hopes, those shared openly with others, and those shared only with You.

Everlasting Hope that holds us up, so that we may go hold others, we give thanks for all that has blessed us, and all that has brought us to this day of Life’s Celebration.

Universal Love, continue to show us the way home to our own true hearts, our duties, and to the service of creating a better world for all. Help us to see anew the sacredness placed right before us, right beside us, right within us.

Deepest Source of All, may our prayers be times of listening as well as speaking. May we be open to what Life yet speaks to us of truth, joy, and goodness.

God beyond all human naming, yet as close as our breath and beating hearts, we bring today these reflections of our minds, these meditations of our hearts, these prayers of our souls. And as Jesus taught to all those who would follow in his radical, inclusive, compassionate and transforming way, feeling free to use the words you were taught in the diverse faith traditions, or the words You have chosen for the spirit of the prayer,  we say

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

From Our Songs of Response: Find A Stillness, Amazing Grace, Glory Glory Halleluia, Precious Lord, O God Our Help in Ages Past, There Is More Love Somewhere, We Shall Overcome, Gonna Lay Down My Sword and Shield, I’ve Got Peace Like A River, Lean on Me, There Is A Balm in Gilead

Communion Prayer:

 O God, in the loving and liberating spirit of Jesus, we gather at this welcoming table open to all, remembering how Jesus gathered people from all the walks of life, stranger and friend and enemies, gave thanks to you, offered all the bread of life and the cup of blessing and proclaimed a covenant of love for all in your name. We remember too the wonder of his life, as we remember the wonder of all of Creation given unto us and how all are One. We remember the agony of his death, and all the terrors and the tyrannies that oppress people today. And we remember the power of resurrection, the mystery of faith in the everlasting Spirit, the triumph over fear. Help us to remember to practice resurrection everyday, as we remember all those who have given Love the ultimate trust and the last word and who have worked to create the beloved community of renewed and abundant life. Help us to remember with this meal especially all those who are hungry, and may we treat all our meals as sacred and to be shared. Take us, bless us, so that even in and with our brokenness we may serve others. Amen.

 Jesus said I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. And they said, Lord, when did we do this? And he said, You did this for me when you did it for the least of these.

Here is the bread of life, food for the spirit. Let all who hunger come and eat. Here is the fruit of the vine pressed and poured out for us. Let all who thirst now come and drink. We come to make peace. We come to be restored in the love of God. We come to be made new as an instrument of that love. All are worthy. All are welcome. (from Singing the Living Tradition hymnal, Rob Eller-Isaacs)

“Let Us Break Bread Together”

Passing the Bread of Life and the Cup of Hope

From Our Songs of Commitment: I’m on My Way, We’ll Build A Land, Woyaya, Guide My Feet, Shall We Gather At The River

Benediction
Let us go out into the highways and byways.
Let us give the people something of our new vision.
We may possess a small light, but may we uncover it, and let it shine.
May we use it to bring more light and understanding
to the hearts and minds of men and women.
May we give them not hell, but hope and courage.
May we preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.