[The Setting: Smashed plates on the table. The Presider says something like this: God gives us the bounty and beauty of creation, but we come to the table with broken plates. Plates smashed in anger, in negligence. Smashed in the thoughtlessness of our hurried lives. We are not ready for the nurture that God gives us. We come broken, but God still reaches toward us with life, with nurture, with promises, and with hope.]

Call to the Table

(West) The table is ready, food and drink are present, the wedding guests are waiting.
(East) But we have trips to take, appointments to keep, and houses to repair. How can we come?
(W) This is the food to sustain you, the words to inspire you, the songs to give you hope.
(E) But the food will soon pass through us, the words will stop, and the songs will stop their breathing in our lungs.
(W) This is the food and drink of everlasting life, the words that are passed from elder to infant, the songs that echo through ages of sharing.

ALL: Let us come to the table. It is the wedding banquet of creation, the hand of God's reconciliation.

A Song: "The Church is Like a Table" Fred Kaan

God's Promises

(ONE) Emerging in life, we tether at umbilicals, we suck at breasts, and play our way in food. We live in the present, filled by the joy of the moment. The past has not yet claimed us.
(ALL) Growing to maturity, we soon remember, and our memories try to trap us. The memories of our ancestors and stories of ancient origins begin to fill our minds. Old hurts become resentments, resentments speak revenge, revenge invokes violence. We wander from the table of God's goodness.
(ONE) Yet the God of Life keeps calling us, promising a new life and a new birth, promising to fill our stomachs, renew our bodies, transform our memories with hope, our anger with embrace.
(ALL) Come to the table of renewal, come to the well of abundant waters, come to the house of hospitality and find your life again. Come, be reconciled, and live into God's new creation.

Our Acceptance

For broken lives made whole, we give You thanks.
For food and drink that fills our bodies, for words and images that feed our minds, for promises that lead us on, we give You hearty thanks.
For Your circle of unending love, we lift our song in thankful praise.

"As Christ breaks bread and bids us share, each proud division ends.
The love that made us makes us one, and strangers now are friends, and strangers now are friends."

Take the bread:

"It is Christ's invitation to new life."

Take the drink:

"It is a taste of New Creation in our lives."

The Conversation: "Bring Us Together: The Call to Reconciliation"

Prayers

Response: "For your reconciliation we pray, O God."

The Prayer of Hope

O Gracious Giver of Life,
You alone are holy,
Come and rightly govern us,
Give us today all the food that we need,
Release us from debt as we release our debtors.
Save us in our time of trial, and deliver us from evil powers.
For in your justice is our constitution,
In your power is our peace. AMEN.

A Song: "Thuma Mina"

Thuma mina, thuma mina, thuma mina, Somandla…

Send me, Jesus… Send me now.
Fill me Jesus…. Fill me now.
Lead me, Jesus…Lead me on.
Send your Spirit…Spirit come.
Send your Justice…Justice come.
Send your peace…Send peace now.

An Act of Blessing

Renewed at Christ's table, set out on the path of reconciliation. Let it be so.

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