Holy Communion Liturgy for March 6, 2021

This first Sunday of Lent I touch on the scriptures of the Revised Common Lectionary, Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Lent 4:1-13, in ways I hope don’t require their use by those who follow the Narrative Lectionary or another way of choosing Sunday morning texts.

I am grateful to Maria Mankin for the Valentine’s breakfast photograph, which seemed to be Communion when I saw it. This is my twenty-fourth month sharing a service of Holy Communion designed for communities of faith which intends to include completely online, hybrid and in-person worship. And you might be tempted to use Elsa Cook’s wonderful reference for Lent, “Our Whole Heart.”

This communion liturgy is shared freely with churches. Please use or adapt pieces of this service as helpful to the worship you plan. You may abridge or add freely language, music, gestures, and practices familiar to your faith community. 

Celebration of Holy Communion

Invitation to Communion

One:    Scripture says, “You shall not live by bread … alone.”
So, what do you spread on your bread?

All:      This bread is spread with the butter of compassion,
and the jam of welcome.

One:    Jesus said, “You shall not live by bread alone.”
So how do you serve your bread?

All:      We serve this bread on the plates of plenty
offered to the food-insecure every day of the week.

One:    Every Lent we hear, “You shall not live by bread, alone.”
So, who sits at your table?

All:      All God’s children, ones I know, ones I don’t know yet.
Even when I feel alone, I am never alone.

One:    Together in spirit we eat this bread and drink this cup         

All:      Bread alone is like eating a stone.

Words of Remembering

We remember the stories of wanderers
bringing first fruit in a basket
to give thanks for finding a home,
and we give thanks for our kitchen tables
and our precious sanctuary,
both homes and places we share.

And we remember that Jesus Christ
sitting among those
whose feet he had washed
at the Passover table
of precious and ancient tradition,
anticipated betrayal and desertion,
pain and even death,

but made a new thanksgiving,
a new hope, a new way for peace,
a new Covenant,
of blessed bread and poured wine
on a global table,
inviting us always to share
from our brokenness and grace.

Prayer of Consecration (Psalm 19)

O God, the sky speaks your glory and deep space your creation. Daybreak announces hope and starlight sings rest in a language that needs no translation but closing our eyes in prayer. Nothing is hidden from you, and you make no barriers for human understanding. We are revived, enlivened, warned, and comforted. Beyond even the bright and sweet parables of our lives, you free us from definitions of relationship based in dominion and being dominated and you lead us to words of reconciliation and grace. So reconciled, we pray –

Let the Bread of our mouths and the Cup upon which our hearts meditate, be acceptable to you, O God, at this ordinary table and in our lives of redeeming. Amen

Sharing of the Elements

One:    Let receive the gift of God, the Bread.

All:      We are never alone; we live in this Bread.

One:    Let us receive the gift of God, the Cup of Covenant

All:      We find Christ in the Cup because we share it.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

God of feast and fast, who relishes falafel, jambalaya, pad Thai, and even post-Mardi Gras pancakes, help us eat always with compassion for the earth, delight in the flavors of every people, and generosity in sharing, in spite of temptations to hoard or control. Praise to you – locavore, foodie, walker in all our wilderness, Eucharist! amen.