© Rev Rex A E Hunt, MSc (Hons)

CELEBRATING SOLIDARITY IN THE TRADITION OF THE MEAL
“Wisdom has set her table.
Come eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. 
Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight” (Proverbs 9:2,5-6)

Welcome to the Table
At this table we give thanks for justice, love, peace and freedom.
Mn  At this table we give thanks for friends and strangers
together in community in this safe place.
Wm  At this table we welcome old and young.

v2  A place at the table.  And all are invited.

Thanksgiving
We give thanks for the unfolding of 
matter,
mind,
intelligence,
and life
that has brought us to this moment in time.
All   We celebrate our common origin with everything that exists.

v1  We celebrate the mystery we experience and address as ‘God’.
ground and sustainer of everything that exists,
in whom we live and move and have our being.

v2  And we acknowledge this mystery embodied
in every human person,
aware that each one of us gives God
unique and personal expression.
All  God is everywhere present.
In grace-filled moments of sharing.
In carefully created communities of loving solidarity.

v2   We are one with everything, living and nonliving, on this planet.
Connected.
Interrelated.
Interdependent.
All  We are at-home in the universe

The Story
v1  We remember the various stories from our tradition...

How on many occasions the sage called Jesus would share a meal with friends.
Bread and wine shared in community.
v2  For everyone born, a place at the table...

v1  How the bread would be taken,
a blessing offered, and then shared between them.
And all of them ate.

And how after conversation, some wine would be poured out,
a blessing offered, and then passed between them.
And all of them drank.

v2  The bread and the wine symbolised human lives
interconnected with other human lives,
and the power of giving and receiving.

v1  May the passion for life as seen in Jesus,
and in the lives and struggles of many other committed 
and faithful people then and now,
enable us to dare and to dream and to risk...
All  Together may we re-imagine the world.
Together may we work to make all things new.
All  Together may we celebrate the possibilities and hope
we each have and are called to share.

v2  For everyone born, a place at the table...

Bread and Wine
Bread is broken several times

v1  We break the bread for the broken earth,
ravaged and plundered for greed.
All  May there be healing of our beautiful blue and green planet.

v1  We break this bread for our broken humanity,
for the powerful and the powerless
trapped by exploitation and oppression.
All  May there be the healing of humanity.

v1  We break this bread for those who follow other paths:
for those who follow the noble path of the Buddha,
the yogic path of the Hindus;
the way of the Eternal Guru of the Sikhs;
and the descendants of Abraham, children of Hagar and Sarah.
All   May there be healing where there is pain and woundedness.

v1  We break this bread
for the unhealed hurts and wounds
that lie within us all.
All  May we be healed.

White wine is poured into a cup.
v2  Wine, fruit of the vine,
nurtured, tended, harvested,
and pressed out for us to drink.
All  Wine, liquid sunlight, prepared for our delight.

v2  Wine, gift of nature,
offering earth-bound humans
hints of other worlds,
other realities,
other possibilities.
All   Pouring out this wine
we remember people of all ages
who searched down new paths, advancing 
understanding, 
compassion, 
knowledge.

v2   Pouring out this wine we are reminder of the call
All  to live fully,
to love wastefully, and
to be all that we can be.

Sharing
To eat and drink together reminds us
of the deeper aspects of human fellowship and solidarity,
for from time immemorial
the sharing of bread and wine
has been the most universal of all symbols of community.
The Bread and White wine will be served in four groups around the Gathering space

After the Sharing  (Optional)
We give thanks that we have gathered together..
All  We rejoice in the giftedness of each person here.
We are grateful for who we are for each other.
May we continue to be truly thankful
in all we do and in all we become.

The Liturgy
Shaped from resources created by and adapted from: Carter Heyward, L Bruce Miller, Michael Morwood, Shirley Erena Murray, David Bumbaugh, David Galston, John S Spong, Rex Hunt, the Iona Community.