Prayers: Oct 6, 2013

Call to Worship

In today’s Gospel, Jesus assures us that if we have faith, however small we feel our faith to be, it is enough to put us in touch with the love and power of God. We have gathered here to worship as a community of mustard seeds. Please join me in the opening prayer. Let us pray…

Opening Prayer: Faith of a Seed

God of love, the source of all creation,

The ground of our whole being,

To you we humbly open ourselves

Bringing our whole self as a small seed.

Plant us, scatter us, help us grow in the good soil of your love.

Let us bloom where we are planted.

Let us learn to simply ‘be’ your creation, in our being and becoming. Amen.  

Prayer of Confession

God, you call us to love one another.

But we acknowledge that we fail your call.

We withhold our love.

We turn off our compassion.

We narrow our concern to our immediate self-interest.

We don’t pay attention to the cries of your children.

We don’t befriend the poor.

We live as if the poor didn’t live with us and among us in our own neighbourhood.

Forgive us, and restore us in extending and practicing your love. Amen.

Assurance of God’s Restoring Love

May God forgive us, Christ renew our lives and the Spirit enable us to grow in love.

Hallelujah, Amen!

Holy Communion

Friends, today on World Communion Sunday we remember that we are one body of Christ, together with all of our Christian brothers and sisters in our neighbourhood and in the world. We witness the body of Christ sharing the sacrament in rich diversity, while affirming that there is one body and one Spirit… One faith, one baptism, one God… Of us all.

Great Thanksgiving

L: May God’s transforming and uniting love be with us.

P: God is here among us.  

L: We open our hearts.

P: We open our joyful hearts to God and to one another.

L: Let us give thanks to God.

P: It is right to give our thanks and praise.

Gathering around the table of love, memory and hope, we stand in the presence of God and one another as thankful people.

We are thankful that we are now reconciled with God and with one another in love.

We are thankful that God has revealed God’s radically inclusive love in the life of Jesus,

and that we have known Him and the redemptive and saving love that would change us and the world forever.

As our response, we joyfully enter into praise and song, in the hope of drawing the circle of God’s love and our love both wider and deeper.

More Voices 203

Remembering Jesus at the Table

God, as we gather at this table, we remember together our sacred story.

We remember that on the night before Jesus died,

He had supper with his friends.

He took a loaf of bread, gave thanks, broke it, and said:

“Take, eat. This is my body, given for you.

Each time you do this, remember me.”

In the same way, he passed the cup after supper saying:

“This cup is the promise of God, made in my blood.

Each time you drink from this cup, remember me.”

Remembering the Community

God, on this table of the great sharing of your love,

Where bread is broken and juice is poured out,  

We also remember those who suffer in our midst, in our community, and in our world.

Especially those who are in grief for the loss of their family members and dear friends,

Those who are now accompanying the last days or months of those who are dying.

Those who are living the ‘dying’.

The Neighbourhood House and the Harvest House that are committed to helping our neighbours, especially the youth and the poor in our midst.

Those who are on a life journey or pilgrimage to encounter their true selves.

Those who are now experiencing depression.

Those who struggle to find the meaning and purpose of their life and to find hope.

Those who live in health care centers.

Those who live with cancer.

N and N, for their safe trip to care for Margerie’s two older sisters. May God work in and through N so that she can be a channel of God’s loving presence for her sisters.

And last but not least, we pray for Kenya, and US at this time for its prompt ending of the government shutdown.  

Held in Christ’s love, may we love as Christ loved.  

Knowing our own weakness, may we stand with all who stumble.

Seeking Christ’s guidance, may we seek to restore the brokenness in our lives and communities.

We gather these and all our prayers,

Thankful that we may turn to you, as  

Our Father, who art in Heaven….

Distribution

Leader:

Holy God, assured of your love for us and for all of your creation

We ask for your Spirit.

Enliven this bread. Awaken this body.

Pour us out for each other. Transfigure our minds.

Ignite your church with new spirit.

Nourish the life of the earth.

Make us, while many, united,

Make us, though broken, whole,

Make us fully alive by your transforming and affirming love.

Friends,

The bread that we break

is our sharing in the life of Christ.

The cup for which we give thanks

is our sharing in the life of Christ.

Bread for journey (Bread of life)

Cup of blessing (Cup of saving love)

Let us come and share the gifts of God for the people of God.

Come, for all things are now ready.

Prayer after Communion

For the juice and the bread we have shared, for who we have been, who we are, and who we are becoming, we give thanks to you, O God. May the Life that is in us be both question and answer, be way-station and light-house, be hope and wonder for us and for the world. Amen.