**This Communion liturgy is adapted from the Service of Word and Table found within the United Methodist Hymnal and Book of Worship. It was written for the celebration of holy communion on Sunday, June 30, 2013 at The United Methodist Church in Madison.**
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
It is right, and a good and joyful thing always and everywhere to lift our hearts and voices in praise to you, most gracious and loving God.
With your voice you spoke creation into being, making the sun and the moon, the fields and the skies, lending your voice to the beasts of the land, the birds of the airs, and the creatures of the deep. With a word you made us in your image, breathing your own spirit into us, giving us our own voices to speak, and sing, and praise you. With your voice you called us good, but we didn’t stay that way for long.
We learned how to say words of hate instead of love, how to tear another down by the words of our mouths if not the violence of our hands. We couldn’t hear you over our own noise, and so you spoke through the prophets, through people who looked like and sounded like us. You spoke to Joseph in dreams, to Moses in burning flames, to Elijah in sheer silence. These prophets spoke to us, and sometimes we were able to listen. Sometimes their words brought deliverance and freedom, or promises of what life could be like if only we could quiet ourselves and be attuned to your voice. Through your prophets you made with us a covenant to always be our God, promising to always call us back to you.
And so with your people on earth and all the company of heaven we praise your name and join their unending hymn:
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
We heard your promises but once again your voice was drowned out by the noise of the world. We shut our ears to the prophets, no longer willing to hear what they proclaimed. So you sent your son, the Word made flesh, to live among us. He healed the hurting, fed the hungry, and blessed the ones who had been cast down. He spoke of the kin-dom of heaven and helped us remember what the prophets had told us. But there were those who didn’t want us to listen or remember. They called him a rebel, they called him dangerous, and they decided he needed to be silenced.
On his last night among us Jesus refused to give up his voice out of fear or sadness. He gathered together with his friends around a table and, taking bread, blessed it and broke it, saying, “This is my body, which I give for you. Take, eat, and remember me.” When supper was finished he took the cup, gave thanks, blessed it, and shared it with those around him, saying, “This is the blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many. Take, drink, and remember me.”
And so in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith:
Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.
Pour out your Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood.
By your spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, united as one voice, proclaiming the coming of the kin-dom of God until Christ returns and we all feast at a heavenly banquet.
Through your Son, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit and your holy church, all honor and glory is yours, almighty God, now and forevermore.
Amen.
-Amanda Rohrs-Dodge
June 29, 2013, Washington, NJ
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