This coming Sunday I will officiate from the Invitation to Communion through the Words of Institution. Below is the material I’ve put together for the service. Sometime next week I will post the Ecumenical Maundy Thursday service I’ve been working on for the campus setting.
Invitation to Communion
Officiant: Jesus broke through barriers of race and tribe, through class barriers and gender barriers, through human-created barriers of clean and unclean, holy and sinful. Jesus broke bread with all who came to him. In the same way, the early Christians violated social custom by breaking bread together, rebelling against all that would divide.
All: We come to the table of Jesus, ignoring those things that would divide us, united in our love of God and our salvation in Christ. We join this morning our sisters and brothers in this congregation, down the block, and around the world, that rejoice and that celebrate.
Officiant: This table is open to all that love God, to all that follow Jesus. Are you ready to come to the table of our Savior?
All: We are ready to come to Christ’s table, lifting our hearts and voices in thanks and praise.
The Great Thanksgiving
Officiant: We gather together as your people, God, called by you, comforted by you, bathed in your grace. You move towards us in love, and we respond with thanks and praise.
We thank you, Holy Maker, for this amazing creation, for complexity and chaos, and birth and death, for the winding of DNA and the rush of wind.
We remember the great story of our salvation, how you called a people to faithfulness, led them to freedom, blessed their leaders. We remember the prophets, women and men who challenged the people of God, calling them always, making faith in you a living faith, a dynamic faith.
We recall how your Son lived among us, taught and prayed. We recall his willingness to ride into Jerusalem, knowing where that journey would end. In the crucifixion and resurrection of our Savior, death and sin have been defeated.
We have no words to adequately give thanks for this gift of new life, for our freedom in Christ. We join with those who have gone before us, called to you as saints, and with heavenly choirs, in singing your praise.
All: Holy, holy, holy God,
God of Creation, God of Love,
the whole universe is witness to your glory.
Blessed in the one who came and who still comes in the name of our God!
Hosanna in the highest!
Words of Institution
Officiant: We remember that on the night he was betrayed and arrested, on the night that those who loved him deserted him, Jesus gathered his beloved community together to celebrate the feast. Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to his beloved saying “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way he took the cup of wine, saying “This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
Let is proclaim the mystery of our faith.
All: This is our Good News: Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, has died, has risen from the grave, defeating death, and will come again. Glory to you, O God.