Communion Service - Breaking and pouring: Version 3

Here is a communion liturgy I have been working on for a while. I have attempted to integrate the telling of the story with the thanksgiving, the calling upon the Holy Spirit and the sharing of the bread and wine. By contrast, I have separated the bread from the wine so that we can focus on the specific symbolism of each; the continual re-breaking of the Church or the body of Christ and the pouring out of God's spirit to all people.

 

This is the 3rd Version of this communion liturgy I have produced. In this version I iron out some of the practical problems of distribution in a larger congregation with elderly folk and pews in straight lines. I have also added some singing and improved on the rephrasing of the 'words of institution.' This rephrasing is intended to emphasise the sense of this being the re-enactment of a meal that occurred before the crucifixion, and much of the text is intended to help us hear some of the unspoken Jewish theology and tradition that would have been familiar to Jesus and the disciples. 

A Communion Service...

The presiding minister says;

Jesus and his disciples had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the festival of the Passover.

The Passover was a weeklong celebration in the capital city, where they remembered the time when, through God's guidance, Moses brought them out of captivity in Egypt, the sacrificial lambs were brought to the temple, because, in the time of the Exodus, the blood of lambs was used as a marker on the doors so that the angel of death would pass over those houses. 

As part of the celebration Jesus and his disciples joined together in a traditional meal in an upper room that they had hired for the occasion; a meal of thanksgiving for their freedom.

Raising the cup the minister says;

Let us raise the cup of freedom;

We proclaim good news to the poor;

Freedom for prisoners

A vision for those who have not seen,

And a lifting of the burdens of the oppressed

And so today we raise our thanks to the father of creation;
Thanks be to God, amen.

The communion stewards begin moving towards the table and prepare to receive the bread.

But their freedom was not complete; it was temporary and rooted in earthly promises.

A new promise was to be made there in that room by Jesus. Moses, great though he was, was only a man, speaking the words of God. But Jesus was God in human form;

And here in this place, just as Jesus did there in that upper room on the night before he died, we take the bread and we break it and share it amongst his disciples...

(At this moment the communion stewards receive the bread and begin distributing it, one chunk to each row)

...and he asked them as he asks us today to take this bread and eat it, and to imagine that this is his body which is being broken for you.

Sing (to the tune Hanover);

Minister: Are we now the Church, The body of Christ

The body, the bread, all gathered at once?

Will we let God break us, and take us apart

Remake our true image, reform us in love?

All: Yes we are the Church, The body of Christ

The body the bread, all gathered at once

We come to be broken, and taken apart

Remade in God's image, reformed in God's love

In the breaking of this bread; we are broken;

Like the body of Christ; we are broken

As we share in his self sacrifice; So we are remade in the image of God

We all eat the bread together

The communion stewards return to the table ready to receive the cups which are in dishes - one for each row

In the days of Leviticus when the priests made animal sacrifices, the priests would say that no one should drink the blood, because it contained the spirit of the animal. The spirit of the animal was poured out for the sins of the people. When Jesus offered himself as sacrifice on the cross, he declared an end to the sacrifice because his spirit was poured out for the forgiveness of all sins for all time. For this was not the spirit of one of God's creatures, but the spirit of God himself being poured out for all people...

The wine is poured from the central cup into a Kiddush cup

...And there in that upper room he poured out the wine as his spirit would be poured out to all people.

The communion stewards take the dishes of communion cups to the end of each row.

Sing (to the tune Hanover);

Minister: The spirit of God poured out to the world

An unending gift, the cup that we share

The cleansing and healing, forgiveness and life

Abundantly poured out beyond these four walls

All: The spirit of God we gladly receive

An unending gift, this cup is for all

The cleansing and healing, forgiveness and life

We share in outpouring God's love to the world

Knowing what was about to happen, at the end of the meal he took the cup gave thanks and gave it to his disciples, asking them to drink from it, as he asks us to drink from it today - and as you do, imagine that this is his blood which was about to be poured out for you, to seal the new promise which God is making with all people.

This is God's spirit poured out for all.
It is freely poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Amen

We all drink from the cups.

And Jesus told them to do this whenever they met to remember him. Do what, I wonder?

Well John tells us that after the meal Jesus washed their feet, and insisted that they washed each other's feet, a humble act of service. It is above all things our call to serve each other as Christ has served us and to serve those who have not yet known Christ, just as once we did not know Christ.

We serve each other and the world in the breaking and in the pouring.

We do this in remembrance of Jesus

We do this in remembrance of Jesus who awaits the opportunity to share this meal with us in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Hymn

Blessing