2nd Sunday in Advent

The Community Feasts Along the Way: Liturgy and Bread Words for Holy Communion

INVITATION TO THE TABLE

Beloved friends, the bread has been baked; the cup has been poured; the table has been set.

Look around!  See the community that has gathered for this meal!  Each one is a child of God; each one of inestimable worth; each one an irreplaceable part of God’s family.

At United University Church, we believe that Christ’s table must always be open to all who come.  It does not matter who you are.  It does not matter why you are here.  It only matters that you are here.  Old or young, rich or poor, clean or dirty, sinner or saint – Christ invites you to this table.  Believer or skeptic, educated or uneducated, healthy or unhealthy – Christ invites you to this table.  Straight, gay, bisexual or transgender – Christ invites you to this table.  Whether your ancestors come from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, North America, South America, or an island in one of the world’s oceans, whatever your race, whatever your culture, whatever your religion – Christ invites you to this table. 

Let us come then from all the points of the compass, from every culture and language, from every society and class, from every station and style of life.  This bread is ours to eat.  This cup is ours to drink. Let us rest for a moment on the way that is our life and nourish ourselves in this company – this family of God’s people.

PRAYER OF GREAT THANKSGIVING

May the Spirit of God be with you!

      And also with you!

Let us lift up our hearts.

      We lift our hearts to God.

Let us give thanks to the one who shows us the way.

      It is right to give our thanks and praise.

Creator of the world, you form the cosmos from chaos.  In the shapeless void, you fashion atoms and gather them into molecules.  You power photons and ignite the stars. You arrange the galaxies and scatter them across the vastness of space.  We stand in awe at your power.

Hope of the world, you conceive life.  You form it through your imagination, infuse it with your breath, and shape it into your image.  Grasses and trees, plankton and whales, parakeets and vultures, tree frogs and rattlesnakes, elephants and earthworms, viruses and humans – all come into existence at your word.  We stand in awe at your boundless creativity.

Joy of the world, you join yourself to humanity in a covenant of love.  Offering abundance and security, justice and peace, you invite your people to live in community with all creatures.  You call them to practice faith and generosity – to live gently and responsibly on the earth you formed with your own hands.  You promise to provide for their needs and to guide them in the ways of life.  We stand in awe at your faithfulness.

Savior of the world, in the midst of tumult and trouble, you redeem your people.  You show mercy to those crying out for mercy.  You offer hope to those who believe that hope is an impossible luxury.  You pronounce judgment on those deserving of judgment. You give freedom to those for whom freedom is a distant dream.  We stand in awe at your holiness.

Light of the world, you break upon us like dawn from on high, illuminating all who reside in gloom, encouraging all who dwell under the shadow of death, guiding our feet into the way of wholeness and peace.  We stand in awe at your love.

This is why we join the whole creation in singing your praises:

Singing the Sanctus 

  Holy, Holy, Holy Lord

    Words: Traditional; Music: Iona Community (Scotland)

    Published as # 2256 in The Faith We Sing

Redeeming God, we thank you for the lives with which you have gifted us, and for the relationships into which you have called us. 

We thank you for Jesus, who did not live in the world as a private and solitary saint.  He did not pray for the world from the safety of a monk’s cell, but gathered imperfect human beings into a saving community.  He healed their diseases, forgave their sins, taught them the truth, trusted them with his message and mission, loved them intimately, and apprenticed them in your way.

Like Jesus’ first followers, we are sometimes confused and sometimes frightened.  But, we know that Jesus has shown us the way of life.  We understand that the way of your kin-dom is risky – that it may lead to rejection and ridicule, abuse and imprisonment, torture and sometimes even death.  But, we also know that your love is stronger than the suffering and violence that may come our way.  We trust you to raise us to new life, just as you raised Jesus. 

We gather at this table to recall Jesus’ faithfulness on the last night before his death.  We remember that he gathered with his friends to celebrate the Passover meal and to re-enact the ancient story of his people’s liberation from slavery.  We remember how, during that meal, he took the bread of freedom, broke it, passed it to his friends, and said:

Take this bread and eat it.  This is my body, which is given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.

We remember how, at the end of the meal, he took the cup of hope, blessed it in traditional fashion, passed it to his friends, and said:

Drink from this, all of you.  This is my blood of the new covenant poured out for you and many for the forgiveness of sin.  Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

Most of all, we remember Jesus’ example of faithful love – how he followed you through the pain and humiliation of public execution, trusting in your power and willingness to save him.  Though he died an excruciating death at the hands of brutal men, you raised him to new life. 

We receive your promise of life through Jesus’ death and resurrection.  That is why we ask you now for the strength and courage we need to follow him.  May we be like him in trusting you, so that we may faithfully follow your way and bring your good news to a suffering and dying world.

Nourish and strengthen us in this meal.  Transform and redeem us by the power of your Holy Spirit.  Help us to stand strong as powerful witnesses of your way.

Pour out your Spirit upon us.  As we feast upon this bread and drink from this cup, make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in love for all the world.  Amen.

Beloved, these are the gifts of God given to show the way of life to all of God’s people.  Come now – whoever you are – be part of this family, sit at this table, share in this feast.   Nourish yourself for the way!

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

As the people come forward to eat the bread and drink from the cup, they are invited to bring pieces of paper on which they have written their prayer concerns and praises and to place them into a basket located on the table.  The people are invited to read the joys and concerns written by others and to respond to them silently or aloud by praying either “Thanks be to you, O God,” or “Hear our prayer, O God.”

SINGING DURING COMMUNION 

  O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (Stanzas 1, 2, 4)

    Words: 12th Century Latin; Music: 15th Century French

    Translation: John Mason Neale & William Sloan Coffin

    Published as # 211 in The United Methodist Hymnal

UNISON PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

We have joined at this table with family and friends!  We have tasted the bread and juice to nourish ourselves on the way.  Now, as we prepare to depart, let us remember this time and draw strength from it.  Though the world can be a frightening place, help us to follow you faithfully.  Strengthen and encourage our hearts that we may go forth as faithful witnesses of your love, now and forever.  Amen.

BREAD WORDS

There is a kind of "cringe factor" when reading the familiar names of the Roman rulers referred to in the following Lectionary passage from Luke.  It is not difficult to imagine the political "wilderness" from which John might have sought spiritual refuge in the desert:

"In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias rular of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, in the wilderness.  He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:  "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." ' " (Luke 3:1-6)

Filled with the fervor of divine inspiration, John is compelled to do his part to "prepare the way of the Lord."  The Communion bread for the Second Sunday of Advent looks like the symbol for the four directions of a compass, reminding us of John's having gone "into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins."  The recipe for the bread is a multi-grain dough, sweetened with honey and enriched with a variety of seeds, alluding to the foraging and gleaning which must have been required for John's survival in the desert.  Locusts are optional; I left them out.  (The dough for the recipe is sufficient for 2 conventional loaves, but it makes the one Communion bread as is shown in the following pictures.)

3/4 cup warm water

4 teaspoons active dry yeast

3 1/2-4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cup milk

3 Tablespoons olive oil

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup rolled oats (or multi-grain cereal)

1/4 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup lightly toasted seeds (flax, sesame, and/or sunflower)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.  Stir in the honey and about 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, and beat for about 100 strokes.  Set the yeast mixture aside while combining the warm milk, olive oil, rolled oats (or multi-grain cereal), cornmeal, seeds, salt, and whole wheat flour in a large mixing bowl.  Add the yeast mixture to the other ingredients.  Stir in enough of the all-purpose flour to make a stiff dough and then scrape the dough out of the bowl onto a well-floured surface.  Knead the dough for about 8 minutes.  (Knead in the rememberance that December 8 is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and that December 12 is the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe;  imagine Roman Catholic and Protestant brothers and sisters celebrating together around the Communion table.)  Place the dough in a well-oiled bowl; invert the dough so that all surfaces are oily; and let the dough rise in a warm place for about one hour. 

Punch the dough down, squeezing out some of the air bubbles in the dough.  To shape the bread, roll out a long rope of dough, at least 4 feet in length.  Think of that straight rope as the way we might wish our lives could be lived, a linear existence from Point A to Point B. Of course, the reality is that there are unexpected twists and loopy times that catch us off-guard.  Sometimes we are plunged into valleys of despair.  At other times we are required to scale steep slopes.  As the rope of dough is loosely coiled onto the prepared baking sheet, a symmetry and coherence can be recognized.  In a leap of faith, the two ends of the rope are joined. (I usually hide this joining underneath one loop of the bread.)  No beginning.  No end.  Life goes on and on.

(To accommodate the Christ candle in the center of the Advent wreath/Communion bread, a ceramic cup has been buttered and inverted in the center of the shaped bread.)  Let the shaped dough rise for about 45 minutes in a warm place.

Bake the bread at 375-degrees for about 45 minutes.  When the bread comes out of the oven, the "valleys" are filled, the "mountains and hills" made low, and the "rough" places are smooth.  The "compass" shape reminds us that we are not floundering in the wilderness.  We do have a sense of direction.  The way is being prepared.  God will come to us "and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."         

Copyright United University Church, 2006