Sunday Prayer

God of Grace and Beauty, we gather as a community of believers ready to praise you in word, song, prayer and silence. On this day we encircle the Table and share the bread and cup in remembrance of Jesus. God, for the people who share in communion today, whatever their denominational ties and wherever their table is established, I pray for peace. Bring us into focus as we engage in this mystery as Jesus has asked us to do.

God, part of the mystery of the Table is that it carries us beyond itself and beyond ourselves. When the bread and cup are blessed by your presence, we are carried to other times and places. We break bread with Jesus himself on the night he was betrayed. We break bread with people who have suffered as he did throughout the ages.

As we accept the broken body we understand again that in Jesus' death the world's horror was revealed, and by grace your love overcame it. Nurtured at your table, we pray, send us out to live as he taught us to live and love as he taught us to love.

Today we break bread with the people of the Sudan and ask blessing upon them. We break bread with the people living in the Gulf Coast of the USA, still reeling from the hurricanes and the pain of so much loss. We break bread with all who live in fear of war -- in their own homes, in their workplaces, in their cities and countries. We break bread with all who are in need of your presence and power, those known to us and those known only to you.

We break bread together because that is your wish for us and because it is here at this table where Christ meets us and we meet him. Bless us this morning as we share, as we remember, for we do so in the name of Jesus. Amen.