An Order of Worship for Interfaith Thanksgiving Service
Prelude
Words of Welcome
“This is the Day” (Choral Piece with the Muilt-Faith Chior)
Call to Worship
This is the day to gather, to give thanks and pray, to open our hearts and sing peace.
How good it is to gather to see the sacred shine in eyes across the city and around the globe.
This is the day to gather, a diverse tapestry woven through Love’s sacred threads, strengthened in difference, not tattered in fear.
How good it is to gather, to put the leaf in the table and throw the doors open wide.
This is the day to gather, as one family and celebrate life as friends, to say ‘no’ to oppression that starves the last and binds the least, to say ‘yes’ to hope and live into peace.
How good it is to gather to be the change our world needs, to love kindness, do justices and walk humbly side-by-side.
Opening Hymn (all stand and sing) “The God of Abraham Praise” Red Hymnal 116
Opening Prayer
(Below is a Walter Brueggemann prayer as a suggestion/idea only and not an expectation)
Amid Football, family, and too much food, we pause and without inconvenience to remember and to thank. We remember ancient pilgrims who followed dreams of alabaster cities and financial opportunity; We remember hospitable first nation people who welcomed them, and then lost their land; We remember other family times filled with joy and filled with anxiety, and old scars still powerful. We thank you for this U.S. venue of justice and freedom, and are aware of its flawed reality; We thank you or our wealth and our safety, and are aware of how close to poverty we are and how under threat we live. We gather our impulse for gratitude today, grateful to you and to our ancestors, grateful to you for our families, our health, our government, our many possessions. We gladly affirm that all good gifts around us are sent from heaven above” but we yield to none in a sense of self-sufficiency, our weariness in needing to share, our resentfulness of those who take and do not give. Your generosity evokes our gratitude, but your generosity overmatches our gratitude. Move through our half measure of thanks and let us be, all through this day more risky in acknowledging that we have nothing except what you give.
Shofar Call to Action
The shofar, or ram’s horn, is one of the earliest musical instruments known to man which is still in use. It has been employed since ancient times as a spiritual wake-up call. As the twelfth century rabbi, Maimonides, says:
The shofar says, wake up from your sleep. You are asleep.
Get up from your slumber. Search your behavior.
Become the best person you can.
Remember God, the One who created you.
We now hear its call to action.
May the sound of the shofar awaken us to an appreciation of our many gifts from You, O God…(shofarot are blown)
May its jarring sound shaken us from any complacency and neglect of those with whom we should be sharing our bounty…(shofarot are blown)
Help us, O God, to remember the sound of the shofar that we may so live our lives that when we have gathered our final harvest, many shall rise up and call us blessed…(shofarot are blown)
Scripture Deuteronomy 8 7-18
English translation is in pew Bible so will not be read in English.
Psalm of Thanksgiving
Scripture Philippians 2:1-4
Surah Ar-Rahman The Most Gracious (Niagra Foundation)
The Most Beneficent (All-h)! Has taught (you mankind) the Qur’-n (by His Mercy). He created man. He taught him eloquent speech. The sun and the moon run on their fixed courses (exactly) calculated with measured out stages for each (for reckoning, etc.) And the herbs (or stars) and the tress both prostrate. And the heaven He has raised high, and He has set up the Balance. In order that you may not transgress (due) balance. And observe the weight with equity and do not make the balance deficient. And the earth He has put for the creatures. Therein are fruits, date-palms producing sheathed fruit-stalks (enclosing dates). And also corn, with (its) leaves and stalk for fodder, and sweet-scented plants. Then which of the Blessings of your Lord will you both (jinns and men) deny? He created man (Adam) from sounding clay like the clay of pottery. And the jinns did He create from a smokeless flame of fire. Then which of the Blessings of your Lord will you both (jinns and men) deny? (He is) the Lord of the two easts (places of sunrise during early summer and early winter) and the Lord of the two wests (places of sunset during early summer and early winter). Then which of the Blessings of your Lord will you both (jinns and men) deny? He has let loosed the two seas (the salt water and the sweet) meeting together. Between them is a barrier which none of them can transgress. Then which of the Blessings of your Lord will you both (jinns and men) deny? Out of them both come out pearl and coral. Then which of the Blessings of your Lord will you both (jinns and men) deny? And His are the ships going and coming in the seas, like mountains. Then which of the Blessings of your Lord will you both (jinns and men) deny?
A Gentle Alleluia
Thanksgiving message (Rabbi Linder)
Prayers of the People Maya Angelou
Gracious God, we give You thanks for blessings beyond counting: for this land of surpassing beauty, of mountains and meadows, majestic rivers and mountain streams. We thank You for those who have gone before us, who have prepared the way and paid the price – not just the first Pilgrims, but for all the brave travelers before and since – the Asian, the Spanish, the Jew, the Catholic, the Muslim, the Protestant, the French, the Greek, the Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Imam, the Preacher. We thank You for those who with incredible courage left known lands and family and came to build new lives in a new land.
Sung Prayer Response “In the Lord I’ll be Ever Thankful”
(bring letters forward to the communion table)
Ever-Present God, we remember those who have always been here- the Pawnee, the Apache, the Seneca, the Cherokee, the Lakota Sioux, the Omaha – displaced, betrayed, yet whose proud heritage and unyealding spirit live on. We remember those who had no choice in coming here – the Africans stolen, bought, sold, arriving on a nightmare. For all who have gone before, may we remember, honor their lives and live into their hopes. My we with bold hearts give thinks and live a new way.
Sung Prayer Response “In the Lord I’ll be Ever Thankful”
(Congregants bring letters forward)
Loving God, We thank you for those brave pilgrims who still come, beckoned by the dream, drawn by the hope that is at the heart of our nation. We thank You for all who bring their own rich gifts to the rich diversity of this land. Through their stories teach us that history, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, it need not be lived again.
Sung Prayer Response “In the Lord I’ll be Ever Thankful”
(congregants from … bring letters forward)
“The American Creed” Mayflower Compact
We pledge to walk together
In the ways of truth and affection,
As best we know them now
Or may learn them in days to come,
That we and our children may be fulfilled
And that we may speak to the world in words and actions
Of peace and goodwill.
Thanksgiving offering
“Blessing Over Me”
Closing Prayer
Closing Hymn (all stand and sing) Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee vs. 1, 2 & 3 page 89
Benediction
Postlude
Shalom in Action Note:
Today we bring our prayers to life not only by our giving and shared work for mercy at Together Inc but also by calling for justice in our city and around the globe as we write to our representatives in Washington and let them know that as people of faith we can not by and watch as sacred children go to bed hungry. We are writing for a change to the ways we give aid in the world and writing for a change that supports the Millennium Development Goals identified by the United Nations. If you would like to learn more and have not had an opportunity to sign and voice your support we invite you to do so during the reception to follow.