Worship for food security and food justice

THE CHURCHES’ WEEK OF ACTION ON FOOD
Ecumenical Centre
10 October, 2010
Prepared by the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance

Week of Churches Action on Food

Musical Preparation

Greeting

We gather hungry.
Blessed are those who are hungry now,
hungry for rice and beans,
hungry for righteousness,
hungry for a world where children do not die of hunger.
Blessed are those who are hungry now, for they will be satisfied.
We praise a prodigal God,
creating an abundant world with enough so no one needs to be hungry.
We worship the maker of new heavens and a new earth,
the Blessed Trinity, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Hymn We come to the hungry feast

Prayer

Hungry God,
hungry for justice,
hungry for a world spending on hungry children as it spends on football games,
hungry that your promise of blessing the hungry be fulfilled,
draw us into your hunger
so we discover the life you offer when we give ourselves away,
and others do not have their lives taken away by the greedy and corrupt.
Give us the courage to risk a new hunger to do your will through Jesus Christ. Amen.

“For hunger is a curious thing: at first it is with you all the time, walking and sleeping and in your
dreams, and your belly cries out insistently, and there is a gnawing and a pain as if your very vitals were being devoured, and you must stop it at any cost and you buy a moment’s respite even when you know and fear the sequel. Then the pain is no longer sharp but dull, and this too is with you always, so that you think of food many times a day and each time a terrible sickness assails you, and because you know this you try to avoid the thought, but you cannot for it is with you. Then that too is gone, all pain, all desire, only a great emptiness is left, like the sky, like a well in drought and it is now that the strength drains from your limbs and you try to rise and find you cannot, or to swallow water your throat is powerless, and both the swallow and the effort of retaining the liquid tax you to the uttermost.” (Kamala Markandaya)

Sung Response Khudaayaa raeham kar

Old Testament Reading Isaiah 65:17-25
For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice for ever in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labour in vain,
or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—
and their descendants as well.
Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

Reflections Dr.Fulata Mbano & John Baxter Brown

Hymn Cielos nuevos, tierra nueva

Prayers
With the ecumenical prayer cycle we pray for the people and churches
of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal.
Lord in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We pray for the people along the Danube, threatened by toxic waste.
Lord in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
We pray for those whose traditional lands and livelihoods are threatened.
Lord in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

During this week of action on food we pray for the hungry.
Lord in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer (in our many languages)

Invitation to sign the petition to the Chair of the Food and Agriculture Organization Committee on Food Security in Rome

Hymn Un camino se abre hacia la luz

Benediction