A Prayer & Liturgy: to Give Thanks Together around the Table
A quiet liturgy & prayer of thanks, to simply read around the table together, before the feasting, feeling free to read the bold together in unison:
Now is the time, the long awaited time, to bring in the sheaves, the baskets, the apples, the bushels of all the things that runneth over with a bounty of grace and to offer up our thanks.
Now is the time we feast on a harvest sunlight, that’s ripened into a sweetness to savor, now is the time to gather in the rain from sky over head, that has grown slowly into goodness, as all rains do, and to gather round the table, to taste His amazing grace.
God’s Grace always germinates great glory.
Now is the time to hold this harvest, that is all the begging hope of our prayers, the beading sweat of our brow, the bending ache of our back, to hold the fruit of our labor and all the astonishing, incarnated love of our God, who withholds no good thing from us who are His — and to eat and feast and to swallow down all His grace into bodily strength.
Because this is always true:
The smallest seed — even the seed of a moment — holds the surreal possibility of a harvest beyond imagining.
God’s Grace always germinates great glory.
And now, this harvest, around this table, is a testament to the slow emergence of the good, slow, and steady efficiency of God, the slow but certain evidence of resurrection coming from the depths of the earth and the dark.
(Patience is always the soil of any good harvest.)
How can we gather round a table with the bowls of bounty and ever synthesize all our awe and wonder over the very real miracle of photosynthesis? How to thank the Maker of the fruit of these plants, that have spent their days gathering up sunshine, streaming solar sugars down to roots, only to unfurl even more leaves, leaves which are really but baskets that harvest the sun, leaves that defiantly dance brave in the wind, taking the heat and the rain without turning away, till all the plant stalks are heavy with prayers and promises fulfilled, till our hands and hunger is filled with the bounty and good grace of God?
So how can we too not stand and raise hands in praise?
How can we not stand at the end of harvest time and see everything differently now?
Because if one infinitesimal, unsuspecting seed, can be entombed in a smothering dark burial in the earth, if one seed can break apart like a sharp shattering, if one seed can put a seeking shoot down in what seems like the wrong, rooted direction, before it ever turns toward the sun —- and yet there still be a harvest of rich good, even out of what all seemed like a series of movements in the wrong direction — then, it’s true, we live in our Father’s world, where bounty can rise out of brokenness, and even the most unlikely can yield a wondrous yield.
“…God is the great composter, who works all the unexpected and unwanted still into an unlikely harvest of comfort.“
So how can we do anything now but worship with thanksgiving and testify:
Dirt can turn into what tastes delicious.
The smallest seed can fulfill the deepest need.
Every seed, and Christ Himself, proves it: Tombs in the earth can be a womb that deliver abundance.
And this harvest, this feast, is now like holding the miracle of manna, and it is nothing less than a strange miracle to behold that this harvest and feast before us grew rich and ripe and good, precisely because it grew out of all of the muck and mire.
This is because God is the great composter, who works all the unexpected and unwanted still into an unlikely harvest of comfort.
This is the strange and comforting miracle that always fills us: Our God wastes not the rot.
This harvest and feast now is a paradoxical parable in the Kingdom of God: There is all around us, a slow, counter-intuitive, upside-down way that is nurturing all into maturity, that God Himself is doing holy, harvesting work everywhere, all in His time, in the soil of all our souls.
True, this harvest, or any harvest, may not be all that was hoped, but it is true of all harvests:
There may have been more, there may have always been more, but always what is — is always a miracle of grace.
So no matter the size of our harvest in this season, here and now is an occasion for an abundance of thanksgiving, because none of this yield was guaranteed, none of this yield or feast might have been, none of this harvest of grace around this table was a given:
“Now is the time to taste sun and sky and savor and thank God that we are all sustained by Love Himself. “
But sunlight was freely given, and the soil of the earth cupped heaven’s water like a gift, to patiently, miraculously, raise up this crop, and God Himself called us all to be here and to know we belong at His table of grace, so how can we not now give thanks, us the harvesters with hands risen —-
that God on High Himself, might harvest our thanksgiving, and be filled with great joy.
So eat the fruits of the earth, heap the berries, savour the pumpkin pies, gather all around and give thanks.
Now is the time to taste sun and sky and savor and thank God that we are all sustained by Love Himself.
The earth and all our souls are more than satisfied with the fruits of God’s heart, the bountiful overflow of His yielded life — so we yield ourselves to Him, and whispered our endless, honest thanks.
And all God’s grateful people raised their hands and said:
Amen!
Free Downloadable Printable Place-Setting Prayer For Your Gathering,To Give Thanks Together Around Your Table:
free in our Library for your gathering!
And… the Perfect Hostess Gift… the perfect meaningful gift For All Your People this season… the perfect gift For yourself: These Two Journals To Genuinely live a life of prayerfulness & thankfulness
When life feels anxious, give yourself the gift of more God & less stress, and a daily, beautiful retreat with: SACRED Prayer: 90 Days into Deeper Intimacy with God and Gifts and Gifts and Gratitudes: A Gratitude Journal for a Year of One Thousand Gifts