Liturgy Guide and Resources
for the Weekend of Prayer and Action Against Hunger 17-19 October 2025.
For this Weekend of Prayer and Action Against Hunger, Christians from all around the world will gather for prayer and worship around the theme of global hunger and food justice.
We offer this guide to support worship planners to develop a service of prayer or worship that fits your local context. You will find selections of prayers to choose from, which are offered to be used or adapted for your own community’s context.
“The Shared Table”
The wonderful thing about an artwork is that it can ‘speak’ to people in many different and varied ways. When I first saw this thoughtful piece, I was struck by three things:
The first is the empty chair. It made me think of the ‘unseen guest’ that we could consider Jesus to be. There is a well-known quote that has hung in many a dining room in days gone by: ‘Christ is the head of the home, the unseen guest of every meal, the silent listener to every conversation.’ This might leadus to consider what we might do or say differently if indeed Christ is dining with at our table. In this, there is also the challenge of who Jesus may be asking us to invite for a meal. I recall the words from Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats:
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me … Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25: 31-46)
So, the unseen guest can be considered to be both our Lord Jesus and those who are thought of in the world’s eyes, to be ‘the least’.
The second thing that strikes me about the picture is the woman at the head of the table. She is the only one without food directly in front of her, and her poise is one of prayer. That brings to mind Jesus’ words that we “shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew
4:4). We are called to trust God before all else, but also, in the face of scarcity and hunger, there is the promise of God’s miraculous provision:
Jesus took the five loaves and two fishes and in blessing the meagre meal it was multiplied, and there was not just enough to go round, but 12 full baskets left over. And just like the boy who shared his meal, in our offering what we have to the Lord, we can ask Him to bless and multiply it as it is shared with others.
The third thing that strikes me is the colour contrast in the picture. Half the table and half the woman are in light and half in shade, and in the rest of the picture it is a mixture. For me this is suggestive of the fact that our world is a mixture of light and darkness and that we always have a choice to make – to see Jesus with us at our table, to trust God for what we need and to share our meal with the hungry.
Questions for further reflection:
- What do you see in the picture? What are the main three things that strike you?
- Have you had a testimony to share of God’s miraculous multiplication and provision?
- Do any verses or passages of Scripture come to mind as you reflect on the picture?
- You might like to take time to respond to the picture creatively. Perhaps it will inspire a poem, prose reflection or picture of your own.
—Reflection By Sarah Larkin, Head of Communications and Marketing, Integral Alliance