Sunday, February 13, 2011

The Lord’s Prayer: “Give Us This Day Our Bread”

Over recent weeks, we have been looking at The Lord’s Prayer. People, in all times and in all places, have always wanted to pray. Jesus’ followers are no exception. In Matthew 6, Jesus tells his followers to remember that, when they pray to God, they are praying to their heavenly Father who loves them and knows already what they need. So with a God like this loving them, Jesus told them to pray very simply. Like this:
“Our Father in heaven, 
hallowed be your name. 
Your kingdom come, 
your will be done, 
on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread, 
and forgive us our debts, 
as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
And lead us not into temptation, 
but deliver us from evil. [English Standard Version]
We usually end the prayer with “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.” Some have asked me why we add these final words when they are not in either Matthew’s Gospel or Luke’s Gospel. Though these words are not in the earliest or best manuscripts and so do not appear in more recent translations, there are times when tradition serves the church well. These words were added later by the church as a doxology of praise to God. But theologian Dale Bruner has this interesting observation [Matthew: A Commentary, Vol. 1: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12, Eerdmans, 2004, p. 305]:
“The fact that the Lord’s Prayer ends so raggedly – with the devil! – is probably an invitation to close the prayer with one’s own free petitions.... The rough ending is an open ending.”
I like that! I think that’s also why our Roman Catholic friends wait for the priest to add his words at the end rather than everyone saying “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.” 

The prayer Jesus gives us is short and simple. In its marvellous simplicity is contained all that is necessary for us as his followers to pray. When we read the prayer in Luke 11, we hear Jesus telling his disciples, “When you pray, say this.” So our praying regularly and together The Lord’s Prayer basically word for word is a good thing. It fills our minds and hearts with words from the heart of Jesus when he taught his followers – including us! – to pray to his Father and our Father. On the other hand, when we read the prayer in Matthew 6, we hear Jesus telling his disciples “Pray like this.” In other words, here is the essence of how to pray to God. 

Each time we pray like this, we should remember God is our Father, whose name is to be honoured above all others and whose kingdom and will is for the whole of this Earth as well as for heaven. There is no other kingdom or will or name to be sought. God’s righteousness and God’s kingdom are to come first in our lives, in the lives of all Jesus’ followers and, ultimately, in the lives of all humanity. For two weeks in a row, we have sung the Scripture from Matthew 6:33 -- “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness” -- for that reason. As we fill our minds and souls with the essence of Jesus’ mind and soul and continue to grow in our understanding of what he taught, we can alter the words we use. The phrases of The Lord’s Prayer then become a kind of handrail, Dale Bruner suggests, along which we form our own words and responses to God. One of the places on the handrail is “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Almost every week, Marg and I walk up one aisle and down another in our local grocery store filling the cart with food items for the week to come. I imagine that’s a weekly or bi-weekly ritual for many of you as well. Then we line up with others at the checkout and pay for our food. Some people no longer regularly leave their home to buy their daily food; they go to the dining room in their residence for their meals. But they still pay for this service, of course! On the other hand, because of the circumstances of their lives, others have difficulty getting enough food for themselves and their families. So they receive government assistance. They may also go to a local food bank for groceries or to a local church such as ours and hope for a food voucher to help them get through the day and, perhaps, the next day. Or they might sit down to a meal once a day that is provided by an Out of the Cold group. 

Physical sustenance is a necessary part of our living. Jesus understands we need daily bread in order to live – we need enough food every day! So Jesus tells us to pray to his Father, who is also our Father, about our daily necessities, which reminds us who the ultimate Provider is of all the good gifts we have. The sense here of daily provisions is what housekeepers in Jesus’ time would understand as they made their daily lists of what the household needed to sustain itself and then purchased the food at the daily market. [Robertson, A. (1997). Word Pictures in the New Testament (Matthew 6:11). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems.] When Jesus taught this prayer, he emphasized that God is vitally interested in our daily lives, beginning with the food necessary for our physical bodies each and every day. So to pray about physical, social and personal needs is not a selfish attitude. Jesus actually commands his followers to pray this way.  

However, for those of us who have healthy bank accounts, I suggest it is difficult, more often than not, to think God has very much to do with our daily food. We are the ones with the cash or credit and we use them easily. Maybe that’s why the writer of Proverbs prayed this way [30:7-9 GNT]: 
“I ask you, God, to let me have two things before I die: keep me from lying, and let me be neither rich nor poor. So give me only as much food as I need. If I have more, I might say that I do not need you. But if I am poor, I might steal and bring disgrace on my God.” 
Perhaps that is why Jesus said it is hard for rich people to enter heaven. It would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, he said [Matthew 19:23-24]! It is too easy to forget about God when things are going too well or too easily for us.

Perhaps that’s also why Jesus instructed his followers to pray first to God: “Our Father in heaven, honoured be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, right here on Earth as in heaven.” Then when Jesus continued to pray “Give us our daily bread,” the clear connection is that the ultimate source for our daily bread is God – not someone or something else. In whatever form or from whomever the gifts of daily sustenance may come, all ultimately comes from God’s creation, God’s love and God’s gracious concern for all his creatures – human and otherwise. In other words, we need to leave room for God to help us in our lives when we think about even the basic of necessities of life.   

When we leave room for God in our lives, we are opening up the possibility for a relationship of trust with God. When we are not afraid to ask someone for something, we are implying there is a relationship of trust between us. For instance, I was more than happy when my children asked me for something they really needed. As their father, I wanted nothing more than to help. So when Jesus tells us to ask God to provide the bread we need for today, we are saying to God: We trust you, God our Father, to provide for us today

When we trust God in this way, we learn more and more about being grateful to God. There have been only a few times in my life when I have been close to being hungry -- especially when I was at college and living away from home. But I am one of those in this blessed western society who has never really gone hungry. So when I say The Lord’s Prayer each week and think deeply about this particular petition – “Give us this day our bread” -- I find myself being grateful for the food and sustenance I have this day and thank God again for it. 

Our problem, sometimes, is that we worry about a tomorrow that has yet to come. And may not come in the way we worry about! To worry about tomorrow is a draining experience. It distracts our focus from God and drains us of trust in the God whose very nature is love. In Luke 12:22-31, Jesus tells us not to worry about what we will eat or what we will wear and not to be afraid because our Father knows we need these things. Instead, we need to be concerned, first, with God’s kingdom and, if we are, Jesus says God will provide what we need somehow. Jesus is not saying it is wrong to think about tomorrow or to plan for tomorrow or to make provision for tomorrow; he is saying not to worry about tomorrow. To worry is to lack trust – and, often, gratitude too. But when we leave room for God in our lives, we will discover we can both trust God for our daily sustenance and remember to be grateful for all the good gifts in our kitchen cupboards.  

When we do trust God, we will find ourselves saying thanks to God again and again for our blessings. But as we say thanks, we may well feel more than a little guilty for being able to enjoy food in abundance while so many in the world “walk in hunger,” as we prayed in the Opening Prayer. (Did you notice how close that prayer is to a familiar grace people often use before a meal?) So at the moment we pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” should not our next sentence be “We are sorry we so often think only about our own need for bread” and then “Show us how to share our bread with the world”? William Barclay wrote: “No Christian can be content to have too much while others have too little.”

When we trust God in our own lives, we will not allow God’s other intended recipients of daily bread stay hungry. As one writer suggests, should we not shout, “Woe, woe to the persons or institutions or economic systems that keep people hungry” [Arthur Paul Boers, Lord, Teach Us to Pray]? Is not this prayer for God to give us our daily bread also a prayer for justice for others too -- a lively concern that there be enough bread for all people all over the world?

It is good our denomination receives and sets aside money from its mission and service fund for the relief of world hunger. It is good to encourage our governments to take seriously worldwide concerns for those who are hungry and give even more in matching grants to relief and development projects through CIDA. But what does the answer to “Show us how to share our bread” look like on a personal level? Maybe we can learn about that in unexpected places.

While working as a journalist for the Chicago Tribune, Lee Strobel reported on the struggles of an impoverished, inner-city family during the weeks leading up to Christmas [The Case for Christmas, Zondervan, 2005]. A devout atheist at the time, Strobel was mildly surprised by the family's attitude despite their circumstances. Here is part of his report:
The Delgados -- 60-year-old Perfecta and her granddaughters, Lydia and Jenny -- had been burned out of their roach-infested tenement and were now living in a tiny, two-room apartment on the West Side. As I walked in, I couldn't believe how empty it was. There was no furniture, no rugs, nothing on the walls—only a small kitchen table and one handful of rice. That's it. They were virtually devoid of possessions.
In fact, 11-year-old Lydia and 13-year-old Jenny owned only one short-sleeved dress each, plus one thin, gray sweater between them. When they walked the half-mile to school through the biting cold, Lydia would wear the sweater for part of the distance and then hand it to her shivering sister, who would wear it the rest of the way.
But despite their poverty and the painful arthritis that kept Perfecta from working, she still talked confidently about her faith in Jesus. She was convinced he had not abandoned them. I never sensed despair or self-pity in her home; instead, there was a gentle feeling of hope and peace.
Strobel completed his article. But he could not get the Delgados and their unflinching belief in God's providence out of his thoughts. So on Christmas Eve, he decided to pay the family a visit. He discovered that readers of his article had responded to the family's need in overwhelming fashion, filling the small apartment with donations of new furniture, appliances, rugs, a large Christmas tree, many wrapped presents, bags of food, warm winter clothing and even a generous amount of money. (We have heard of similar responses by the citizens here in Toronto from time to time to families in need.) But it wasn't the generous gifts that shocked Strobel. It was the family's response to those gifts. In his words:
As surprised as I was by this outpouring, I was even more astonished by what my visit was interrupting: Perfecta and her granddaughters were getting ready to give away much of their newfound wealth. When I asked Perfecta why, she replied in halting English: “Our neighbours are still in need. We cannot have plenty while they have nothing. This is what Jesus would want us to do.”
That blew me away! If I had been in their position at that time in my life, I would have been hoarding everything. I asked Perfecta what she thought about the generosity of the people who had sent all of these goodies, and again her response amazed me. “This is wonderful; this is very good,” she said, gesturing toward the largess. “We did nothing to deserve this -- it's a gift from God. But,” she added, “It is not his greatest gift. No, we celebrate that tomorrow. That is Jesus’ birth.”
To her, this child in the manger was the undeserved gift that meant everything -- more than material possessions, more than comfort, more than security. And at that moment, something inside of me wanted desperately to know this Jesus -- because, in a sense, I saw him in Perfecta and her granddaughters.
When we leave room for God in our lives like the Delgados did, despite having only a handful of rice at the time, we discover Jesus, the Bread of Life – Jesus who leads us into God’s kingdom. When Jesus was in the wilderness and tempted by the Evil One, his response to the first temptation was: 
“The scripture says, ‘Human beings cannot live on bread alone, but need every word that God speaks.’” [Matthew 4:4, GNT]
When people later asked Jesus to show them a miracle similar to the one their ancestors experienced in the desert when God gave them bread – manna -- from heaven to eat [John 6:30-35 and Exodus 16:12ff], Jesus answered this way:
“‘The bread that God gives is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’
‘Sir,’ they asked him, ‘give us this bread always.’
‘I am the bread of life,’ Jesus told them. ‘Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who believe in me will never be thirsty.’”
I believe a second meaning behind this prayer for daily bread in The Lord’s Prayer is for a spiritually starving world to be given the Bread of Life – that is, the Word of God. Besides needing bread to eat, people also need bread for their souls. They need the gospel, the good news about Jesus – who is the Bread of Life – through whom human beings really live, both now and forever!

Let us trust God for our daily necessary physical needs when we pray “Give us this day our bread.” And let us be thankful too. Let us also pray for open and generous hearts to share that bread with a hungry world. And let us ask for Jesus, the Bread of Life, when we pray. Jesus came to this world for everyone. He is the Bread of Life people all over this world are hungering for -- whether they know it or not. 

My friends, may this be so for you and for me.

Rev. Chris Miller
February  13, 2011

OYM Oriole-York Mills United Church, Toronto
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