Matthew 6: 9-15, 25-34 “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”
INTRODUCTION
We often talk about the red-letter questions that we are going to ask God when we see God face to face. Most of us have quite an extensive list, and I must confess that I have my own list. Having grown up with an aquarium, I have always wondered if fish sweat. Because of my rather twisted theological mind, I have always wondered if Adam and Eve had navels. A more serious question that I have, along with many other people, is why does God allow the wicked to prosper. Another more troubling question is why does God, who is a loving God, allow poverty, hunger and suffering to exist in the world.
The petition, or section, of the Lord’s Prayer that we are examining today, “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread,” addresses these last two questions. Reflecting on this petition helps us understand how God moves in our world today, and what God calls us to as People of God and disciples of Jesus Christ.
GIVE THANKS
Martin Luther asked the same questions that we find ourselves asking. When Christians pray the Lord’s Prayer and ask for their daily bread, they do so knowing that a multitude of people don’t pray at all and still receive their daily needs—they may even prosper more than the Christians who do pray. Christians also pray this prayer knowing that there are millions around the world who do not have the daily bread that they need for health. After reflecting on these facts, Martin Luther writes in his Small Catechism, “God gives daily bread indeed without our prayer, also to all the wicked; but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to know it, and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.”
God loves us. God loves all people. There is so much of God’s love that it freely flows into the lives of the people who acknowledge God as the Lord of their lives, and then overflows to all of the other people of the world. God’s love is not dependent on our prayers (Praise the Lord!). We are going to receive our daily bread whether we pray for it or not, because God is love. Prayer does not increase our daily bread, nor does lack of prayer decrease it.
The purpose of this petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” is not to conjure up more of anything. This petition reminds us to give thanks.
Image yourself in that increasingly rare event called a family meal. You have been designated “cook” for the meal—irrespective of your position in the family. You have decided, for some unknown reason, to go all out and prepare a great feast, using all of your talents as a culinary artist. When the meal is ready, the entire family gathers at the table to eat. At the table, one of three responses will take place, which I think reflect the way we receive all that we need fro daily life (our daily bread) from God.
¨ A member of the family may look at the elegant meal placed before them and say, “Yuk! I don’t like this stuff. Why are you always serving us this junk? My friends have it so much better than I do. Their parents let them eat cookies and ice cream for their meals.
¨ Another scenario is total silence; no one says a word about the food, nor do they communicate with each other. You, the chef, do not know if the food was liked or disliked. In fact, the rest of the family simply consumed the food and were sure whether or not they liked it either.
¨ The third response has you sitting down at the table after you have served all of the members of your family. After you have seated yourself, you hear your family talk to you. One person says, “Thanks so much for going to all the trouble of preparing this fantastic meal for us.” Another says, “You’re a great cook, and I always love the great meals that you cook for us.” A third family members gushes, “You love us so much. It is evident by the way to cook for us. Thanks for your love and for all that you do.”
Some of us may have heard the third scenario and thought to ourselves, “If that ever happened in my house, I would think that I had died and gone to heaven.” Ah, that’s the point. We want to experience as much of heaven on earth as we can. One way to do this is to cultivate an “Attitude of Gratitude” in our relationship with God—and with others.
Someone may decide that if they are going to receive their daily bread without prayer, then they might as well not pray. The Lord’s Prayer encourages prayer and it does not discourage it. Think how satisfying it is to the Master Chef to be interrupted, while he is preparing a great banquet, by the words, “Oh, am I ever hungry!” I’m sure that the chef’s response would be something like, “Great! Grab a seat, and I give this great meal to you, in just a minute.”
RECEIVE THE GIFT
The Lord’s Prayer—especially this petition—contains a strong anti-establishment message. Christians in the United States are challenged to think differently and see the world from a different perspective than non-Christians.
North Americans love to hear rags to riches stories. These stories are part of the American myth. They include stories about Abraham Lincoln who rose from poverty in rural Kentucky to become president of the United States. Bill Gates, the poor boy who dropped out of Harvard because he was bored so that he could found Microsoft and become the richest man in the world. Of course there is also the NBA star who escaped from the projects in Chicago to become a multi-millionaire and earn six figures for every game they play.
We read and hear these stories and we say to ourselves, “I can do that,” and we begin to climb our road to riches. While on that road, we look around and see the possessions that our talents, skills and hard work have enabled us to accumulate. We pat ourselves on our back for a job well done, but there is still much to do because there are people to drive a nicer car than we do, live in a bigger house, go on more exotic vacations, and plan to send their children to more prestigious colleges. We must work harder.
This prayer whispers in our ear, “It’s a lie!” There is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. Hard work does not necessarily result in riches. Instead, the true is that all of life is a gift. A gracious and loving God has given to us everything that we have that is necessary for our daily lives. What we have is not earned, but rather it is received. God is the one who has given the sunshine and rain to grow the crops that we consume. God is the one who has given us good government and peace so that we can be about our studies or our trades. God has given us the talents and abilities that enable us to earn the money to provide food, shelter and clothing for our families and ourselves.
Instead of strutting in pride over what we have accomplished, we walk in awe at what blessings God has poured into our lives. We don’t clutch our possessions close to ourselves proclaiming that they are OURS and that we have worked hard for them, but we walk open handed ready to both receive and to share.
SHARE THE GIFTS
The wicked prosper because God loves the wicked and provides for them just like God provides for us. We may not like the fact that we cannot place any special claim on God’s love, but it is comforting to know that God will continue to love us and provide for us even when we stumble, and fall into sin. The reason for hunger, poverty and human suffering is more difficult for us to accept.
One of the main causes for hunger and poverty is human selfishness and greed—our selfishness and greed. The problem is in distribution.
We cannot deny the fact that evil in the world inflicts great suffering upon the people of the world. War, hate, and prejudice cause great amounts of hunger and poverty. Natural disasters such as the Tsunami, draughts, and floods also cause suffering and death. Combine these factors with our natural tendency towards selfishness and greed and the problems of hunger and poverty are multiplied.
God’s gifts are not meant to stop at us. God gives abundantly to us so that we can share with those around us. Like young children, however, we become very possessive of what has been given to us and say, “Mine,” a great amount of the time. We also believe that we cannot afford to give—we’re just making ends meet as it is.
Reminding us that all that we have is a gift, this prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” encourages us to share—as challenging as that might be. This prayer reveals the emptiness that is inherent in simply living for ourselves, and hints and the blessings and fullness that come when we share what the Lord has first given to us.
There is no magic formula for giving. The Scriptures say that the bottom line is ten percent of what God has given us. This percentage is a guideline, because as Christians we say that the Spirit of God leads us. The question then becomes what is the Spirit leading us to do.
In addition to the Scripture, another guidelines might be what we feel. If we give and feel nothing, we are probably giving at a comfortable, thoughtless level. If we give and it hurts, we are probably still too caught up in the “mine” syndrome. If giving is to be a blessing in itself, then perhaps we need to give until it feels good—good to give more than we thought we could, or good to give so that others might be blessed and their suffering eased.
CONCLUSION
The Lord’s Prayer gets personal. When we pray this prayer we not only come face to face with who God is, but we come face to face with who we are. The concepts of gift, sharing and thanksgiving are sometimes too foreign to us. May the Holy Spirit move in each and every one of us, enabling us to receive all that the Lord has in store for us with thanksgiving, and to share the abundance with which God blesses us.
Amen
