Lord's Prayer Series: "Give Us Today Our Daily Bread," 3/22/09

"Give Us Today Our Daily Bread"
3/22/09
Lord's Prayer Series- 4th Sunday of Lent
Exodus 16:2-4, 11-18; John 6:28-35

I invite you this morning to join me in a prayer that I read this past week and found it to be helpful in expressing my own words. Let us pray:

"Lord, we are such hungry people. Give us this day our daily bread. We hunger for food, for acceptance, for love. Give us this day our daily bread. Lord, we hunger for mercy and truth, for righteousness and simplicity of heart. Give us this day our daily bread. Lord, we hunger for forgiveness, for enlightenment, for holy vision, for peace. Give us this day our daily bread. We hunger in hope... for the needy, for the downtrodden and forgotten, for the weak, for ourselves. Lord, we are such a hungry people. Give us this day our daily bread."[1] Amen.

Needs and wants. Needs and wants. Ohhhhh how much time I've spent lately exploring the difference in my life from what I NEED and what I merely WANT. This is a tough question and I know many of us have been asking it lately. What can we absolutely live without, or live without for the moment, what do we want, and what do we NEED to live? What are the basic needs for survival? What does our culture tell us we NEED? And, where do these things that we need come from? I can also guess that for most of us, if not all of us right now, the answers to these questions today differ greatly from what they would have been 6 months or a year ago. Today's phrase from the Lord's Prayer, “Give us today our daily bread,” gets at this very basic question of what is needed for life and where it comes from.

"Give us today our daily bread" can be translated different ways, but the one I find most helpful in exploring the meaning of the phrase prays, "Give us today the bread that doesn't run out."[2] As we explore what we need and where it comes from, the image of bread is front and center in this request. The image of bread appears throughout the Old and New Testaments. Bread that Abraham fed the angels in Genesis, Manna that God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness, Bread that Jesus fed to 5000 and broke on his trip to Emmaus--Bread is symbolic of basic food. Basic food is a basic need. Bread--not cake or Filet Minion--Bread is a very basic item. No, we aren't praying for the finest ingredients and highest quality. We instead are communally praying for Bread--for our basic needs. It's literally and symbolically at the core for those needing basic sustenance. This very basic food was part of Jesus' Jewish culture, and it remains a core in our culture today. I still laugh every time there is a hurricane or snowstorm predicted as I watch the news stations report on bread and bottled water flying off the shelves at the grocery store. Why these two items? They are core to our psyche to represent sustenance and security--basic NEEDS.

As needs, we must ask for them from the only true and reliable giver of all good things--God. The security that we will have enough comes only from God. Give us today the bread that doesn't run out. This phrase in the Lord's Prayer is a request made to God to provide our most basic NEEDS; it opens with a plea or command--"Give us." It is in the mundane things like food, water, shelter, clothing--the ordinary things of life--if we stop and notice and give thanks--that we can see signs of the divine gift and divine presence.[3] It's as if we're praying, "Give us the tools for basic survival, and in receiving them, help us to recognize that Your hand, God, is involved in all we receive, whether it is bread or water or our other NEEDS."

Speaking of seeing signs of the divine in the ordinary things of life, it is no coincidence that Jesus used bread in the Last Supper--a meal where the ordinary food became an extraordinary sign of the divine presence. It was during this meal that Jesus took bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples. We do the same thing here whenever we partake of Communion. The Sacrament of Communion takes ordinary bread and grape juice or wine and transforms it into something holy. Communion is sometimes called the Eucharist--which literally means "Give Thanks"--it is in giving thanks for the gift from God that we are drawn closer to God and see signs of the divine in the ordinary.

I heard a story about how someone came to church one Sunday after having bread for breakfast. She then partook of bread and wine during Communion in Worship. The bread of Communion looked much like the bread from breakfast. But she said, "At breakfast, I did not think of that bread as holy." The church responded, "That's the point. Now, after praying this prayer of the bread at church on Sunday, perhaps you will eat your bread differently on Monday."[4] Bread as a gift from God--Give us today our bread that won't run out. Bread--A simple symbol of divine presence in our needs and also a reminder of the gifts we receive from God. When the crowd asked Jesus for a sign to believe he was The Divine in their presence, Jesus said, "I am the Bread of Life." He offered himself up as bread and gave of himself as a sign for the people to believe. Their needs were fulfilled in Jesus and our needs today are fulfilled in the Bread of Life--Jesus Christ.

Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon, professor and former professor at Duke's Divinity School, remind us that, "The act of asking for bread is for us a daily reminder that our lives, like our bread, are gifts from God. Daily we are dependent on God. Just like the Hebrews in the wilderness who would have starved had not God sent the gift of manna (Exodus 16:1-36), so we would perish were it not for the daily, mundane, essential gift of God."[5] Give us today the bread that doesn't run out.

Just as Bread is a literal and figurative reminder of God's provision and care in our daily lives, water also serves as a tangible symbol of God's care. Besides bread, water ranks right up at the top of the list for items we are most likely to grab at the store when a storm is approaching. Water is a necessary component of life. Without water, life ends quickly! Water is a symbol we see throughout Scripture, just like bread.

Today we celebrate Jillian entering into the covenant of grace and the community of the church through the waters of baptism. We proclaimed and thanked God for the gift of water, and we also professed our own faith as part of receiving Jillian into our community. Each time we celebrate a baptism, ordinary and mundane water is transformed into a sign of God's care and provision. Each time we celebrate a baptism, we are invited to remember our own baptism. Each time we touch water, we are invited to see it as a sign of God's care and give thanks. Perhaps we will think of water differently on Monday because we have seen it today as an extraordinary sign of God's care. Jesus has given us living water (John 4), and Jesus is the Bread of life. Give us today the bread that doesn't run out.

Bread and Water--this morning and anytime we celebrate one of the Sacraments, Bread and Water remind us of God's daily provision and care. God provides. God provided manna in the wilderness for the Israelites. God provided the Bread of Life and Living Water--God provides for our basic needs today and God will provide for our basic needs always. Give us today the bread that doesn't run out. Amen.

1. Gregory V. Palmer, Cindy M. McCalmont, & Brian K. Milford, Becoming Jesus' Prayer: Transforming Your Life Through The Lord's Prayer (Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 2005) 83-84.
2. Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008) 121.
3. William H. Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer & Christian Life (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996) 72.
4. Willimon and Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us, 72.
5. Willimon and Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us, 70.