Sunday, August 21, 2016

Our daily bread

Luke 11:2-4

Give us each day our daily bread.
The nice thing about preaching on the Lord’s Prayer is that when you’re lost, and maybe writing some stuff down on Saturday… evening… after dinner... there’s this guy named Martin Luther who wrote on this topic and he put it in an easy-to-find location right in the Small Catechism, which I can pull up on my smart phone on Augsburg Fortress’s new Small Catechism app (available for download for Android and possibly iPhone, I’m not sure, I’m not a very good advertiser).
Anyway, when I want to know about the Lord’s Prayer I just open up the app, click on “Lord’s Prayer” and, today, we’ll scroll down to the Fourth Petition, “Give us today our daily bread.” What does this mean? Oh, good, exactly what I wanted to know! “In fact, God gives daily bread without prayer, even to all evil people, but we ask in this prayer that God cause us to recognize what our daily bread is and to receive it with thanksgiving.” What then does “daily bread” mean? Good, I was wondering that one, too! “Everything included in the necessities and nourishment for our bodies, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, farm, fields, livestock, money, property, an upright spouse, upright children, upright members of the household, upright and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, decency, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”
Wow. OK, so that’s a really good starting point. Daily bread isn’t limited to communion or food or even things related exclusively to physical well-being; it is anything we need to live our lives in all of our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being. Daily bread is everything from the air we breath, to the water we drink, to the earth and its habitats, to the paycheck we receive, to the relationships we have and the governments and various systems that support us. Asking for daily bread is asking for quite a lot.
The one part of Luther’s explanation that I really like is the bit where it says “we ask in this prayer that God cause us to recognize what our daily bread is and to receive it with thanksgiving.” See, it’s not enough to get good things; it’s critical that we have to wisdom to acknowledge these gifts and to understand from whom they come. It’s one thing to catch a fish; it’s quite another to understand that that fish, no matter how adept my angling of it, is not my fish. I didn’t create it; I didn’t earn it. It comes as a gift.
            So, whatever the skills I possess, these too aren’t a testament to anything other than God’s grace giving me something I haven’t earned, because my abilities are not of my own doing. I can’t make a thing on my own. All my talents are given according to God’s grace. This is why it’s so critical that we provide daily bread for others whenever we are able. To give daily bread is merely paying forward what we have been given. None of us can claim a special right to it. Just as we can’t earn God’s love neither can we earn daily bread.
            None of us have created a thing in our lives. We have simply done our best to mold what God has created, formed, and provided for us.
            Now, some of you are very good at taking God’s creation and molding it for the good of the world. As you should! This is called being a “created co-creator.” To be a created co-creator is one of the true great callings we have as Christians, and, really, as human beings. We should commend these people for providing, because ultimately God works through human beings as intermediaries to give bread to all people, but we shouldn’t confuse the molder with the creator. We are all children playing with clay, doing our best amidst our humanly imperfections.
            This is most certainly true.
            This is also a good reminder when the weather stinks, when the crops don’t grow, or grow moldy, or commodity prices tumble, or the store doesn’t carry the things that we want, or the concert is sold out, or our friends are busy. We haven’t earned any of that. And, yet, to some extent we need it.
            Too many times we imagine a bad day is the end of the world. We lack the long-view that God has of creation; we also lack the understanding of God’s plan, which is not so much a plan for individuals but a plan for all of creation. We are very individualistic, but God moves in the big picture. I wonder sometimes if God doesn’t leave the little things to we-human beings, and that’s why the world gets all messed up. We-human beings are selfish and, at the very least, short-sighted, and therefore Jesus has us pray not “Give me this day our daily bread” but “Give us this day… (our daily bread).” This is a prayer for the community. Luther recognized this and keeps his explanation to it in the plural, focusing on “we,” not “me.” “Because the smallest unit of health is the community and to speak of an individual is a contradiction in terms” (Wendell Berry).
We are the body of Christ; we are fed together; and when one of us suffers we all suffer. This is true of all the least and the lost in our midst. So, give us this day that daily bread; give us enough to get through the day. Not me… us. Help the one who suffers in silence to know that she is not alone. Help the one who feels as if he can’t go on to know he is a necessary member of this body—that we are less without him. Help the one who is literally hungry because she can’t pay the bills. Help the one who has to make the choice between rent and medical bills. Help all those who cry out because of the stress of money and debt and an uncertain future, because we are all in this together. To be Christian is to be together. There is no such thing as an individual Christian; it doesn’t exist.
            Even the monastics formed communities in the deserts.
            Give us this day our daily bread, because we need it for all people… because we can’t create it… because we are at the mercy of things we cannot control. We all need it. We need it for one another.

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