The Lord's Prayer - Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread - Luke 11:1-4
We are called into a
community to worship a God that is intimate with us as we pray “Our
Father.” As were remember that God, our
Father is the one “who art in heaven,” we remember that He is far above any
limitations of this world and our experiences in it, therefore we have nothing
to fear in this world. When we pray that
“hallowed be His name,” we are reminded that we are not only to honor God each
and every day with out speech and how we use His name, but we are to bring
honor to His name through each and everyone of our actions each day, in how we
treat His Creation and how we treat everyone we encounter—those that He too
created, those that Jesus offered His very life to save. And as we pray, “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will
Be Done, on Earth as it is in Heaven,” we are asking that God’s will, not our
own, be done, right here and right now, that we might see the revelation of
God’s Kingdom, God’s love, God’s justice, God’s mercy, God’s forgiveness, right
here and right now, on the earth, not some day in the future.
My sisters and
brothers, we gather this day to come to understand what we mean when we pray,
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
A
big-time negotiator was out fishing one day when he caught a strange looking
fish. He reeled the fish in, unhooked
it, and threw it on the ground next to him.
The fish started writhing in agony and, to the negotiator's surprise,
said, "Please throw me back into the lake and I'll grant you three
wishes."
"Any
three wishes, huh?" the negotiator mused as visions of expensive fast cars
and beautiful women paraded through his head.
"Fish," he finally exclaimed, "Give me
five wishes and I'll throw you back."
"Sorry," the fish answered while struggling
for breath, "only three wishes."
The negotiator's pride was at stake and after giving
the matter some thought he announced, "What do you take me for? A sucker?
I'll settle for four wishes."
"Only three," the fish murmured weakly.
Fuming, the man debated the pros and cons of accepting
the three wishes or continuing to bargain for that one extra wish. Finally, the
negotiator decided it was not worth looking a gift fish in the mouth and said,
"All right fish, you win, three wishes."
Unfortunately, the fish was dead.
Our society is one that teaches greed. We live in neighborhoods where we have been
told that we must keep up with the “Jones’s.”
You have seen the advertisements on television that even play up this
angle, with neighbors looking enviously over the hedges at their neighbor’s new
car and the ones that attempt to convince our children that they just have to
have that new toy. Our older children
face that same kind of pressure in schools, the pressure to have that certain
brand of clothes ties. Seldom are we
satisfied with what we already have or what we can even reasonably get. At times, we become like the man who was not
just satisfied with three wishes from the amazing fish that he caught, but
wanted more. Five wishes he demanded, then
four, and by the time he was satisfied with what was offered, it was too late.
Like the man whose greed cost him his chance at three
other wishes, our greed can leave us in bad spots as well. Trying to keep up with the “Jones’s” can lead
us to working all the time just to try and have the money to have everything,
giving up family time, friend time, and even worship time. Or, it can cause us to overspend and find
ourselves in a spiral of debt going out of control—leading to not being able to
afford the things we really need, depression, and/or bankruptcy. It causes just as much problems for our kids
when they see us falling into the trap and that peer pressure is put on
them. Exclusive groups and gangs are
formed around those that can and will wear a particular brand. On occasion, it has come to the point where
one child will even kill another child to take their particular item of
clothing.
So, what does all this have to do with praying, “Give
us this day our daily bread”? It has
everything to do with it. Too often, out
of our greed, we find ourselves praying like little Bruce who wrote a letter to
God saying, “Dear God, Please send me a pony.
I never asked for anything before—you can look it up.” Sometimes we pray to God like He is a magic
fish or a genie in a bottle, asking God to grant our every wish, sometimes it
is for a pony, a new car, or some other possession; sometimes it may be for our
favorite ball team or race car driver to win; or at other times, we pray for
God to get us out of a situation or chance the circumstances of what is going
on around us. The list could go on and
on and on. We have all, including
myself, been guilty at one time or another of asking God for what we want, and
expecting Him to deliver it to us on a silver platter.
And why shouldn’t we pray like this? Doesn’t Jesus say, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the
door will be opened for you. For
everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone
who knocks, the door will be opened.”[i] It sounds as if we are told that all we have
to do is to ask, search, or knock, and our wishes will be granted.
The problem is, sometimes we
pray for those things—asking, searching, and knocking—and find ourselves
disappointed when nothing happens. We
get upset and fuss at God for not carrying through on His part of the deal.
The question we have to ask
ourselves first, though, is whether or not we lived up to “our part of the
deal.” There is more to what Jesus
taught that simply asking, searching, and knocking. We find this invitation to
ask, search, and knock following shortly after Jesus has told the disciples not
to worry about what they will eat, drink, or wear. He let them know that God would be looking
out for them and providing for their needs.
And as Jesus concludes that passage, He tells them to strive first for
the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will
be given to you as well.”[ii]
What does this mean? It means that before we start offering God up
a shopping list of all the things we want, we are told by Christ, to first seek
after God’s Kingdom. Why is that? Because if we first seek after God’s Kingdom,
we will find that some of those things we were about to ask for or ask about,
will be unneeded, for we will discern that they are not in line with God’s
Kingdom.
Remember, God’s Kingdom is about
making the rule of God visible…not on some day after we die, but right here,
right now. It is about seeking God’s
righteousness, mercy, justice, and love in the world around us. It is about working to see that everyone has
the necessities of life, regardless of their gender, their ethnicity, their
social status, their faith. It means
striving to ensure that everyone finds themselves on level playing ground. It means that the unloved and unwelcomed are
embraced and shown love and compassion.
So, when we seek God’s Kingdom
first, before asking God to provide for us, we will come to see that wishing
ourselves better than our neighbors or praying for God to lift our “team” at
the expense of another, is not the way that God works. We may find that whatever situation or
circumstance we find ourselves in, is one that we must go through. When we pray after first seeking God’s
Kingdom, we will find ourselves not praying after the wants in our life, but
instead, praying for the daily bread.
What does it mean to pray for
our daily bread? It is means that we are
seeking from God that which we need to live through this day, and each
day. We are praying that God provide for
what we need. Maybe it is that we are
simply praying for food to eat today, clothes to wear today, a roof that
doesn’t leak to be over our heads, healing from some sickness, or a job to be
able to provide the basics for our family.
But wait, preacher, did you just
refer to the scripture where Jesus said not to worry about those things? Yes, I did.
I am not suggesting that we worry about those things. Lifting something in prayer should never be
an act of worry. When we pray for our
daily bread, we are not to be worrying about our daily bread. When we, as people of faith, lift up a
request to God in prayer, it is not supposed to be out of an act of worry. We lift those prayers as an act of faith and
trust—trusting that God is going to provide for those needs…not worrying that
we won’t have what we need.
Sometimes as we pray for our
daily bread, it is not about stuff we need.
Sometimes the daily bread is for strength to get through a challenge we
are facing. Sometimes it is for courage
to face a trial before us or to stand up for what is right. Sometimes, like Solomon, it is for the
wisdom. Sometimes it is for
guidance. Sometimes it is for rest or
peace.
Sometimes, we don’t even know
what we need. We might think we do, or,
we might just be at so much of a loss, we might have so much going on, so many
pressures piling on top of us that we have absolutely know idea what will lift
us from where we have found ourselves, either from our own stumble and fall, or
because someone else as shoved us down.
We simply don’t know what we need to get up. That’s when we cry out to God for our Daily
Bread…help me God..sustain me God…I don’t even know what I need, Lord, but You
do…I am trusting You to provide it…I want Your Kingdom and Your will to be
revealed in the midst of all of this Lord…Give us Lord, give us this daily
bread…because you know that manna we need today.”
Then, my brothers and sisters,
we trust. We have faith. We continue to strive for God’s Kingdom and
God’s righteousness…we continue our efforts to see God’s Kingdom come and God’s
Will be done…on earth as it is in heaven…and trust God for that daily bread,
just as Christ has taught us. We trust
and have faith, because it is the promise of our Savior, that if we seek after
God’s Kingdom, God’s Will, God’s Righteousness first, then petition Him for
what we need for today, He will pour out upon us more blessings than we could
ever imagine. As the Psalm 23 reminds
us, we shall not want and our cup will be over flowing, all with the grace of
God. God will provide us with all that
we need this day…and tomorrow He will provide for tomorrow…and the next day and
the next and the next…
As we pray this morning, let us
bow before God, seeking first His Kingdom, His Will, His Righteousness in our
hearts and in our lives, then with our palms cupped outward, feel for the Grace
of God to fill our lives and provide us with our Daily Bread. As we know join together in the prayer that
Christ taught us saying, “Our Father, who
art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy
Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread…”
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