September 7, 2003 (Jimmie Johnson)

Matthew 6:9-14

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 and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.

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“Give us this day our daily bread.” It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? It is, and at the same time like all prayer it takes us to a deeper, more profound state of consciousness from which we are asking for far more than we think. The prayer “give us this day our daily bread” is really a collection of prayers.

The first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are all focused on God: petitions asking God to live up to God’s name: Your name be made holy or hallowed. Your Kingdom come. Your will be done. Jesus is teaching us to pray so that we understand our relationship to God is based on God’s ability to pull off being God, not on our ability to pull off being godly. So prayer begins with the belief that God never began to love us and the world, but instead our very beginnings, our very origins are because of a God who seeks to make God’s holy self known to us because our very existence stems from God’s prior love.

But this morning the focus of the petitions turns from God’s identity to the truth of our identity. Jesus instructs us to pray as children of God who are dependent upon God’s goodness. The focus changes from “let your name be made holy,” “let your will be done,” “let your kingdom come” to “give us.”

We are dust creatures. Yes, we are created in God’s image, but we are not divine. We are totally dependent upon outside resources for life. None of us is self sufficient. All of us, rich or poor, are pensioners of God. Yet, we live and often believe as though we were self-sufficient.

When Jesus tells us (his followers) to pray “give us this day our daily bread,” he is helping us to come to grips with our finiteness. “Remember thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return” is a wisdom that is meant for the living of all our days and not only the day called Ash Wednesday.

This prayer “give us this day our daily bread” is also intended to free us to kiss the joy as it flies rather than fear that tomorrow brings such unknown demands and scarcity that in anxiety we grasp and cling to the moment and in doing so kill the joy.

One of the most spiritually alive times for me in my whole life was the weeks I waited to find out if my cancer had spread. I lived by the motto “Today only, gratitude only.” I didn’t spend my day worrying about next month, or next year, or a whole list of “what ifs” regarding tomorrow. No, the threat of death cleared away the fog of worry over the past and anxiety for the future. Unfortunately as the days of my illness fade into the years, I find myself sliding away from that motto: Today only, gratitude only, forgetting the wisdom of living by daily bread, returning again to preoccupation with yesterday and tomorrow to the neglect of today.

Part of what Jesus teaches us is to practice living in the presence of God each day. The past is out of our hands; the future is out of our control. We only have today. And this need not frighten us. St. Paul says, “If we live, we live unto the Lord. And if we die, we die unto the Lord. So then whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” To pray in the spirit of Jesus “give us this day our daily bread” is peacefully to take a deep breath in this moment of life and know that we do not have to cling to it out of fear.

Yes, we are dust creatures. We are not self-sufficient. We are not in control. We are all going to die. But even more certain than those certainties is that we are loved and sustained by a loving God whose nature is to give, to provide, to be aware of us and who desires for us to be fully alive in this present moment, not captive to yesterday nor held hostage by tomorrow.

By all means don’t forget we are praying “give us,” not “give me.” It is “our daily bread,” not “my daily bread.” There is a connection between my needs and the needs of all human beings. Jesus is not teaching us to pray for a luxury car, or a vacation home at the beach, or a prosperous retirement package. He is not instructing us to pray for cake or a banquet table overflowing. Jesus is instructing us to pray for our daily needs and to learn the soul wisdom that perceives when enough is enough, and in so doing, we realize we are going to be the answer to one another’s needs. “Give us our daily bread” means it is more than likely that the way I live today will be the answer to someone’s prayer for help today.

The secret of praying for daily bread is that we learn the difference between our needs and our wants. How few people go through an entire adulthood without becoming spiritually alive enough to know the difference. Most problems I see adults having stem from having a “busted wanter.” In emotional emptiness, we consume more and more while trying to fill ourselves up, only to discover we are growing more and more empty. Yet, to tap spiritually the resources of God’s grace brings about an inner fullness that enables us to see what we need rather than feel what we want. To pray for today’s bread teaches us to honor our needs and laugh at our wants.

Lastly, in praying for today’s bread, we learn the soul secret of being interested in big things and being happy in small things. Most of us spend inordinate time and emotions on small, minor things while paying no attention at all to the large questions of life. But if we let Jesus teach us how to pray, and then begin to trust that Jesus is even praying within us through this prayer, then we learn the joy of being happy in small things while being intellectually and spiritually fascinated by the big things. The life of the soul is being happy in small things, the look of a child’s face as she skips down the hallway of church, the hand shaking as he lifts the coffee cup, the new person sitting on our pew, the expectant mother with her hand on her tummy.

“Give us this day our daily bread” is all about remembering who we are: dust creatures, yes, but beloved of God even the more. It is about remembering that our daily life holds the answer to someone else’s prayer. It is about remembering the wisdom of knowing the difference between what we want and what we need so that we are happy with the small things which in the end determine whether we lived until we died or died before we lived.