Getting
Our Daily Bread
Sermon preached by the Reverend Larry Young
September 4, 2005
Scripture:
Luke 11:1-10
One
of the sermon requests that came in this summer was for a series on
the Lord’s Prayer. As worthy as that may be, we didn’t
feel we could take the time now to do a whole series in light of the
number of other requests we wanted to honor. At some point we may
well do a Lord’s Prayer series, but given the fact this is the
Sunday before Labor Day, it seemed to me a fitting time to address
one phrase in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our
daily bread.”
For
most of us, the connection between our daily bread and labor will
be obvious: our labor is the means by which we gain the money to buy
the food we need. In Jesus’ day when many people actually raised
their own food, praying for one’s daily bread probably had a
rather different meaning—something like “God, gives us
the rainfall we need to produce a decent crop, and spare us from the
locusts.” To be sure, people then knew their own labor was essential
to getting a crop; but the cooperation of nature probably seemed the
primary concern, and one for which God’s help was especially
needed. Today as we live further down the chain from the production
of our food, our concern is not how nature will provide, but rather
how our labor as part of the economic structure will bring us the
financial resources we need to feed ourselves. And that gives a whole
different meaning to praying “give us this day our daily bread.”
Praying that we will have the health and strength to work connects
well enough. But praying that this human structure we call the economy
will work fairly enough to provide us with enough money may seem more
than a little removed from what we think of as God’s agenda
for action. We think of the fairness of the economy as a human concern—a
political and social matter. We humans created the economic order
over time, and we know that our decisions about it will determine
how fair it is. If God has anything to do with economic policy, it
will be God working through particular persons to influence it.
Yet
Jesus assures us that God wills that we get the food we need. In today’s
reading from Matthew, Jesus tells the parable of the man who comes
banging on a friend’s door at midnight for food and even at
that hour the friend gets out of bed and provides it. So much more
so does God want to provide us with the gifts of life for our well
being. Thus we are to ask, search, and knock—yes, we are to
pray for our daily bread—because God wills us to have it.
(continued...)
"Getting
Our Daily Bread" by Rev. Larry Young, September 4, 2005
What then does it mean for us in the Twenty-First Century to pray for
our daily bread as we pray the Lord’s Prayer? To begin with, I
believe it means recognizing that ultimately God is the giver of all
that sustains us. God has given us a world which still produces food
abundantly, even despite our sometime poor stewardship of it. When we
say grace at meals, we are acknowledging that our food is really a sign
of God’s grace that makes our life and health possible. We know
God’s grace also in having the physical strength to do the work
that earns our bread. Some of us may have more of this stamina than
others; but most of us have enough to earn our basic keep. If we’re
retired, we rely on the fruits of our past labors; and if we’re
a family member who doesn’t work outside the home, we give thanks
for the family breadwinners who earn for us as well. We well know not
all needful work is remunerated—and we can appreciate this all
the more when the usual cook in our family is absent! Labor, both paid
and unpaid, is necessary if we humans are to eat and have provision
for our basic life needs. Even if work is not our favorite thing, we
should thank God for the health and strength to do our part in our human
economy that contributes to the well-being of ourselves and others.
There is meaningful work for all of us to do in helping one another
to be sustained, both physically and spiritually.
Now
when we pray to receive our daily bread, our first thought is likely
to be for ourselves: Give me today my bread, O God. But note the prayer
does not say, “Give me,” but rather “Give us.”
Give all of us the bread we need—for God wills every human being
to be fed. So how are we to respond when things don’t work that
way—either for us or for others? When poor health, or a lack of
education or job skills, or discrimination, or a lack of jobs means
that one cannot work, what then? When a natural disaster wrecks an area’s
economy, as has happened this past week with Hurricane Katrina, so that
thousands of jobs have been simply swept away, what are we to make of
that? When the only work available does not pay a living wage, what
should that mean to us? We all know what the easy answer to that is:
“That’s just how the economy works.” We’d like
to believe that the economy would work well for everyone if only they
would “get with the program,” but the reality of people
falling through the cracks is too pervasive to be ignored. Nor is the
economy a predestined immutable force that human beings have no influence
over. It is constantly being shaped by those with the energy and motivation
to mold it. So what does this mean to us as followers of Jesus who care
about all of us getting our daily bread?
I
believe it calls for two responses from us. The first is that we are
called to share our bread with those who don’t have enough. That’s
what we do when, for example, we have our food drives here at First
Church, or when we give money to UMCOR for famine relief, as in the
Sudan or Niger, or for Hurricane Relief in our Gulf States. In giving
direct aid we help to balance the distribution of resources that has
gotten skewed in human affairs or by acts of nature. Aid also takes
the form of basic education and job skills training, which, along with
medical and health programs, help move people toward being able to provide
for themselves. I’m glad to note how much of the mission work
of our United Methodist Church is focused in that direction.
(continued...)
"Getting
Our Daily Bread" by Rev. Larry Young, September 4, 2005
But in addition to direct aid, I believe praying for our daily bread
means we are also called to exercise our influence toward making our
economic system work for the well-being of as many people as possible—not
just for the richest or most powerful among us. Our newspapers reported
this week that over a million additional people in this country fell
below the poverty line in 2004—while those in the top 5% income
level enjoyed a nice increase in income. That’s how the economic
system in this country is presently allocating its rewards. But as
a people of Christian conscience we ought to be asking, is this really
what God wills for us—that so many would have so little while
a few have so very much? In New Orleans this past week it was primarily
the poor who suffered so much being trapped in miserable conditions,
while the better-off had the resources to flee ahead of the storm
or move to safer places. The poor were penalized by even greater suffering.
That should not be happening in our rich country. Is it not possible
to have an even healthier economy in which every person’s labor
brings at least a living wage, and all have the daily bread they need?
I
believe this arena of economic policy is one of the crucial frontiers
we Christians have neglected but ought to be confronting today. Amidst
all the special interests at work there should be some of us whose
agenda is the well-being of the greatest number, not the self-interest
of a few. Each of us has the power of our own voice and the power
of the political decisions we make which impact the economy. The challenge
for us is to become informed enough economically so we can exert our
influence on the side of the many rather than the few, and so make
it possible for many more to get the daily bread they need.
Today
as we give thanks for the abundance of daily bread that is ours; let
us thank God for the abundance of the earth that feeds us, and for
the strength and good fortune that enables us to provide well for
our needs. And as we partake of the Bread of Life at Christ’s
table, may it strengthen us to labor toward the goal that all of God’s
children might have enough food!
©Larry
Young , 2005. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
All other rights reserved. |
