Give Us Today Our Daily Bread: Luke 11:2-4 - Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

 On my drive to Meadville for Bethesda's Board Meeting, I noticed an electronic billboard which read “Kate needs a kidney.” Beneath those words were the young woman’s portrait, along with a web address and phone number.

Over the years, Elizabeth and I have cared for many people who needed life-saving organ transplants. The process of receiving a transplant is both agonizing and perilous. First of all, the patient must meet the criteria to qualify for a transplant. Then, if they are approved, they wait months, if not years, to receive it. In the meantime, that person will continue to be ill. The longer they are forced to wait, the greater the chance that they will not survive. 

Click here to read the Scripture text

The patient and their families also know that the transplant will come from a donor who’s undergoing a life-threatening surgery, or one who’s donating their organs as their final deed in this life.

This makes it difficult to pray for God to provide a organ donation. But there’s nothing wrong with praying for God to provide life’s necessities, whether it’s food, clothing, shelter, medicine, or a new kidney of lung. 

Photo by Christelle Hayek on Unsplash

We pray “give us this day our daily bread.” With these words, we acknowledge that we are part one small part of a creation that is dependent on God. At the same time, God uses many hands to provide your daily bread, and you are dependent on them, too. Unfortunately, our modern world with its instant access to goods and services causes us to forget that. In this world of plenty, we are never satisfied with what we have, but always wanting more and more. The more we want and the more we acquire, the more ignorant we become of our neighbors’ needs.

Have you ever noticed that when you see a TV commercial for a restaurant, retail establishment, or delivery service, their employees are always well-dressed, immaculately groomed, and smiling as if their life’s greatest joy is answering your complaint calls or delivering your pizza? How quickly we forget that these are people, just like us, who work to make a living. People who have stress and worries. People who make mistakes. People who care about you more than the companies they work for do.

It’s terrible how people abuse cashiers, food service workers, and customer service representatives. These individuals deserve to be treated with respect and appreciation.

If God’s promise of daily bread is to be universally realized, we must serve one another as we expect to be served.

This is why, I believe, Jesus follows the petition of daily bread is tied to the petition “forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” Yet this petition, in particular, keeps us humble, reminding us that we are sinners in need of forgiveness and that we need forgiveness just as much as we need daily bread. However, we cannot receive forgiveness in greater measure than we forgive others.

Hopefully, by now you have realized that if God is answering the Lord’s Prayer in you, you are living counter-culturally. You are conducting yourself in a way that is radically different from the average person.

In today’s world, people go around with a huge sense of entitlement. We see privilege as a sign of superiority. We enjoy abusing people we think are beneath us. We expect to be treated like royalty when we order fast food. We will not tolerate any interruption to the modern conveniences of cable television or smartphones.

Most toxic of all is the attitude of many which says I don’t need forgiveness, because I cannot do wrong. If someone hits me, I’ll hit back ten times harder. Forgiveness is for the weak. Vengeance is for the strong.

Truly, I tell you, these attitudes have no place in the Kingdom of God. Part of the reason we need to keep praying the Lord’s Prayer is so that the world’s ways do not get to us, either crushing our spirits with despair or luring us into adopting the ungodly behaviors and attitudes we see in so many.

When it comes to God, we are entitled to nothing, because we are sinners. Nothing, except for death and condemnation. But the Christ whose blood makes you worthy to seek God’s provision and forgiveness makes the neighbor worthy too. Worthy of dignity and daily bread. If they need forgiveness, you give it. If they need bread, you share it.

Remember, you do not pray the Lord‘s Prayer by yourself and for yourself. You pray as one small part of a vast web of creation that is dependent upon God and by extension dependent upon one another. We pray that we and all people will be empowered to fulfill their God-given purpose within this community of mutual dependence, whereby each person has an important role to play in satisfying the needs of others. This is the way God intended it to be, and this is exactly as it will be when God’s Kingdom comes, and God’s will is done, on earth as in heaven.