Lent Week 4: “Give Us Today Our Daily Bread”

“Give us today our daily bread.” When we come to the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, we make a subtle but important shift. No longer are we talking about lofty things—about hallowing God’s name, about God’s kingdom or God’s will. Now we are dealing with the nitty-gritty concerns of our own life. We jump in one breath from how things are done in heaven, to what we are going to have for dinner tonight. Rightly understood, of course, that is not such a big jump after all; for in faith, there is not a large gap between heaven and earth. Both are part of God’s concern! Jesus tells us, time and again, that God regards our every need—that not even a swallow falls to the ground without his knowing and caring. So perhaps it should not surprise us to find, here in our “model prayer,” words about something as mundane as bread.

Of course Luther understands this a bit more broadly. In the Small Catechism he tells us this prayer represents our asking for “everything needed for this life, such as food and clothing, home and property, work and income, a devoted family, an orderly community, good government, favorable weather, peace and health, a good name, and true friends and neighbors.” That’s quite a list, but his point is that here we are asking that God would preserve our lives by giving us all that is necessary for life. I think that’s a very helpful approach.

But let’s look at the petition from a slightly different perspective. How can this petition help us, or instruct us, in our own praying? What does praying for daily bread teach us about prayer? I want to suggest three things.

First, this petition teaches us that all our praying needs to be focused on God’s grace. Luther states this very clearly in the Catechism. Why do we pray for daily bread? Well, he says, God “gives daily bread, even without our prayer, to all people, though sinful; but we ask in this prayer that he will help us to realize this.” And there you have it, in a nutshell. Everything we receive from God’s hand is by grace. We don’t get it because we deserve it, or because we ask for it. God gives it freely—he makes the sun shine, Jesus says, on the just and the unjust. But in this prayer, he is teaching us that he wants us to recognize and acknowledge his grace.

Now as easy as that sounds, it isn’t easy in practice! We human beings are self-sufficient from the get-go! All you have to do is watch a child that has attained a certain age, struggling to do most anything from tying his shoes to making her bed. Try to help, and you get, “No! I want to do it myself!” That’s the way we are. We want to achieve things under our own power, by our own cleverness. Take a close look at Luther’s laundry list, and you see that most of what he mentions are things for which people like to take credit, in one way or another. Clothing? “Well, I make all my own things.” Home and property? “We’ve worked very hard for what we have.” Health? “You know, I watch my diet closely and exercise every day.”

Now I’m not knocking any of those things. Diet and exercise, hard work, creativity—all are worthwhile. But the point is that we so often forget that creativity is a gift of God; that hard work is done by the grace of God; that food, whether chosen carefully or wolfed down with utter abandon, is a gift of God. We have nothing without God! Maybe you’ve heard the story of the preacher who was talking to a farmer: “My, the Lord has certainly given you a wonderful crop this year,” he said. “Well,” replied the farmer, “you should have seen this field when the Lord was taking care of it alone!” That’s so often our attitude, isn’t it? The Lord is sure lucky that he has us here to make something out of the little he gives us! But this fourth petition stands over against that, and reminds us that all that we have is God’s—as one hymn puts it, “Yea, Lord, ‘twas thy rich bounty gave my body, soul, and all I have.” Even life itself. Without God’s grace, I do not draw the next breath.

If we understood this truly, I suspect our prayers would take on a different tone. Our hearts would be a little less inclined to ask for favors, and a little more inclined to say “thanks”! Our lives would be different, too; we would be less selfish and possessive, more generous with our material goods, our time, our talents. Praying for daily bread would become a prayer that reminds us of our absolute reliance on God’s grace for even the simplest things in life—even for life itself.

Now the second thing the petition teaches us is trust. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount taught us not to be anxious what we will wear or what we will eat, assuring us that God will take care of us. I think that’s something Jesus wants to reiterate through this prayer. Not only do we need to see that all is from God’s grace, we are ever needing to learn that we can trust him. In the Scripture lesson tonight, Jesus refers to the Israelites in the wilderness, and the wonderful gift of manna. You remember the story: they were told that there would be this bread available to them to gather each morning, but they should only gather enough for that one day and then be assured it would be there again tomorrow. Some of them couldn’t believe it, and so they tried to gather a week’s supply—and sure enough, by the next morning all that they had stored up had spoiled. Or again, Jesus tells a parable about a man who gathered grain into his barn, great quantities of grain, planning to live high on the hog when he retired. But he died that night, and never got to enjoy what he had selfishly hoarded. What God wants, you see, is for us to trust him day by day.

A classic expression of that truth is in a wonderful hymn by John Henry Newman. Newman was aboard ship; it was stormy, dark, frightening, and he took this as a metaphor for his life. He felt confused. He didn’t know which way to go, or what to do. At last he was able to pray, “Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant short—one step enough for me.” “One step enough”—knowing that God will take care of tomorrow, just as he took care of yesterday. And so we can take life one step at a time, not being anxious about the future.

If we understood this, would it not make our praying less anxious? We would concentrate not so much on telling God what to do and when and how to do it, but more on simply listening and watching for his direction. Praying “give us today our daily bread” is, you see, not a prayer of desperation: “God, I’ve got to have this or I can’t make it!” Rather it is a prayer of confident trust: “God, nothing’s going to happen tomorrow that you and I can’t handle together.”

The third thing this prayer teaches us is the gift of simplicity. We have said, with Luther, that “daily bread” means all that we need for this life. But isn’t it interesting that the metaphor Jesus uses is bread? It isn’t “give us the money we need,” or “give us the material possessions that will make us comfortable.” It is just bread—the simplest and most basic requirement we have for life. In phrasing it that way, I think we are being reminded that much of the time what we think we need is pretty unnecessary.

That is a word we need to hear in a world of materialism. You and I are pretty much slaves of our possessions—some more than others, to be sure, but I don’t think anyone can live in this culture without valuing things more highly than is healthy. Things, things, things—they fill up my closet, my drawers, my garage. When I graduated from seminary, I packed everything I owned, plus a friend, in my Honda Civic and drove 3,000 miles. I wonder if I’m any better off today? I have lots more toys, but am I better off?

In this petition, you see, Jesus is reminding us that what we really need in life is quite minimal. And that frees us up to use the rest of what God has given us to help others. If we truly understood this, I think our praying might take on a different cast. It might look more toward others and their needs.

So when we pray “give us today our daily bread,” we are doing more than looking for food. We are remembering that life and all we have is a gift of God’s grace. We are asking that we might learn to trust God completely, day by day. And we are asking that we might life with simplicity and contentment, sharing what God has given with others. May it be so in our praying and in our lives.