Exodus 16:4-21; Matthew 6:5-13
July 16, 2023
- Just enough for today
We all know that the COVID pandemic caused lots of changes in the world. Some of those changes are going to stick. Some of those changes are going to be with us a long time. Years ago, I remember seeing pictures of folk in Asian countries who were wearing masks as they navigated their everyday lives – people on the subway, crowds of masks. It seemed so strange, so alien to me. I could not imagine living in a society where masking was a part of life, but for people who do live under the threat of spreading illness, masking is an obvious, natural answer. Now, I get it.
One thing that changed with the end of the pandemic, however, is a joy. Not only were restaurants able to get going, again, but we also saw the reemergence of America’s favorite restaurant, the mighty buffet. As long as COVID dictated our ability to eat out, the buffet was dead, but those beautiful long rows of dishes, steamy sneeze shields, and wide-opened eyes of people staring into the face of abundance are back. The buffet has always been a warm memory to me, especially the all-you-can-eat buffet, and I will say one of my psychological hang-ups is that I try to eat my money’s worth of food. And if I eat more, then that is like saving money (right?!?!). I am not saying that is healthy. I know it is not, but eating has been an issue for me since I was a child.
That’s why Jesus’ prayer for us today is both a blessing and a curse for me. No one wants to be hungry. What is especially sad is that there are people in Prince Edward County right now in this very moment who are hungry, who do not have enough to eat. Every time I have volunteered at a food distribution ministry here in town, they have run out of food, sometimes all of the food. There is more need than there is help. That only represents the ones who are able to come out and get food. According to the last census, more than 18% of the population in Prince Edward lives in poverty – nearly 20%, nearly 1 in 5 people. Of course, it was even worse in Jesus’ day and in that area around the Sea of Galilee. In fact, poverty would have been much more widespread, but people were probably better at living with it. Still, people had very little. In the middle of that scarcity, they could pray: Give us this day, our daily bread.
Please, God, give us food for today. The food that we need for today, please give to us. This is a prayer of hope for it calls on God to honor the promise to care for us and to love us with the provision of God’s love. Just after this passage, Jesus talks about God loving us more than birds and flowers, and if God so loves and cares for them, certainly, God will also provide even more for us. This one line of the prayer should connect a Jewish hearer to the story of the Exodus and God’s people wandering through the wilderness. They were starved and very thirsty. In answer to their cries for help, God gave the people manna and quail and water. Of course, when Jesus is praying for “today’s bread,” he is drawing a direct line back to the manna – that miraculous, flakey bread-like substance.
But there is another side to this prayer: Give us this day, our daily bread. Please, God, give us enough food for just this day. Provide for us just enough to make it through THIS day, not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. No warehouses or storehouses or Costco. We are not buying in bulk here. Remember that manna? God specifically forbad the people from collecting more than they needed for that day. The food spoiled very quickly and very badly as soon as the day was up. The only exception was on the Sabbath when they were not supposed to do work. On that day before, they could collect two days’ worth of food. This prayer is both a prayer of hope and a prayer of warning. Remember that landowner who built those bigger barns to house all of his grain, but then he died, and all of that work and collection went to nothing? He might have had a hard time praying this prayer. How about us?
I cannot remember how many times I have left a table thinking “I ate too much.” No other country I have ever visited provided the same challenge. Something in our American DNA seems to invite abundance. Go big or go home. Our supersizing, more is better, never have enough culture is a dark side to capitalism itself. While our very system of commerce does drive financial achievement and innovation, it also easily tramples on people and tempts people to gain more and more and more – as much as possible, by any way possible. That does not sound like Jesus’ prayer.
The prayer of Jesus is about finding God’s support and provision in this day. This verse and the following verses are about taking care of life today. Jesus wants us to find ourselves full of God’s love in this day. We are not worried about tomorrow, next week, or next year. Even the word Matthew uses for “daily” is a strange word not used anywhere else in the New Testament or even in other writings that we have from that day. People have forever struggled with having enough AND having what they need at all. We live there in that tension between having too much or not enough. Jesus’ prayer calls us to let that tension go, to give ourselves to God’s grace in faith. Yes, we need God to provide, but we pray to God because God will provide.
God is the God of banquets, of more than enough, of provision not only for today but also for the future. Joseph was called upon to save the Egyptian and Hebrew peoples by building massive food stores and saving enough to feed all people for years. No one can honestly be expected to live only for today without any thought of tomorrow. Who is going to go to the store each and every day and only buy enough food for that day as an expression of this prayer? And, yet, that is almost what it sounds like Jesus is expecting us to pray.
If only there was another connection between bread and Jesus….
When Jesus was giving us this prayer, it was still a good time until he sat down with this closest friends and broke bread and told them to take and eat it -that it was his own body broken for them. It was a while yet before he told them at his last meal to eat his body, to be fed in him, but this is the same Jesus who knows how to provide for his sisters and brothers.
Right now there are people being starved in so many ways for God’s goodness, for the love of Christ. You may have heard that story about the difference between heaven and hell. On a trip to hell, a door was opened to a beautiful banquet hall lavishly laid out with a great table piled high with extraordinary and sumptuous food. But all around this huge, majestic table sat a great number of pathetic, starving, emaciated people eating nothing. Each person had a fork or spoon too long to reach back to their mouth, so they all starved in misery, unable to feed themselves. A quick trip to heaven revealed exactly the same room, exactly the same table, and exactly the same forks and spoons, but the people ringing the table in heaven were all well-fed and happy and singing and rejoicing. What was the difference? The people in heaven realized that while they could not feed themselves, they could feed each other.
God’s provision is not a food delivery service, yet God will provide if we are willing to be God’s provision for each other, too. We carry God’s provision, and we are God’s provision. We have more than enough food for every person on the face of the planet, yet people die of hunger. This is not God’s fault. When we pray, “Give us this day, our daily bread,” we are also praying our will and God’s will for all of God’s children to be fed. Somewhere between the desire to have more than enough and the fear of having enough, the faithful need to find themselves trusting not only in God’s care for us but also in God’s help for us to feed one another, one day at a time.
Let’s pray… Good and Gracious God, Heavenly Father, we come to you seeking your nourishment in body, mind, and spirit. Your faithfulness is the path that we have walked, and that faith will walk us into the rest of our days, but this day is our day. This day is our day with you in life and love. This day is the one gift of divine love that we will ever know. Today is the day when we lift our calls for your help. Feed your sheep, O Lord. Feed your lambs, Precious Savior. Feed us all, all of your children. Feed us in good and healthy ways. Feed us so that we might feed each other. Feed us in ways that enable us to continue to feed your people. Make our Table a living Table of your grace and glory that all may know your are truly love. To you be the glory. Amen.