The Lord’s Prayer and Daily Bread
The Lord’s Prayer and Daily Bread
Matthew 6:9-13
March 23, 2025 Third Sunday of Lent
Lent Series – Bread of Life
Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, First Presbyterian Church, San Rafael, CA
Jesus said, "Pray then in this way:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial but rescue us from the evil one.”
New Revised Standard Version
Jesus said, “This is how you are to pray:
‘Abba God in heaven, holy is your name!
May your reign come; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven:
Give us today the bread of Tomorrow.
And forgive us our debts, as we hereby forgive those who are indebted to us.
Don’t put us to the test, but free us from evil.” Inclusive Language Bible
As we move through this season of Lent, we hear Jesus is still talking about bread. Today we hear the prayer the church has historically called The Lord’s Prayer. Depending on if you attended worship services growing up and where, you know there are different versions. Some lines were changed or added to the scripture version. For some this is a comforting prayer because it is familiar. For others, it may sound irrelevant, or like an historical document that does not feel useful today. In our church, we use a variety of versions in worship.
Today we are focusing on the phrase – Give us this day our daily bread. The Greek word translated as “daily” is actually a debated word. It can mean “daily” but it can also mean “tomorrow.” There is still a sense that is just enough for sustenance. Not stock piling. And there is a plural pronoun – Give us our daily bread. Not - Give me my bread so I can eat.
Jesus uses the essential food as his metaphor. I invite you to consider this quote by Nikolai Berdyaev, who says,
“Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.”
Jesus using this phrase in the prayer and saying “I am the bread of life” are so pivotal to understanding who he is, and what he came to do. Marci Glass, in her sermon “Bread For My Neighbor,” gave me many new insights.
Give us this day, our daily bread. We pray it every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer. Because it is one of the oldest known foods, that we and our ancestors have relied on. The oldest bread scholars have found is over 15,000 years old! People were making bread from local grains before people were planting crops.
Daily bread. Enough for today. Enough for tomorrow. In Exodus 16, that is what manna was that God provided to the Israelites in the wilderness. They have escaped slavery, but their stomachs are growling and they complain to Moses that maybe they should have just stayed in Egypt. They are in a place where they cannot use their own gumption, ingenuity, or resources to save themselves. Slavery is behind them, in their rearview mirror. The Promised Land is still ahead of them.
Hunger and anxiety dominate their verbs in their present moment, clouding their call to rely on God.
How often do we do that too? How often does our anxiety of the present moment lead us to forget the deliverance, the presence, of the past and forget the promise of the future? In our passage two weeks ago, Jesus takes the religious leaders back to the wilderness when he speaks of the bread of life. The wilderness was a place where the people had to rely on God’s provision, rather than their own.
Friends, we are in a wilderness moment. Politically—we’re seeing opposing views of humanity fight for power. In the church, we’re seeing fewer resources. We may be worried about the future of institutions we love, that have cared for us, and that we have cared for. It is a time of wandering in the wilderness. We really need ways to be sustained in community day by day.
Daily bread is like manna. Manna is not an absurd, extravagant, feast of a meal. Manna is not too much.
And manna is also not a scarcity product, where there isn’t enough for everyone. Manna is the abundance of enough. Manna is what we need for each day.
Give us this day our daily bread.
I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t be responsible about doing what is ours to do for future provision. I’m saying the wilderness is not the time or place for frantic, anxious hoarding and squirreling.
Manna is a temporary provision, through which we learn it is okay to not always have the solutions to our own hunger. Manna teaches us to rely on God’s goodness and God’s provision, so when we leave the wilderness, maybe—just maybe—we can carry that grounded, non-anxious sense of being with us.
And I think when we are anxious and complaining, it can be helpful to remember manna, and daily bread. Because if I’m worried there won’t be enough—of whatever it is I’m worried about—money, jobs, love, acceptance, community, or welcome—if I think there won’t be enough of that to go around, it can make me hold on and not share and not trust.
Sometimes the loud voices today against immigration are about racism and white supremacy, to be clear and we loudly condemn that behavior. But I suspect some people like the deportation tactics because they’ve been taught to fear there isn’t enough and they worry that other people will take what they need. Jobs. Health care. Education.
When God gave the manna and quail, God said it was to make sure the people followed divine instructions on their journey through the wilderness. Are we willing to do that? To day by day, trust God to provide for us while we journey through a wilderness time? Daily practices.
God is asking us to trust in God’s provision, day by day, to get us through the wilderness. What does that look like for you? To trust the provision of God both in our daily life and in our spiritual, eternal life?
Close with one of my favorite stories that sums it up for me. By a poet and author named Naomi Shihab Nye. The story is called Gate A-4.
Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning
my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement:
“If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately.”
Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,”
said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”
I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly in Arabic.
The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying.
She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day.
I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just later, who is picking you up? Let’s call him.”
We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would
stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.
Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee,
answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool
cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and
nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the
lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered
sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.
And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two
little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—
by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag,
some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves.
Such an old country tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This
is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that
gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about
any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.
This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.
This friends, is what I hope we can remember when the wilderness gets us down. God has provided for us in the past. God’s dream endures. God is feeding us today. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost. Give us this day, our daily bread. Amen.
Resources
Rev. Marci Glass, “Bread for my Neighbor,” 8/12/24 https://marciglass.com/2024/08/12/bread-for-my-neighbor/
Naomi Shihab Nye, “Gate A-4” from Honeybee. https://poets.org/poem/gate-4