It’s not like we don’t consider bread important, after all when we are talking about amazing inventions, we don’t compare it to the invention of fire or the wheel or even the printing press. Instead what do we say? It’s the greatest thing since? Sliced bread. Apparently sliced bread is the high point of human existence. But, unlike today, bread was a staple in the ancient world. It would have been found in every meal, and it wasn’t just a side, it would have been the main course. It would have been accompanied by fruits and vegetables, and occasionally, but rarely, especially for the poor, meat would have been present. In fact, because of its ubiquity the word bread could be used for food in general, not just bread. But, bread was also more than just about bread, because it also represented hospitality. When strangers or friends appear, bread is brought out as part of the table. We even still say the same thing, as we talk about breaking bread together. Which means sharing a meal, and there’s something special that happens over a meal. When we share a meal together, or with someone else, there’s a bond that comes into place that few other things can do, and I think that’s a portion of what Jesus is talking about here. And yet, of course there is so much more to it as well, because there is a direct practicality to it.
We don’t often think about this, and it’s true with almost
everything we eat, but it’s certainly true with bread that it’s a communal
effort. We don’t grow the wheat or barley or whatever it is that it might be
made out of, and we don’t grind it to make flour, and we don’t make our own
leaven, that’s all done by others and we incorporate it into what we make. And
even more, if we purchase our bread, they don’t make dough for just one
individual loaf, right? The loaf we buy is cut off of a much larger piece of
dough, and so our bread is tied and connected to lots of other pieces of bread
that lots of other people are eating. And so the bread we have connects us,
even if we don’t know it or think about it, to many other people, perhaps near
and perhaps far, depending on where the bread is coming from. Just that in and
of itself should give us some pause and consideration about the ties that we have
to others and the ways that bread makes community, or can make community. It
should also help us to think even more about what it means to prayer for our
daily bread.
In our first message we talked about the fact that the Lord’s Prayer is a communal prayer. It uses plural pronouns, of our when it refers to us. And so we pray to our father, which in the Greek is literally the Father of us, reminding us that we don’t own God, that God is not ours that we are, instead, God’s. and so it is then when we move into the last three petitions, which are about requests to God, things we are asking God to do for us, and yet not us as individuals, but as the collective. When we pray for our bread, it is the collective whole that we are praying for. We are praying not just for our individual bread, we are praying for everyone else’s bread as well. And yet, we are not just saying give others bread, but we are simultaneously understanding the role that we play in others having bread.
Theologian Krister Stendahl notes that there is a Latin American prayer said before meals, which goes: “O God, to those who have hunger, give bread; and to those who have bread, give the hunger for justice.” That is we are not praying for the hungry, we are praying with the hungry, and realizing our role in that understanding of bread being so communal and so connectional. To make it a little more direct, St. Basil the Great, a 4th century bishop, said, “The bread that is spoiling in your house belongs to the hungry. The shoes that are mildewing under your bed belong to those who have none. The clothes stored away in your trunk belong to those who are naked.” And I say that as someone who threw away moldy bread this week. And so we can see, as we have already, how none of these petitions in this prayer stand alone. That praying for bread is directly connected to what we discussed last week when we talked about praying for God’s Kingdom, or God’s reign, to come, and what that calls for us to do.
But we see this also in Jesus’ own actions. In Mark’s
account of the feeding of the 5000, after the crowds follow Jesus and he
teaches them, it begins to get late, and so the disciples say to Jesus, “This
is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they
may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for
themselves to eat.” The disciples want the people should go buy their own meal,
and then the disciples no longer have to worry about them. They’ve now washed
their hands of the problem. But Jesus totally changes the narrative and says,
basically, no, “You give them something to eat.” And when Jesus asks the
disciples what they have, they have no idea, they have to go and look at what’s
in their proverbial cupboard. And they find they have five loaves and two fish,
which they certainly think is not enough for the crowd. It might not even be
enough for them. But, Jesus has the disciples organize everyone into smaller
groups, and then Jesus took “the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to
heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set
before the people. There is a specific sequence taking place in this story, of
take-bless-break and give. What does that sequence remind you of? Communion.
Now we see this as a miracle story of Jesus feeding everyone
with just five loaves and two fish, given reluctantly by the disciples, but
some have speculated, and I think there is a certain strength to this interpretation,
that not only does Jesus multiply the fish and loaves by himself, but he does
it with everyone who is there as well. That before Jesus’ blessing, that
everyone, like the disciples are thinking only of themselves, but in seeing
them share, the others in crowd also bring out what they had been hiding away
to keep for themselves thinking that they didn’t have enough to share, but when
they all shared, not only was there enough, there was more than enough, and
that too is a miracle. And so Jesus is using this opportunity to show the
difference between the way the world operates and the ways of the Kingdom of
God. The disciples want the people to go purchase things for themselves. To
solve their own problems. They certainly do not want to sacrifice anything of
their own, but Jesus says, no, you give to them out of what you have. That is a
radical realignment of the world and how we operate.
But the prayer also causes us, or more appropriately forces
us, to realign things for ourselves in seeking to have to ask for something.
There is a scene in an old Simpsons in which Bart Simpson, praying before the
meal, says “God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing.”
That may be a little blunter than how we normally put it, but it sums up the
thought process that many, many people have in this country with its
“relentless mythology of self-reliance” and that everything we have is because
we did it and earned it, and if only others worked hard then they could have it
too and wouldn’t have to ask. But, the Lord’s Prayer forces us, if we are
paying attention, to recognize our dependence upon God and to come to God in
that dependent state, in humility, to be asking God for assistance and help
even with something as basic as daily subsistence. I know there are some people
who don’t like being handed bread during communion, if you can remember back
when we did such a thing, but instead want to take a piece themselves. I know
that there are theological reasons given, but I think it’s also that mindset of
doing things ourselves. But, to come empty handed, and to hold them out and ask
to have something put into them, which is alien in our culture, helps us to
change our perspective and recognize our utter dependence upon God, and that is
a radicality littler understood, as well as sharing in that communal bread.
And then one final piece. Although Matthew’s version is translated most often as daily bread, the truth is we don’t really know how the Greek word should be translated as it is found only once in all the Greek manuscripts we have from the ancient world, not just of the Bible, but all readings, and that is here. And we don’t have time to go into other possible interpretations and what they might mean, other than simply to say that it could have a meaning of not just today’s bread, but that we are also praying for continued bread, as Luke says in his version, “Give us each day our daily bread.” We are praying for what we need today, but also asking for God’s continued blessings for tomorrow and beyond, which should lead to a recognition that God is not just found in the extraordinary, or we don’t just give thanks for the big things, but that God is found in the ordinary day-to-day activities of life. By blessing the bread and cup, and calling for us to ask for bread, Jesus is reminding us of the sacredness of the ordinary, and the gift of the everyday things in our lives, and that while we can seek to fill ourselves with lots of other things, as Isaiah says, there is only one thing that will truly bring blessing, one thing that will truly fill us mind, heart, body and soul, and that is the bread of life, for we shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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