3/7/10                                                            First Presbyterian Church

            Give us this day our daily bread.  Now what can I add to that?  It’s meaning is so obvious, so clear, that even a child can understand it.

Give us what we need.

            Oh, and while you’re about it, God, could you possibly throw in a trip to Hawaii, a good size raise, and someone who will love me with no complaints or demands?  Could you solve my problems at work?  And I really wouldn’t complain if you threw in a good size lottery jackpot and a vintage Mustang convertible --- yellow please. 

            Or is it just bread?  What we need.  What will see us through. 

            I remember the first time this prayer ever shows up in the Bible.  It is in the middle of the desert, thousands of years before a star shone over Bethlehem. 

            The people of Israel were tired and thirsty and hungry, and they did not know where they were going.  All they knew was that they were following a promise and a dream --- but the dream was growing dim, and they were growing restless.

            There were grumblings and dissension in the ranks, and finally one of them said, “Let’s go back.  Let’s go back to where we were before.  True, we were slaves, but at least we knew where our next meal was coming from.  We knew what to expect.”  And the murmuring grew louder and louder until it became a cry in the wilderness.

            “Why did You bring us out into the desert to die?  Why are we here in this place where we are going to starve?  The trip is too hard.  We want to go back, back to what we knew before, before we ever started on this crazy journey of faith.”

            But God said, “Wait.  I will give you bread --- daily bread.  Every day it will come to you, a fine flaky bread that is as sweet as honey, bread like you have never known before.  Then you will know that I am God.”

            “But hear this.  I will give you just enough to last for the day.  Do not try to hoard it, or save it, or it will become vile and sicken you.  You must trust each day that I will provide you with bread.”

            And so it happened.

            They got their bread --- the answer to their bread, the strength they needed day by day to continue their journey until at long last they arrived in the promised land.

            But still they complained, like us at times, because daily bread doesn’t always seem like enough.

            “We want more,” they cried, “for the journey is long and the promise grows dim, and we want an easier path to follow.”

            And their cry is our cry when life grows hard and God’s promises grow dim.  “Take away our pain.  Make life easy again.  Hear my cry, O Lord.” 

            And God does hear and God responds now as then --- “trust in daily bread, for I will provide.  I will give you what you need on your journey of faith to that promised land of abundant life.”

            Truly God has given us the bread we need in the gift of His Son, who told us once to take the bread, eat and remember me.  Each time we take bread, each time we prepare to eat, we are to remember that God is with us and God loves us more than we can imagine.  He loves us enough to offer up His very self that we might live, and live abundantly.   He loves us enough to become like broken bread, nourishing our bodies and our souls, taking away our hunger for something more. 

            Christ once told us, “Don’t you think God will attend to you, take pride in you, do His best for you?  What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving.  People who don’t know God and the way He works fuss over these things, but you know God and how He works.  Don’t worry about missing out.  You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. 

            “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.  God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”

            Now, I don’t think Jesus meant for us to quit our jobs, stop our budgeting, and rely on God to show up each morning with a bag of manna from Hardings.  But I do think He wants us to know that we don’t need to worry how we are going to get through the day or how we will find courage for the morrow.

            When we grow tired from the journey, when we want to turn back, somehow God will provide the courage and strength that we need.  That is His promise.

            In these days of prayer and study, I have been reminded over and over again that Christ has become my daily bread, nourishing and strengthening me.  I’m not sure when or how it happened, but He is all I need. He feeds my body and He feeds my soul, just like He fed five thousand on a hilltop so long ago. 

            That day He needed a piece of bread to start the miracle going, and so a small boy stepped out of the crowd and said, “Here.  Take mine.”  I believe that in that moment, on His way to Jerusalem, Christ’s own spirit was fed with the courage He would need to face the cross, knowing all would not be lost, for in that small boy He saw before Him the reality of what would become the church.  For sometimes we receive the bread of life from one another and sometimes we are the ones with bread to share.

            So we pray to God our Father, “Give us this day --- and every day --- our daily bread to have and to share.”  May all our prayers be heard.