“Give us this day our daily bread.”
Daily bread. In the petition of the Lord’s Prayer which we consider this evening, we pray for our daily bread. As the Small Catechism says, “God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to recognize this and receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.”
What is meant by daily bread? Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbours, and the like.
Our daily bread is ultimately everything having to do with our wellbeing as human beings here on earth. As the Large Catechism rightly notes, “When you mention and pray for daily bread, you pray for everything that is necessary in order to have and enjoy daily bread. On the other hand, you also pray against everything that interferes with it. Therefore you must open wide and extend your thoughts not only to the oven or the flour bin, but also to the distant field and the entire land, which brings and bears to us daily bread and every sort of nourishment.” (LC, III, 72)
This is the petition in which we pray for all our needs of body. Here we pray for our food, certainly, as the phrase “daily bread” plainly states, but we also pray for the bakers and the farmers and the grain companies and the flour mills and the sugar refineries and the yeast production facilities and the water filtration plants and the salt processing plants and the hydro-electric plants and the oil refineries and the trucking lines and the store owners and the store employees and the health regulators and the government who ensures the safety of doing business in this land in the first place. All that just for a loaf of bread–and I’m sure I’ve missed a number of people involved in making your loaf of bread possible. This is to say nothing about our daily milk, or our daily fruits and vegetables, daily meat, and so forth.
Perhaps we don’t think very much about this particular petition because we have become so accustomed to taking so much for granted. We had a power failure this morning just as I was getting ready to step out the door. Suddenly thoughts ran through my head about keeping Kelly and Anastasia warm, as we don’t have a fireplace or woodstove in our house. We take the natural gas and the electric motor which drives the furnace fan for granted. Sure, we pay a couple hundred dollars a month at the coldest part of the year, but we still take it for granted. Just as we do having clean, safe tap water. Having tap water is a luxury in itself; having the option to not just have tap water, which is generally safer than most well water as far as the number of regulations and checks it has on it as far as its pollutants, but also to buy bottled water or water purifiers shows us just how good we have it. Meanwhile, our Christian brothers and sisters in Kapasseni village, Mozambique, Africa, where my friend, Joseph Alfazema is pastor, were inordinately thankful just to have a quality well dug for their town a few short years ago. It’s very easy to take for granted having daily bread because, I would dare say, with very few exceptions, most of us have never really known what it is to go without our daily bread. It’s easy for us to complain about the governance we have in this country, but we take too much for granted the freedom we have in the right we have to complain, and, even, to elect government in the first place!
We are a particularly well-blessed culture in that way. Sure, we experience economic slowdowns at times, but rare is the time where there is no bread. Rare is the time when people die of starvation in Canada, unless they intend to.
Indeed, when we pray for our daily bread, it recalls to mind the First Article of the Creed–I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. In the explanation we confess that we believe “God has made me and all creatures, that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still preserves them. In addition, He has given me clothing and shoes, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all my goods. He provides me richly and daily with all that I need to support this body and life. He protects me from danger and guards and preserves me from all evil.” In this petition, having now reflected who our God is and that we wish for His name to be made holy, His kingdom to come among us, and His will to be done among us, we also pray that God would provide for us all our daily needs, just as He does.
The real question is one of faith: do we trust that God gives enough? Do we trust that God does indeed provide for all our needs? Or do we hope in ourselves?
For just as assuredly as God makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike, so we can regard His gifts with thanksgiving or we can simply plough through life without even acknowledging our Lord at all.
These two options play out through our whole lives, especially as those who have been baptized into Christ Jesus. In everything, the Christian has the choice of giving thanks to God and living that thanksgiving or in ignoring his God and stubbornly turning his back on God. The first choice is the one which we make when we are grounded in the Word and strong in the Lord. The second is the one the devil would have us make, to draw us away from our only God and Saviour. The devil could really care less who or what we revere, so long as it isn’t the true God.
Consider your own hearts in such things. With what you have, be it food or drink or clothing or house or family or location or government, are you thankful for what God has given you or do you find yourself complaining and comparing what you have to what others have? A heart which does not overflow with thanksgiving is a heart in need of repentance. The Apostle Paul demonstrates the attitude we should have in his letter to the Philippians, the fourth chapter: “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through [Christ] who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11b-13 ESV)
Whether times seem good or bad, rich or poor from our vantage point, this petition of the Lord’s Prayer reminds us to rely on God and not on ourselves, knowing that whatever we need the Lord will provide.
As such, when we pray “give us this day our daily bread” it is also a statement that we ourselves are thankful for such bread. In the Large Catechism, Luther points out that pious princes ought to have a sheaf of wheat on their crests, to remind themselves and their people that their responsibility is to remember that everything they have is a gift from God. We may not live in a Reformation-era feudal society anymore, but the truth is still that everything we have is a gift from God. He has given us everything we need to support this body and life, even apart from our praying for it or our recognizing that it comes from Him.
It is also a reminder that God has given us the abilities which we have in order to use them for the pursuit of daily bread. As Paul wrote in his second letter to the Thessalonians, the third chapter, “For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.” (2 Thessalonians 3:10-12 ESV)
As such, this petition is also the prayer of the believing heart that God would encourage us as we undertake whatever work and vocation the Lord has given us to do. God gives us our roles and positions within our families and within society in order that things work the way He intends them to. Here the Catechism’s Table of Duties is instructive. One of the most overlooked sections of the catechism is this little compilation of passages which reminds people, whatever their status within God’s kingdom, from the oldest pastor to the smallest child, of their responsibilities toward God and each other. As the little rhyme at the conclusion of the table of duties says, “Let each his lesson learn with care, and all the household well shall fare.” God blesses us when we cheerfully carry out the work He has given us to do. It might not be material or earthly blessings, but God knows our hearts. He knows what we do and what we fail to do.
And He delights in being our Father because in Baptism we were made His children, children born not of blood or a father’s will or of the will of man, but of God (John 1:13). Christ’s death on the cross is now on our account, covering over all our sins, freeing us to live as the children of God we now are.
For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him, concludes the explanation to the First Article of the Creed. That is every Christian’s privilege. God has made us His people. God gives us more than we need for every day. How then can we do anything but live lives of humble service to Him, giving of our bounty to supply for the wants of those who are not so rich in things of this world as we ourselves are?
God grant us all the wisdom and grace to receive what He daily and richly provides us with thanksgiving, living lives of service to one another, helping all in turn to be thankful for their daily bread. In Christ, Amen.
Last updated February 2008 by the webmaster.