Psalm 23
Old Testament Reading: Exodus 16
New Testament Reading: Matthew 6:25-34
May I speak in the name of the living God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Give us this day our daily bread. This evening is the third in our sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer, and we’ve come to the phrase, Give us this day our daily bread.
“You’ll never know that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you’ve got!” I think Mother Teresa touched the heart of what this part of the Lord’s Prayer is all about when she said those words. “You’ll never know that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you’ve got!”
When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” I think he was encouraging them to live in daily dependence on God. And that is what’s at the heart of both of our readings this evening.
The passage we heard from just a few verses after the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew’s gospel, makes it perfectly clear that if we live in daily dependence on God he will provide all we need, and we’ll experience a huge decrease in the level of worry and anxiety that we tend to carry round with us in life.
And when Jesus said these words the minds of the disciples and the crowd would automatically have turned back in their history to the passage we heard from the book of Exodus – the story of God’s miraculous provision of food for his people. And it’s a fascinating story.
The Israelites have just been delivered from Egypt and the hand of Pharaoh. They’ve seen God’s hand at work through the plagues, the guidance provided by the pillars of cloud and fire, and the parting of the Red Sea, so you’d expect that they’d be quite happy to live in daily dependence on God.
But actually what we hear is, “if only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! At least there we had food to eat but now we are going to starve to death in the desert!” The children of God were acting like ungrateful, spoilt little children, and like an angry parent Moses wants to tell them off.
But then we see the gracious hand of the Lord at work, not just to feed his people, but also to teach them and all of us who follow in their footsteps a vital lesson about trust and dependence.
The bread God sends from heaven he calls manna. And as with his name “Yahweh”, which means, “I am what I am,” so “manna” actually means, “it is what it is!” It reminds me of those times when I sat down at the dinner table at school, and a friend would look at the unrecognisable congealed mess on offer, and say, “what is it?” And I’d think, “I have absolutely no idea – it is what it is!”
And I guess the Israelites must have got quite creative with their menus. Imagine 40 years of nothing but bread and quails! Perhaps they had manna burgers, or roasted manna, or manna cakes, or even manna pudding.
God didn’t provide luxuries, but he provided more than enough. And when you do the maths you get some quite astonishing figures.
The passage tells us that the people gathered an omer of manna per person per day. An omer is about two litres. And experts estimate that there were probably between two and three million people. That equates to some 73 billion litres of manna over 40 years. That’s one huge food mountain and it’s an illustration of God’s generosity towards his people.
It’s quite a simple equation really. Dependence on God, plus God’s faithfulness and provision, equals the possibility of a worry free life. But we don’t tend to see it like that do we? We tend to think more along the lines of huge responsibilities, minus limited natural resources, equals stress related illnesses! If only we could truly come to terms with the idea that God is the creator and sustainer of life!
But what does this daily dependence on God actually refer to? Well there are all sorts of ideas about what Jesus was speaking about. My own view, for what it’s worth, is that when he taught his disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” he was talking not just about literal food, but about all that we need to live. And note I said, need, not want.
I think he was very definitely talking about food. God provided it for the Israelites. Jesus provided it for all sorts of people throughout his ministry, most notably through the feeding of the five thousand. And God continues to provide more than enough food to feed the whole world.
The provision of food isn’t the problem, but the distribution is. Even in the Exodus passage we saw the greed of people on display. That’s an issue that we as members of the human family have to work on.
But I also think Jesus was speaking about life in general, and even spiritual life. At the time that he was speaking to his disciples, most people worked on daily contracts, as the parable of the workers demonstrates. They literally didn’t know whether there’d be any work the next day, and therefore any food.
And when you add to that the whole thrust of the Sermon on the Mount, you have to say that Jesus is encouraging people to place their whole lives before God, in daily dependence. Then add to that Saint John’s teaching about Jesus as the true bread from heaven, who gives life to the world through his broken body on the cross; and I’m convinced that asking God for our daily bread, is also about the strength and grace to face all that life throws at us.
It seems to me that when we add this teaching to the previous phrases of the Lord’s Prayer, it places four issues before us about our attitude towards life and God.
First it’s about having an attitude of gratitude, and not grumbling. When we actually recognise God’s provision in our lives the only appropriate response is thanksgiving, and that brings joy and faith.
Second, it’s about an attitude of submission, not stubbornness. If we’re constantly fighting with God’s plan for our lives then we won’t know the peace that he offers. We’ll instead be plagued by worry.
Third, we should seek an attitude of dependence, not determination. We’ve already prayed, “your will be done.” If we can submit ourselves to God to this degree, we’ll be totally dependent on God.
And that brings us to the fourth attitude. It’s one of trusting, not being troubled. Perhaps, like some of the Israelites, we don’t actually trust that the manna will be there tomorrow, and that causes worry to rise in our hearts. Worry is an enemy of trust; but dependence builds trust. When you’re used to relying on God and seeing his provision, it becomes even easier to continue to rely on him.
Dallas Willard, an American theologian writes something that I think hits the nail on the head in terms of the attitude Jesus is encouraging in his disciples. He says this, “Today I have God and he has the provisions. Tomorrow it will be exactly the same.”
It’s a response that demonstrates an attitude towards God of gratitude, submission, dependence and trust. At the end of the day, if the God we’re praying to is our Father in heaven, the creator and sustainer of all things, and if we’re seeking his will to be done in our lives as it is in heaven, then trusting that he’ll provide for our needs, is not actually that big an ask.
When we actually recognise who it is that we are speaking to, we should be better able to put the concerns of this life into their proper perspective – we are loved and cared for by the creator of the very universe in which we live. He will not let us down.
Amen.