Daily Bread, and Possessions

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost - August 5, 2007

In the Gospel parable told by Jesus that we just heard, what did the man pray?

Oh yes, it is a trick question,

for there was no prayer at all.

The farmer was not talking with friends or family members, which would be the usual practice in his culture before making the big decision to build larger storehouses.

Neither was he in prayer with God.

He is so wrapped up in himself, that he can only have a conversation with himself!

“Self, take it easy. You know you want it.

You deserve it, you've earned it.”

[Sounds like that Las Vegas commercial, doesn't it?]

How different is this man's attitude from the attitude we heard in the passage from last Sunday in which Jesus bids us to pray:

Our Father...give us this day our daily bread.

Jesus' teaching about prayer lies in the chapter prior to what we heard today.

In Jesus' parable, the man's soliloquy does not match the Lord's Prayer at all.

Some religions try to get us away from “things” They say that the value of all the stuff around us is just an illusion.

Your goal is to be a soul freed from the body and this messy life

and floating off to some never-never land.

This idea is an infection we picked up from Greek philosophy;

it is not good Christian theology.

The man in our parable today is the opposite of a spiritualist.

Instead of denying “things”, he is worshiping them!

For him, they are all that matter; he has no time for other people, or for God!

Both the spiritualist and the materialist miss the mark.

We are neither to ignore things nor worship them.

Rather we are to receive them as good gifts from God,

use them responsibly to care for one another,

and give praise to God rather than congratulating ourselves.

We are to use the things that have been given to us in trust from God, and not to be possessed by them.

And so we are bid to pray

give us this day our daily bread.

What is that?

There are two related and yet very different proper answers.

Martin Luther in the Small Catechism reminds us that daily bread includes everything that is needed for life:

food and clothing,

home and property,

orderly community and good government,

favorable weather

peace and health,

a good name,

true friends and neighbors....

...all those things and people and relationships.

Martin Luther was certainly right that all of them are good gifts from God.

Israel's prophets often looked back

to the times when the people were wanderers in the wilderness for 40 years.

They observed that during those hard times it was clear that we are utterly dependent upon God the giver of good and necessary gifts.

Anyone who tries to declare his/her independence from God is a fool.

When they had to gather the manna freshly every day and could not store it at all, perhaps they thought a bit more about God as the provider of everything day by all.

Perhaps they understood daily bread.

And then there is a second level of meaning for the term daily bread, related and yet different.

As we discovered last Sunday, the word which we usually translate as “daily” could also be translated as

“for tomorrow” or perhaps “final”

Our Father, give us the true bread for tomorrow, the final bread, the bread of heaven, the Lord Jesus himself.

Since it is long Christian custom to pray the Lord's Prayer in the center of the Holy Communion liturgy, this second meaning also makes good sense.

So then, putting both meanings together, we are really praying:

“Give us, Lord, not only what we immediatelyneed, but also what we ultimatelyneed.”

“Give us a small sample of that final banquet even now.

What a joy it is to gather here to pray for daily bread, with confidence that the prayer will most certainly be answered with food for body and spirit,

food for now and for always....

and it will be enough.

Sin is always lurking nearby,

trying always to confuse us about

how much is enough,

and the place where appropriate desirebecomes greed.

And so our prayer is a request

that the Father will keep us straightened out in this regard,

and not let us wander away from thankfulness into greediness.

Two stories: one about water and the other about bread:

When David was hiding out from King Saul and on the run, one day with a sigh he wished

“Oh, that I might have a drink from the well back home in Bethlehem!”

Two of his band of followers heard him, and they went and slipped into the town at the risk of their lives, drew some water from that well, and managed to carry it back to David and the others.

David was horrified that they had risked so much for his wishes, and he could not just drink it.

Before he drank or shared any of it, he poured out part of it onto the ground

---as gratitude to God for such brave and loyal friends.

---as a sacrifice to God in thanksgiving.

---as a recognition of just how precious it was, like a sacrament.

A story is told of St. Francis,

that one day he and his followers were helping a group of peasants to harvest their grain.

Francis and his band have no possessions of their own at all.

At lunchtime some of the peasants shared a portion of their meager bread with the hungry monks who had been helping them.

The expected thing might be for the hungry men to seize the bread and wolf it down as fast as possible.

But Francis receives the bread and held it gently in his hands,

cradling it, treasuring it,

thanking God for it.

He was hungry, but first he gives thanks,...and then shares it.

Hey! Those are the words that we use to describe what happens in Holy Communion, aren't they?

take, thank, break, share

Even the most modest and ordinary of meals has sacramental overtones, doesn't it?

We need to remember that always:

at home, in the school cafeteria, in the fancy restaurant, when grabbing something to eat on the run, and every other time.

In urging us to pray for daily bread, Jesus is asking us to take the time to reflect on God's good gifts to us, to say thank you, and to use them well.

It is not our possession.

“Our” daily bread doesn't belong to us.

It is to be bread “for us”,

for our benefit,

for strengthening us,

for giving us life and joy,

for allof us.

Jesus told a parable about a man

who was all wrapped up in himself

and who was possessed by his possessions.

He is not so different than the monkey in the story that is printed on your bulletin insert today.

The monkey could not let go of what he so wanted so very much.

Jesus urges us to pray as he taught us so that we may see clearly the danger.

Lord, give us daily bread,

in the full range of its meaning,

for our life

and for the life of the world. Amen

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.