“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”
Luke 11:3

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost—July 14, 2019

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

We continue our summer sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father, who art in heaven.  Hallowed be Thy name.  Thy Kingdom come.  Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.”

There is an Oriental legend about a boy who challenged his teacher to prove the existence of God by performing a miracle.  The teacher took a large pot of soil, put in it an apple seed and then told the boy to watch closely.  Suddenly, by magic, a little green shoot appeared, the shoot shot up and became a stem, the stem put out leaves and branches, and soon the whole room was filled.  Blossoms and buds appeared and formed into fruit, and soon the tree was heavy with apples and they were falling off onto the floor.  In just a few minutes the little seed had become an apple tree laden with delicious fruit.  

The boy picked up one of the apples and said, “Now I know there is a God, for I have seen his power.”  To which the teacher replied, “Do you only now believe?  Does not what you have just seen take place all through nature, over and over again, year after year, only by a slower process?  But, is it any less marvelous just because it is slower?”

Too often we are like that boy, oblivious to God’s everyday miracles.  If we got up in the morning and there on the kitchen counter from out of nowhere had appeared a loaf of bread, we would exclaim: “It must be from the Lord!”  We actually do receive our daily bread from him.  Though by a different process, it is no less miraculous, no less given to us from the hand of the Lord.

“Give us this day our daily bread.”  Let’s unpack the meaning of those words for us. 

The first thought those words suggest about our daily bread is that we are DEPENDENT upon God for everything.  That thought lies in the word “give.”  We approach our Father in heaven and ask HIM to provide FOR us, like little children, unable to provide for ourselves.  Like a faithful parent our heavenly Father does provide for us without fail.  As James says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father.”

Imagine you are asked in a poll: “Do you agree or disagree with this statement: ‘God is the only source and giver of all good things’?”  We would enthusiastically answer, “Yes!”  But, what we agree with in theory we deny in practice. 

We are ready to recognize God’s hand in the big things, a great deliverance, unusual success and abundance.  But, we don’t acknowledge him when it comes to ordinary, everyday blessings—the air we breathe, the sunshine we enjoy, the food we eat, the clothes we put on.

And even when we give God the glory with our mouths, in a secret corner of our minds we’re really reserving at least some of the credit for ourselves.  When called upon to say grace for the Simpsons, the mischievous Bart put it this way: “Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothin’!”  Though we may not put so bluntly, in the back of our minds we’re thinking the much same.  “It’s my own hard work that’s gotten this for me.  My sweat, my skill, my smarts.”  But, it is God who supplies you with strength and skill and intelligence, and upon your work he must put his blessing, for without his blessing none of it would be possible for you.

So the first thing this petition teaches us is in the word “give”: dependence, faith, looking up to God with childlike confidence that our needs will be supplied.

The reason why we have that trust, that confidence, is explained by Paul in Romans.  He asks a rhetorical question: “If God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”  The answer is: “Yes!”  You can count on God to fulfill your daily wants and needs because he’s already given you the gift of salvation, the most precious gift of all.  He did not withhold even his own Son, but gave him as a sacrifice to atone for your sins.  How could he hold back or deny you anything else?

Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened unto you.  For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.  Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

“Our Father in heaven—the great and only provider of everything, who did not spare even your own Son but gave him up for our salvation—give us this day our daily bread.”

The next thought is in the word “bread.”  Martin Luther says in the Small Catechism, “What is meant by ‘daily bread’?  Everything that belongs to the support and wants of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, field, cattle, money, goods, a pious spouse, pious children, pious servants, pious and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”  Our Lord chooses “bread” to symbolize all these necessities of life because bread is something all people eat.  The blue-collar worker and the white-collar worker, millionaires and the middle-class.  Our tables may be spread vastly different, but we all have this one food in common: bread.

The words “this day” and “daily” teach us something that goes against the grain of our materialistic society: moderation and contentment.   There’s nothing wrong with wealth, and if God blesses you with wealth, give him thanks and pray for wisdom to use it to his honor.  But, just as there are hardships with extreme poverty, but there can also be pitfalls with extreme wealth. “How hard it is,” Jesus said, “for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”  That’s because an abundance of this world’s goods has a tendency to arouse the sinful nature, to distract your thoughts from things spiritual and heavenly.  As Paul says in Colossians, “Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

So, you should really consider yourself the most blessed if you stand somewhere between the two extremes of wealth and poverty.  That is why Jesus never tells us to pray for wealth, but only for “our daily bread.”  As Paul tells Timothy, “If we have food and clothing, let us be content with that.”

The word “daily” also teaches us patience and trust.  We don’t demand that God bestow upon us right now what we will need for our whole lives, but we patiently trust in him to give us day by day what is needed.

Another thought is in the word “us.”  Not, “GimME, gimME, gimME,” but “Give US, OUR daily bread.”  It is a prayer for others as well as for yourself.  The little word “us” teaches you to put aside selfishness and show Christian compassion and charity, like the Good Samaritan in today’s Gospel Reading.  As John the Baptizer said, “The man with two coats should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.”

“Give us this day our daily bread.”  The whole petition teaches us thankfulness, as the Catechism says, “God gives daily bread indeed without our prayer, also to all the wicked; but we pray in this petition that he would lead us to know it, and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.”

Finally, we should remember the saying from today’s Old Testament Reading in Deuteronomy, which Jesus quoted: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”  You would not purposely starve yourself physically, so don’t starve yourself spiritually either. 

“I am the Bread of Life,” Jesus says.  “If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. . .  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”