Year 2 10/01/2017 Greeneville, Tennessee 1 Jesus taught us to pray for daily bread. All over the world today, Christians will pray as Jesus taught us. We will ask for today s bread and today s bread only. Not for bread now and always, but just for today, as if we might not even be here tomorrow. Give us this day our daily bread. When we pray for daily bread, we don t get too far ahead of ourselves. We keep it simple, and stay in touch with our utter dependence on God. Every day, God sustains us. If God chose not to provide, we wouldn t last for a minute, not even a second. Every prayer for daily bread acknowledges that only the generosity of God keeps us alive from one moment to the next. The Hebrew children learned about dependence the hard way. After Pharaoh finally let them go, they found themselves in the wilderness with no provisions. God had provided water. But they also needed something to eat. I wouldn t blame the hungry Hebrews if they had prayed for bread now and always. They were going to have the same problem tomorrow that they had today: a need for food in a land where there was none. But God didn t give them what they needed all at once, always and forever. God gave them enough for the day, just enough manna for the day. It didn t matter if some collected more and some less. The amounts equaled the same when the time came to measure portions. If some tried to save their share overnight, it turned inedible. The
Year 2 10/01/2017 Greeneville, Tennessee 2 manna was always there in the morning like clockwork, waiting to be gathered, but just enough for the day. Planning ahead and storing weren t allowed. In the process, the Israelites learned that you can count on God. Some learned better than others. But everyone had the chance to experience God s ability to provide what was needed. God was not on vacation as their bellies told them. God listened when the Israelites complained. God appeared in glory to show them they weren t alone. And God sent quail and manna to the rescue. In the hand-to-mouth days of the wilderness, the Hebrews discovered they could trust God to provide. God continued to supply the people with manna, day by day, all the way to the Promised Land. Now that we have all the food we want, you have to wonder if we re missing something. I m not ready to jump on the church bus, and drive and drive until we run out of gas somewhere in the middle of Arizona so we can languish together in the heat. But I am ready to rediscover that primal awareness that God feeds us, hour by hour, moment by moment. Without that sense of grateful dependence, it s too easy to take life for granted. Now that we have worked hard to make ourselves food secure, now that we have become excellent at storing, processing, preserving and producing massive amounts of food, now that we have about 100
Year 2 10/01/2017 Greeneville, Tennessee 3 grocery stores in town, money in our bank accounts, and food is no longer a worry for most of us, how do we keep in touch with our deep need for God? The answer is pattered in the text. The Israelites kept a daily rhythm in the wilderness in light of God s day by day generosity, and it went something like this: work for a while, retain only so much, rest. Put your time in, but only so much time; gather God s gifts, but not too much; then take a day to recover and soak up the life you have been given. Even in the desert, there was time for Sabbath keeping because God provided the bread the people needed. Scholars point out that the story of God providing manna is more than a history lesson. The event was preserved to guide Israel s life outside the desert, too. Once the manna was left behind, and the people began to enjoy a much larger menu in the Promised Land, they might lose their sense of dependence on God as they stockpiled, produced and preserved the bounty so well. But if they kept this rhythm work, gather only so much so there will be plenty for all, and rest with God on the Sabbath then new generations also would absorb the lessons of the desert. For us, the rhythm might be similar if not an exact copy of what the Israelites practiced. How do we keep in touch with our deep need for God? Work, but not too much. Make sure to give
Year 2 10/01/2017 Greeneville, Tennessee 4 more than we think we can, not over-retaining. Receive our food with grateful hearts. This pattern keeps us in touch with our dependable God. I m a lousy Sabbath keeper. You may think I have a good excuse since I work on Sundays, but that s far from the truth. The truth is I believe my life will fall apart unless I get certain tasks done. I tell myself I will rest once I m finished with whatever is on my agenda, but I hardly know how since I ve trained myself so well to be busy. The result? Too much burden on my shoulders; a failure to work healthily instead of hard. I don t have to worry about less time on the job equaling less money in my pocket since I don t get paid by the hour or the project. But I do have to worry about losing the sense that God is taking care of me. Perhaps it s time I quit wearing the hours I put in as a badge of honor, and instead practiced trusting that God makes the world go around. Unlike the Israelites, we have no manna to gather. But we do have money. It s probably not a mistake that two of our nicknames for money are bread and dough. We want to save our dough because we never know what s going to happen in the future, and we have responsibilities to keep both today and tomorrow. Not a problem until what we save gets in the way of what we give. Israel learned that when God is in the kitchen, there will always be enough. They didn t learn this on the French
Year 2 10/01/2017 Greeneville, Tennessee 5 Riviera. They learned this with the sun beating down on their necks and hunger raging in their stomachs. In our land of plenty, we will learn by giving our bread away, by scraping the top off the omer jar over and over again so our fellow human beings can have what they need. What s a general rule for how much to give? Always a little more than we think we can. That pushes us to rely on God, to experience that we can trust in God s provision. If your parents taught you to bow your head before the meal and give thanks, consider yourself blessed. The text doesn t include a single table blessing, but the rest of the Bible is clear. Believers practice gratitude at the dinner table. We praise God, making the connection between the food on our plates and God s undeserved generosity. We wouldn t survive without these table gifts. Saying grace keeps us in touch with this truth. Maybe giving thanks was easier when we were down on the farm, and we had a direct hand in planting the seed and harvesting the fruit. Since the fields are way over there somewhere, and we no longer fret whether if rains enough or too much, nor worry about what an early frost might do, we are disconnected from the awesome miracle of daily bread. But pausing, holding hands and saying thank you bridges the gap. It helps us stay close to the Giver, without whom we cannot live.
Year 2 10/01/2017 Greeneville, Tennessee 6 Few of us have been truly hungry. Richard Stryker was, a friend of ours in seminary, who returned to Liberia, West Africa, just before a civil war broke out. To survive, Richard and his friends ate bark and leaves from trees. Richard was never the same after that. Alma Norris was hungry as a child. After her father left the family, they had no money, and were forced to survive on the sauerkraut they had stored. Adult Alma swore never to eat sauerkraut again. It s safe to say these hungry folks know more about God s trustworthy provision than we do, that the words utter dependence have vivid meaning. But we can learn, too, when we keep the rhythm: working, but not too much so we know God can make the world turn without us; in our gathering, sharing a little more than we think we can so that we lean less on our stockpiles; remembering at the table the Giver of the gifts so that we eat with grateful hearts. Jesus lived utterly dependent on God, in the wilderness and everywhere else. Because of this, he s like bread to us. He comes down from heaven and gives himself as heavenly food. We would not be us without him. Before he left us for his throne, he gave us some bread and a cup. He told us to take and eat; to drink, all of it. And he made a covenant that someday we would sit down to eat with him face to face in the Promised Land. This meal won t mean much to us if we come full. Full of agendas that we need to get
Year 2 10/01/2017 Greeneville, Tennessee 7 done today; full of worries and fears about whether we ll have enough for tomorrow; convinced that we can only trust ourselves. But if we let ourselves be hungry, if we come to eat in faith and with thanksgiving, he will give us what we need. Jesus taught us to pray for daily bread. Then he became that bread for us. Whoever comes to him will never be hungry; whoever believes in him won t thirst. And that s enough.