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Two Kinds of Bread?

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To me the Lord’s Prayer is like a great cathedral; like one of Europe’s famed cathedrals or like the National Cathedral in Washington. Perhaps you’ve visited one of these cathedrals and tiptoed down the wide central aisle, awed by the magnificent stained glass windows. If you are fortunate, the organist is practicing and the grand old hymns are thundering out. Your gaze invariably rises higher and higher as the great columns soar to the roof far above. And on these columns, as you ponder the Lord’s Prayer, are written majestic thoughts—on one is written Our Father and on another Hallowed be Thy Name. A third is inscribed Thy Kingdom Come and the fourth Thy Will Be Done. And as our spirit soars like the eagle in these heavenly spaces, we hear the sound of a door slamming, and the scraping sound of a cane. You turn to see who dares make noise in this sacred place.

It is a sparrow among these eagles, seeking a crumb. As he comes closer we make out a person, clearly less fortunate than you are. He needs fresh clothes and a pair of shoes, and now he asks you for a crumb of bread. We have come to that place in the Lord’s Prayer that brings us down to earth and to the daily needs of us all. Give us this day our daily bread. . . It is interesting that in our society the word “bread” is a slang term for money. And perhaps that is a good translation, for even if you had a truckload of bread, you still need money to meet daily needs. 

This petition in the Lord’s Prayer raises certain questions for us: Does God care if I’m hungry? How much bread is enough? For whom am I responsible? Am I really dependent on God for my daily bread? On the first question, of course God is concerned for my daily needs. That does not justify the theological view so popular in some religious groups that practice a “name it; claim it” approach. God is not a piggy bank; he will give us the bread that we need.

A bigger question is how much bread is enough. Two sins try to attach themselves to this question. The sin of anxiety and the sin of greed. We are told that God provided the manna in the wilderness so that the Israelites would trust God. Do your possessions lead you to trust God? And the other sin of greed is obvious—wealth always seems to call for more and more wealth. Now see the next question: for whom I am responsible? Surely you have noticed that the prayer is always plural—it’s not my bread, but our daily bread. Bread given to one is bread given to all. Remember the parable of Lazaru and Dives in Luke’s Gospel? The rich man (old English: Dives) is not said to be a mean person, a terrible sinner. His sin is that as he was chauffeured to and fro, he simply never even saw Lazarus the beggar sitting at his gate. His abundance of bread blinded him to the needs of those around him. Are we guilty of that sin?

And a final question: Do I really think I am dependent upon God for my daily bread? After all, I work for a paycheck that provides my family with bread. Consider, however, that God has given you the health and the ability to work. Without God, we can do nothing. I remember the little story about a man who was drunk with the scientific power of our age, and had a make-believe conversation with God. Said the man to God: “We don’t need you; we have made wonderful advances in so many areas. Take medicine, for instance. We can replace hearts, lungs—why we can clone people. We don’t need you. Your book says you made man from the dirt—why, I can take some dirt and make—“ “Wait a minute,” said God. “You go get your own dirt!” Indeed, we are dependent on God not only for daily bread but for every breath we draw.

But there’s a deeper meaning in this petition Give us our daily bread. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. This bread is not like that which our fathers ate in the wilderness and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.” I am sure that you will hear about the living bread if you turn up in church this Sunday.

Earl Davis’ column “Raccoon Theology” appears biweekly in the Watauga Democrat, the Blowing Rocket, the Avery Journal-Times, and the Ashe Post and Times. Dr. Davis is a minister (College Avenue Baptist Church, Lenoir), an author, and an artist, earldavisfineart.com. He can be contacted at [email protected]