IT’S EASY FOR YOU TO SAY

Matthew 6: 25-33

October 28, 2001

"Our father, who are in heaven, ….Give us this day our daily bread."

There is the parable in Matthew 20 of the laborers in the vineyard. The landowner goes early in the morning to the town square to hire workers for the day to work in his vineyards. In this story he hires at 9:00 noon and 3:00. At the end of the day he pays them the going wage. Now, this sermon is not about the point of the parable; but, the parable does tell us something about the working conditions of that time. The working class men would go to the town square or some gathering point; landowners needing day laborers would go in and hire as many as he needed for the day. The going wage was one denarius; they got paid at the end of each day. Commentators say that one denarius was barely enough to keep a family going for one day. If the man did not get hired, he and his family did not eat. They lived from one day to the next.

Imagine the father having breakfast with his wife early in the morning before dawn, his children still in bed. He prays, "Give us this day our daily bread." Or, as Jesus’ pray can also be translated, "Give us today our bread for tomorrow." And then after breakfast, he kisses his wife, takes a small sack lunch and his tools and heads for the town square, praying to be hired. He will even wait until 5:00 in the afternoon hoping for some work. For some, if not many, of the people who heard Jesus share this prayer, this was their life. "Give us today our bread for tomorrow." The original hearers of this prayer and the early church listeners knew exactly what this meant.

Jesus wasn’t talking here about steak and lobster. Jesus wasn’t talking about cake and ice cream for dessert or a Costco muffin for a snack or Halloween candy filling a basket. Jesus was talking about the bare necessities, the basic food needed for daily existence – the bread, the cheese, the meat, the wine.

Every Friday morning members of this congregation go to the Southeast Community Center and open the doors to the Yakima Food Bank. Two to three hundred families line up to get a sack full of groceries. Did any of them pray that morning, "Give us this day our daily bread"? We can talk about welfare; we can talk about minimum wage; we can talk about getting people educated in order to hold jobs; we can talk about motivating people to get off their hind ends and do some work, whatever it is so they are being responsible citizens. We can talk about the frustration of finding people who will do an honest day’s work for an honest days pay. Yet, it is hard for man or woman to work or a child to study in school without food or warm clothes.

Though I wish we were not dropping bombs in Afghanistan, I take some comfort in the fact that our country is dropping humanitarian food packets to the hundreds of thousands of innocent refugees. It will be a long and difficult winter for thousands of people who will be praying, "give us this day our daily bread." At one level, the only way to honestly pray the Lord’s Prayer is to identify with those for whom daily bread is a matter of life and death.

Jesus taught his followers to not worry about what we will eat or drink or wear. That is easier said than done when the cupboard is bare or no one in the house is able to work and the medical bills pile up. I don’t believe Jesus was saying that we should lay back, not do anything and expect God to drop it in our laps. Our passage from Matthew 6 today is placed in the context of other comments about material possessions. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust consume…for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." "No one can serve two masters…You cannot serve God and mammon (physical things)." Well to do people can worship the things they own; but poor people can worship the things they wish they had but do not. None of us are excluded from this dilemma.

Just the other day I was visiting a member of our congregation and we were commenting about how blessed we are – comfortable homes, able to travel, have an adequate income to provide for food, clothing and shelter. We can’t complain. We are blessed. However, he was commenting about some of his friends who are constantly biting their nails worrying about needing to make more money, have more things. And they are already making good money.

What is important in life? A natural human temptation is to surround ourselves with things, believing that this will give us a sense of security. We have come to believe that we can do it all ourselves. Maybe some good coming out of the September 11 terrorist attacks is for people in this country to rethink what is really of value, what really is important in life.

We know that not all birds are adequately fed and many birds are the next meal for larger birds or other animals. Not all flowers reach bloom; there is drought, plague, predators, disease. But Jesus was using the image of birds and flowers in a poetic way to show a trust in God. And if God cares for animals and flowers that much, will not God care for us even more? The Apostle Paul trusted in God but there were times when he went hungry and was beaten, shipwrecked and went without shelter. Yet, Paul trusted in God and was able to say, even from prison, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

What was important for Paul? Not money! Not possessions, but a relationship with God that brought trust, joy, thanksgiving and peace. Anxiety about life reflects, as one author put it, 1) a lack of trust in God, 2) a lack of interest in the Reign of God, and 3) a lack of generosity toward others in need. There is the concern we should all have about adequate food, clothing and shelter, but what Jesus seems to be saying is that in contrast to the human tendency to worry and put too much emphasis on physical possessions, we should trust in God for that which we need. Put the emphasis upon seeking God and God’s way and the other needs will be taken care of just nicely. In fact, we will find that as we focus on God, the things that seem important in this world will fade away. When we get our priorities straight, we will find the peace of heart and mind that only God can give.

When we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," we are not only remembering those who do not have, we are petitioning God for what is important in our own lives.