Lord's Prayer: Fourth Petition

Give us this day our daily bread.

Hundreds of millions of people pray the Lord’s Prayer today. Tens of millions will pray it tomorrow. We all say it.

We all say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Millions of people say this and yet there are still hungry people. There are people who do not have enough. People who are unable to make ends meet. People who will go to bed tonight with growling stomachs. Children who will go without eating because they depend on the school lunch program for a meal each day and now it’s summer.

Most of us have enough. In fact, most of us have more than enough. And most of us are not hungry right now, unless we happened to skip breakfast today.

And yet we pray, Give us this day our daily bread.

We pray it and we pray in concert with all people around the world. It is not Give me or Give my family. It is Give us. We are praying with people who believe like us, who are living faithfully in God’s promises… we are praying with people who believe like us on behalf of everyone.

To pray for daily bread for all people and to expect the fulfillment of that petition is to take seriously three things.

1. That you were serious about the 2^nd and 3^rd petitions (Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven).

2. That you understand that God has not predestined some people for suffering.

3. That you believe everything any of us have is a gift from God.

These three things, along with the Holy Spirit, combine to create a different kind of hunger than one for food. In Matthew, Jesus teaches this prayer in the context of the Sermon on the Mount- a long set of lessons about how to live faithfully. Hunger is mentioned more specifically in the Beatitudes- the series of specific instructions for holy living- living into Thy kingdom come…

Here Jesus says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.

God does not desire that anyone should be hunger- should have that feeling of hollow emptiness- should want for anything. Therefore, those who have enough, who have more than enough, should be hungering to share, hungering to improve the circumstances of those around them, hungering for justice for all people, hungering that no one should feel separated from God because of essentials they do not have.

Give us this day our daily bread is not an empty prayer. Or it shouldn’t be. With so many people praying it and expecting that Jesus would not have us pray falsely or without hope of answer, we have to seriously ask ourselves what gets in the way of this prayer being answered.

Those of us with enough to eat who will not be hungry for long today, if at all, are called (called!) to specifically hunger and thirst, to crave, something better. And in that craving, we are supposed to be moved to be a part of how God answers that prayer.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Everyone hungers until all are fed.

If we dare to ask for it, we must dare to act on it. Amen.

Religious Holidays in Anchorage

You may have read in the Anchorage Daily News about a new policy regarding certain religious holidays and the scheduling of school activities. If not, a link to the article is here . The new rules do not mean that school will be out on these new holiday inclusions, but that the Anchorage School District will avoid scheduling activities, like sporting events, on these days. The new list includes Passover, Rosh Hashanah , Yom Kippur , Eid al - Fitr and Eid al - Adha . They are added to a list which includes New Year's, Orthodox Christmas and Easter, Good Friday, Easter, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. The new holidays may be unfamiliar to some: Passover is a Jewish celebration, in the springtime, that commemorates the events in Egypt that led up to the Exodus. The name of the holiday comes specifically from the fact that the angel of death "passed over" the houses of the Israelites during the plague which killed the eldest sons of the Egyptians. Passover is a holiday

Latibule

I like words and I recently discovered Save the Words , a website which allows you to adopt words that have faded from the English lexicon and are endanger of being dropped from the Oxford English Dictionary. When you adopt a word, you agree to use it in conversation and writing in an attempt to re-introduce said word back into regular usage. It is exactly as geeky as it sounds. And I love it. A latibule is a hiding place. Use it in a sentence, please. After my son goes to bed, I pull out the good chocolate from my latibule and have a "mommy moment". The perfect latibule was just behind the northwest corner of the barn, where one had a clear view during "Kick the Can". She tucked the movie stub into an old chocolate box, her latibule for sentimental souvenirs. I like the sound of latibule, though I think I would spend more time defining it and defending myself than actually using it. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure how often I use the

A Litany for Mother's Day

A: Loving God, You are everywhere the Lord and Giver of life. We praise You for the gift of mothers through whom You give us life. C: We thank You for their willingness to nurture life, for their trust in You to guide them through the labor of childbirth, the uncertainties of youth, the letting go of young adulthood. A: We thank You for all those women, who did not give us birth, but through whom You give us abundant life: C: We thank You for school teachers, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, pastors, elders, Sunday School teachers, supervisors, co-workers, neighbors and friends who share wisdom. A: We ask Your tender mercies on all those whose mothers now sing with the heavenly chorus, especially for those whose tears are not yet dry. C: Grant them Your peace, which passes all our understanding. A: We ask Your comforting presence on those mothers who have buried sons and daughters. C: Comfort them with the knowledge of their children in Your eternal care. A: We pray for those w

Faith, Grace, and Hope

Search This Blog