Daily Bread

Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15

“Give us this day our daily bread…” These are very familiar words to any Christian who regularly prays the Lord’s Prayer. But what are we praying for here? Have you ever thought about what these words from the prayer Jesus taught us to pray are actually about? For instance, have you ever made the connection between “daily bread” and today’s Scripture lesson from Exodus? God tells Moses: “I’m going to make bread rain down from the sky for you. The people will go out each day and gather just enough for that day.” Doesn’t get much more “daily bread” than that. God heard their cry and God provided for their needs. But it’s also a test, isn’t it?

Theologically, this is a very important text. It reasserts the theological claim of the Genesis creation stories: God has, and does, and will provide all that we need to live. This text also reasserts the responsibility of humankind within this abundant provision. In Genesis, God gave humankind dominion over the abundance of life and food in the garden, but also told them: “There’s just this one tree that I’m going to ask you not to eat from.” That’s also a test, isn’t it?

Forbidden fruit, daily bread…it’s the same test. The test isn’t, “Let’s see if you can keep yourselves from eating a piece of fruit,” or “Let’s see if you can keep yourselves from taking more than you need.” God’s test to humankind is this: “Do you trust me?” And we have failed this test time and time again.

The snake said to Eve, “Really? God told you that you’d die if you eat this fruit…and you trust him on this?” And Eve, “Hmmm…I guess not.” The Israelites said among themselves, “God brought us out into the wilderness to die of hunger. I wish we’d never been set free. At least we had food in Egypt.” Does that sound like trust? Then God provides food and says, “But don’t take more than what you need.” And what do they do? I know this part of the story wasn’t included in today’s lesson, but why don’t you take a guess. They took more than they needed, and the leftovers became disgusting, smelly, and full of maggots. Why did they take more than enough? Because they didn’t know if the “daily bread” would be there again the next day. Because they didn’t trust God.

So, when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, “give us our daily bread,” here’s what I think was really going on. Jesus was teaching his disciples to pray for God to put their faith to the test. Jesus is saying, don’t pray to God in heaven, the one with the hallowed name, unless you trust God in heaven. Trust that God will hear your cry, trust God will provide for you, and trust God will test that trust.

Honest question. Does this make God a jerk? Maybe just a little bit? Why is God gonna be all great and creative and provide for the needs and sustenance of all of creation and create human beings and make them intelligent and insightful and in charge…and then constantly test them? These are important tests though: they test our fidelity and our responsibility as stewards of creation. Maybe it would be better to say that God has designed creation in such a way that our responsibility is required. This is a test in the same sense that free-will is a test: how are we going to respond to and behave towards and manage God’s abundant provisions?

It’s also important to recognize that God tests us but doesn’t tempt us. Temptations are not from God. Temptations are our own creation, not God’s. Jesus not only taught us to pray for “daily bread” but also to not be led “into temptation.” Trust God, and don’t give in to the urge to shirk your responsibilities towards God, towards your neighbor, and towards creation. Perhaps we aren’t the ones to be questioning God, “Why do you test us?”, rather God should be questioning us:

Why are human beings constantly irresponsible stewards of creation? I placed humankind in the world and gave them a capacity for awe. They are surrounded by a world that constantly recreates itself, and practically runs itself; a world that produces food out of the ground and filters fresh drinkable water through the soil; a world that is charged by and protected from a sun that is millions of miles away. How have human beings been so capable of abusing and exploiting that world? They waste the food that comes out of the ground in order to mass produce junk that makes them sick, all the while letting abundant, delicious, and healthy produce rot and fester and fill with maggots. They have turned “drinking water” into an industry that makes billions of dollars only for a very few at the top, while neighborhoods, cities, even entire countries struggle to provide citizens with clean drinking water. They have even found a way to damage the atmosphere designed to protect their world from the sun’s rays.

Adam and Even represent all of humankind and their story teaches us the lesson of what happens when human beings are presented with abundance and still insist on having more. “Don’t eat from that tree, or else you will die,” was not merely a lesson to a single man and woman a long time ago. It got reiterated through Moses to the Israelites, “Take only what you need for each day”. And it is a lesson to every human being on earth right now, “Learn to figure out how much is enough…or you will die.” Not you…individually…but all of you, all of this, everything that God has created and put us in charge of.

How much is enough? I can’t figure that out for you. I can’t figure that out for all of humankind. I merely ask, because I think that it’s an important thing for us to think about, even if it makes us uncomfortable to do so. Especially if it makes us uncomfortable to do so. Just to illustrate the fact that I think we’re failing our current rendition of “the test,” I’d like to share a tidbit from recent news. You might have heard that on Thursday, July 26, 2018, Facebook, Inc. lost $120 billion.

Let’s pretend that Adam and Eve were, scientifically speaking, the first man and woman alive, the first homo sapiens…which originated in the evolutionary lineup roughly 300,000 years ago. Let’s say that on the very first day of their lives they began working minimum wage jobs, 40 hours a week at $7.25 an hour and that did not spend a penny of their earnings. Let’s also say, that they miraculously remained alive and working for the last 300,000 years, working those same jobs up to this very day. 300,000 years, 52 weeks in a year, that’s fifteen-million-six-hundred-thousand weeks. 40 hours a week, that’s six-hundred-twenty-four-million hours of work. At $7.25 an hour, that’s four-billion-five-hundred-twenty-four-million dollars. Each. Even the two of them together, at nine-billion-forty-eight-million dollars, aren’t event close to a tenth of what Facebook, Inc. lost in a single day.

Does that bother you? Does that make you wonder: how much is enough?

“Give us this day our daily bread…”

It’s a test, isn’t it?