Tellico Village Community
Church Sermons
Twelfth Sunday after
Pentecost
August 22, 2004
Margaret I. Manning
What do you really need? If I were to ask you to make a mental list of the things you couldn’t live without, what would you list? As we come to this last section of the Lord’s Prayer, I’d like to frame our time together this morning by asking you to think about your needs. In this final section, Jesus makes requests of God that address human need. But, I wonder, as we make our mental list and compare it to what Jesus requests in this prayer, how the two might match up? I want us to reflect together this morning on how what Jesus says we really need intersects with, contradicts, or perhaps even convicts us concerning the things we think we need.
We’ve seen over the last few weeks how the structure of Jesus’ prayer teaches us that only after we acknowledge God’s glory in prayer can we properly pray for ourselves. Honoring God’s name, following God’s will and advancing God’s kingdom serve as organizing principles, as it were, that guide us in understanding our own needs. In fact, Jesus restates this organizing principle for prayer in the Sermon on the Mount when he tells his disciples to, “seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.”[1] “All these things” are our human needs and God promises to provide them as we seek after God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness first in our lives.
Understanding that our first ‘need’ as it were, is to reveal God and God’s kingdom to the world, our other ‘needs’ take their rightful place under that ultimate priority. Jesus makes up his list, as it were, by identifying three needs we should bring before God: our need for daily bread, our need for forgiveness, and our need for deliverance.
First, Jesus asks God for daily bread. But, what exactly is our ‘daily bread?’ I read an interesting story about a woman who was teaching English as a second language. As she tried to illustrate and define the word ‘eccentric’ she used Ted Kazinski, the Unabomber, as an example. She described his living in a one-room shack with no running water and no electricity as ‘eccentric’ behavior. Then a young, Pakistani woman raised her hand and said that she didn’t really understand why this was considered eccentric because most of the people in her country lived this way![2] This story shows how difficult it is to define our daily bread. Surely, our needs for daily bread are as individual as our personalities. And yet, we recognize that part of the problem of definition lies in the confusion between wants and needs.
Jesus’ prayer helps to clarify the definition. When Jesus prays for, ‘daily bread’ he prays for the meeting of basic, physical needs. “Give us today our daily bread.” Of all the things Jesus could pray for, he goes straight to our fundamental and basic need for sustenance and nourishment. And surely, Jesus has in mind the example of God’s provision of both bread and water for the Israelites as they wandered around in the wilderness after the Exodus.[3] Daily, God would rain down the day’s provision of manna – bread from heaven- so that the people had just what they needed – no more and no less. So in an abundant society that sees living in a one room shack with no electricity and no running water as eccentric, what are genuine needs for daily bread, and what are bloated, gluttonous and distorted needs fed by Madison Avenue and our own inherent greed to have more and more?
Let me give you my own silly, personal example to try to prompt our thinking about what we really need. When I first moved here from Atlanta, I was used to having everything I ‘needed’ within a 10-20 minute drive. I grew accustomed to quick trips, to certain grocery stores and certain specific products. So you can imagine my dismay, when my favorite store was not here in Knoxville. You can imagine my further dismay, when I discovered I would have to drive at least 30 minutes to my new grocery store – and alas, my new grocery store didn’t carry some of my specific products. But, I NEED them, I lamented to my husband, Sonny.
Now, is this really a need for the daily bread or is it a need for convenience and comfort? And can you see how having at least 10 grocery store chains within a 30 mile radius all around me, confuses what it means for me to pray, Give us today our daily bread! I mean, what is my problem? In light of the fact that most of the world lives without electricity and clean water – in light of the fact that most of the world has very little to eat and starvation is a reality for most of the 2/3rds world, can you see how imperative it is to understand what we mean when we pray, give us this day our daily bread?
I believe that Jesus wants us to understand three very important clarifying ideas when we pray for our daily bread. First, in praying for ‘daily bread’ Jesus teaches us that God will supply our needs, but will not always supply our wants. While God promises that I will have nourishment and sustenance today, God hasn’t promised me that I’ll always find my preference for grocery stores, for products, or for convenient locations. I have to remember that God has provided me with many grocery stores and not providing my favorite products is very different from worrying about whether or not I will find something to eat today. But, providing for my preferences is not what God has promised me, nor is it what Jesus is asking for in this prayer for daily bread. Now, in saying this, you could get the picture that God is a skimpy, parsimonious God who only cares about giving us the bare minimum – daily bread and that’s it! That is not what Jesus is saying, and that’s not what I’m saying. God has given us all things richly to enjoy – what we have to do is see God’s abundance as exactly that – abundance – over and above what we need. God has promised us daily bread – anything above that is blessing and we must see it as such and not come to see the blessing as our need for daily bread.
Second, Jesus teaches us to entrust our needs to God, who is our loving, father. Jesus has already taught us that God is like a loving, caring parent to us. If this is true, then we don’t have to worry about God taking care of us. Think about it; all of us would recoil in horror if we saw children storing away food because they weren’t sure if their parents would provide for their next meal. In the same way, you and I should question our tendency to hoard our ‘daily provisions’ and see that hoarding for what it is – a lack of trust in the God who will provide. We ought to trust in God as a child trusts in his or her parent, because God has promised to meet our need for daily bread. But, when we ask God to provide for our needs, we relinquish control over telling God what our needs are and how God is to meet those needs! Sometimes, our parents gave us brussel sprouts when we wanted ice cream. Ultimately we had to trust our parents that brussel sprouts were what we needed! God knows what is best for us, and God will provide the best for us – we simply need to trust in God as our loving and caring parent, when that best looks more like brussel sprouts than ice cream.
Third, Jesus prays ‘give us this day our daily bread. Again, just as Jesus prayed to ‘our Father, who art in heaven’ so again, Jesus prays not just for his own daily bread but, for God to provide for all God’s children. This part of the prayer convicts me of my own over-consumption and its impact on my brothers and sisters without bread. Those 10 grocery stores within a 30 mile radius of us; those grocery stores that don’t carry my favorite products and aren’t as conveniently located as my stores in Atlanta – those stores could feed entire villages plagued by famine! While we are consumed by losing weight, and obesity is a national health issue in this country, children die every day from malnutrition and starvation! Are these issues unrelated? What does it mean for us to pray for God to supply our daily bread in our abundance and in the rest of the world’s lack? Jesus’ prayer reminds us that out of our abundance we can and should abundantly supply the needs of others, and thus understand that this request for ‘daily bread’ extends beyond ourselves and reaches out to provide for the needs of others.
Jesus’ first request for ‘our daily bread’
addresses our physical needs for sustenance and nourishment. Jesus’ second request addresses our
emotional needs – namely, our need for forgiveness. And forgive us our debts just as we forgive the debts
of others. Would forgiveness show up on your ‘needs’
list? Jesus seemed to think that this
is a very important need, so important in fact that Matthew ends Jesus’
teaching on the Lord’s Prayer with a teaching on forgiveness. And it’s one of the most difficult teachings
in the bible – if we forgive, God will forgive us. If we don’t forgive, God will not forgive us.[4] Or, as Jesus says in the Lord’s Prayer,
forgive us as we forgive – this means in the manner that
we forgive, forgive us, God. Now let’s
be sure of one thing: you and I stand in need of forgiveness before God,
period. Our sin, and the sin of the
world sent Jesus to the cross. So, none
of us stands before Almighty God with a clean slate – and yet, God forgives
us. Our understanding of our own need
for forgiveness fuels our ability to forgive others. If we have difficulty forgiving others, chances are we have
difficulty in our relationship with God, either in receiving God’s forgiveness
towards us, or in seeing ourselves in desperate need of God’s forgiveness. But, forgiveness is really the ‘daily bread’
of all relationships, isn’t it? One
person has stated it this way; forgiveness is love’s insurance policy.[5] All of us that love will be required to
forgive because we live with fallible friends, fallible loved ones, petty and
flawed people. So, in order to live in
love, we must live and be nourished by the bread of forgiveness. If we don’t nourish our souls and our
relationships through forgiveness, then our souls and our relationships will
starve.
Jesus asks God to forgive us as we forgive others. Do you hold grudges? Do you measure out your forgiveness in skimpy, lean ways? Then that is the way God will forgive you. Jesus issues a serious warning, in this prayer, folks. God has extended his rich grace towards us, in Jesus Christ even while we were yet sinners, unworthy of that forgiveness. So, we do not in some way ‘earn’ our forgiveness. Rather, as one of my beloved seminary professors once said, ‘our ability to forgive is the indispensable prerequisite and the infallible evidence that we understand our own forgiveness.’[6] And as we understand the depths of God’s forgiveness towards us in Christ, so we too will be empowered to extend the same kind of forgiveness towards others. According to Jesus, we all stand in need of forgiveness – therefore, forgiving others is not an option. It’s as essential as our need for daily bread. This doesn’t mean that forgiveness is easy; for some of us, we’ll need to forgive again and again, as we’ve been sinned against again and again. But, we must forgive – if we are going to live in Jesus’ forgiveness.
Finally, Jesus addresses our last need for deliverance. Now, I bet this need is a real surprise! How many of us would have had a need for deliverance on our list? But this is a very important need! I believe this last request has both a present and future application. First, Jesus requests God’s deliverance from temptation and from evil. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Since the bible argues elsewhere that God does not tempt us to sin,[7] many have argued that a better translation for the word ‘temptation’ would be ‘testing’ or ‘trial.’ [8] This is a prayer not unlike our prayer requesting ‘daily bread’ – it’s really a prayer that God keeps us from trouble each day. This is the present application of this request for deliverance from trials. Often, our trials can tempt us to sin. Therefore, Jesus is requesting that God deliver us from trials, and the temptations that may come as we face them. This then is part of the future application of this prayer. All of us know that in the fires of suffering, we might be tempted to renounce God, rely on our own strength, or seek for unhealthy or ungodly ways to try to relieve our suffering. Jesus prays for deliverance from trials because he understands the difficulty of remaining steadfast in the face of trials and suffering.
But there is another aspect to the future application of this prayer. Jesus prays that we would ultimately be delivered from evil. Whether or not you believe in the embodiment of evil in the devil, all of us know that something is terribly wrong in this world. Something is terribly wrong when disease ravages healthy bodies, and when governments withhold shipments of food and water from starving people, and when terrorists fly planes into buildings killing thousands of non-combatant, innocent people. A day is coming when God will put an end to all ungodly kingdoms, powers and principalities that perpetuate and cooperate with evil. So our Lord instructs us to pray that God will deliver us – deliver us from our own cooperation with evil, deliver us from being victims of evil, and ultimately, deliver us from that day when God’s wrath will be poured out against all evil.
Now God has delivered us in Jesus Christ when we place our faith and our trust in him. And God charges us, as the church, to deliver others from evil in answer to this prayer as we work for justice and for freedom from those people, institutions- those principalities and powers that enslave and perpetuate evil. God wants us to be deliverers as much as God wants us to pray for our own deliverance.
Did these ‘needs’ for daily bread, for forgiveness, for deliverance match your needs list? If not, I hope they both enlighten and challenge what you would list as ‘needs’ in your life. More than that, I hope we all make the Lord’s Prayer into a way of living each day in God’s presence, into a way of relating to God and to our neighbor. I hope we all see our ultimate need to reflect God’s glory, to advance God’s kingdom and to entrust to God’s love and care our every need – for daily bread, for forgiveness and for deliverance from evil. [Let us say the Lord’s Prayer together as we close.]