Texts: Hosea 1:2-10; Psalm 85; Colossians 2:6-15; Luke 11:1-13

Bread is basic to many cultures—it is often referred to as the “staff of life.” Many cultures are almost defined by their special bread—pumpernickel, soda bread, naan, pita, foccaccia, bannock—just to name a few. And there’s nothing quite like fresh baked bread, warm from the oven.

Brandon owes much of its history to bread—at least to the growing of the wheat that is needed for bread. It is safe to say that without humanity’s dependence on its daily bread, the City of Brandon—the “Wheat City”—would be a very different place today. The economy has changed, and farmers are less dependent on “King Wheat,” but we still have an abundance of bread.

It is easy today to take bread for granted, but it was perhaps not so easy when Jesus taught his disciples to pray,

“Give us each day our daily bread.”[i]

In a time before deep freezers, in a hot and often dry land, bread just doesn’t keep. It has to be baked daily, and consumed quickly. Even today, the streets of Jerusalem and other Middle Eastern cities are lined with people selling bread—baked before sunrise, and mostly sold early in the morning, when it’s still cool. In Jesus’ time, many people lived day-to-day, with little set aside for the next day. Praying for “daily bread” means, then, that each day we will be able to secure the food we require. Will there be bread in the sellers’ stalls tomorrow? And will we have the means to buy it? Perhaps not…

And so Jesus teaches his disciples to pray,

“Give us each day our daily bread.”

When we pray this petition, we cast our lot with the Grace of God, asking God to sustain us in this life. We are not taught to pray for great riches or even a full freezer, but that we will find God’s grace sufficient for our lives—that day by day, week by week, we may seek only his will and his glory, and so grow into “fullness in him.”

The version of the Lord’s Prayer in Luke’s Gospel can come as a surprise. It is shorter and worded differently from the one “we all know,” but still has the same essential structure. It begins by addressing God as “Father,” expressing real intimacy with the creator of all. God’s name is to be hallowed, which means much more than just being careful with our language. In Hebrew thought, a person’s name “means the whole character of the person as it is revealed and known to us.” To hallow God’s name means to seek to know God’s “whole character and mind and heart,” and so to “gladly put [our] trust in him.”[ii]

When we put God and God’s kingdom first, everything else in life can find its proper place, beginning with sustaining the life that God created, and so we pray,

“Give us each day our daily bread.”

Trusting God for the necessities of life does not always come easily or even naturally. Cautious folk that we are, we like to hedge our bets, fill our freezers, make sure our RSP’s are topped up—because something might happen. The people of ancient Israel hedged their bets in a different way. They sought to cover all the angles by allowing the worship a variety of Gods—if the Lord didn’t help, maybe Ba’al would, or whatever other so-called God happened to be handy.

The Old Testament prophets, Hosea among them, called this unfaithfulness “adultery.” Hosea used his own troubled marriage as a symbol of Israel’s sins, giving his children prophetic names: Jezreel—“God sows”; Loruhamah—“Not pitied”; Loammi—“Not my people”

Hosea’s family and his children’s names points to Israel’s sin, and the Lord’s intention to cut off this people. They have not trusted in the God of the covenant, the God who said, “I will be your God, and you will be my people,” and so they will not be his people any more.

In Christ, we have been re-made as God’s people:

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.[iii]

Put God first, hallow his name, and everything else will find its proper place. Trust in God, work for the coming of his kingdom, and when we seek we will seek what God wills, when we ask we will ask for what God intends—and God will give the Holy Spirit to all who ask.

Trusting in God and God’s grace, looking for the coming of God’s kingdom, so we pray,

“Give us each day our daily bread.”

And God in his goodness hears our prayer.

Thanks be to God.