Date: March 16th
Preacher: Pastor Ashley Rosa-Ruggieri
Reading: Exodus 16
Theme: Daily Bread
Our third week of Lent has arrived, and with it a new petition of the Lord’s prayer to consider. First, a quick recap of what we have looked at so far. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.” We have remembered what it means to proclaim the holiness of God’s name, and we have reflected on how we can both pray for God’s kingdom here on Earth with our words, but also how we help it come to be through hour actions. So now, we get to this week’s petition: Give us today our daily bread. When we first consider this week’s petition, it might seem easy, we are praying for food. But to be given our daily bread is not just about food, it is about the daily needs we have in order to live. So, here is this week’s first congregational question, please shout out answers as you think of them!
Q: What “daily bread” do we ask for in this prayer, other than food?
Okay, so many of these are basic necessities that help us to live and survive in the world. (Examples if needed: water, clothing, shelter, socialization.) Now, I want to take this part of the prayer one step further. Asking for daily bread is not only about the basic need of food or shelter, but is also about the need beneath the food—it is about sustenance. Food helps to sustain us, but so do other things in our lives. We can have our daily needs enough to survive, but when we ask for our daily bread, we are also asking God for a continuation of the things that sustain us. The things that keep us going.
Q: What sustains you in your life? Or in other words: What keeps you going?
In our reading today from Exodus, the Israelites were in the desert, and they felt like their basic needs were not being met. They were so upset about this they say that they should have stayed in their lives of slavery in Egypt to die there, instead of coming to the wilderness for their freedom, just to die of hunger. And so, Moses speaks with the Lord, and the Lord says, okay I will provide. I will rain bread from heaven in the morning and provide meat for you in the evenings. You will all take enough so that you will be full, but no more than you need. And then on the sixth day, take enough for two days so that you can take your day of rest. The Lord makes these promises not for a few days, or for a week, but continues them for 40 years as the Israelites wander through the wilderness. Sustaining them daily with the promises of food and rest. But the Israelites do not trust, they try to keep extra food overnight and it spoils. They try to go out on the seventh day to get more food instead of resting and it is not there. Sometimes it is hard to let go of things that we cannot control and give into trust.
Q: What gets in the way of us trusting God?
The other part of this that is difficult is that in order to trust God in these promises, there is also an aspect of trusting those around us in community too. When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they made sure everyone gathered the food they needed to be full. When we pray for our daily bread, we again use the collective, “OUR” rather than, “my,” because we pray this for all people, not only for our individual selves. And so, when we pray for the Lord to give us our daily bread, we pray for the sustenance we each need, and for the guidance to share our abundance with others so that they too may be sustained. We pray for community response to make sure all receive the sustaining care they need to thrive in the world, and we ask for God’s help in doing so. Not just with food, but with shelter, healthcare, clothing, socialization, and rest. An so I leave with this week’s final question of reflection for the coming week.
Q: How are we making sure all people are included, when we ask for OUR daily bread?