Matthew 6:9b-11, 25-34
There was an old farmer who had a very large shade tree towering over his house. It was majestic -- tall, straight, and immense -- the grand sentinel of his home. One morning while at work in his garden, he saw a squirrel run up the tree into a tree hole and the thought occurred to him that the tree might be hollow. He examined it carefully, and sure enough, the stately tree that he so much valued for its beauty was hollow from top to bottom. Only a rim of sound wood remained, barely sufficient to support its weight. What was he to do? If he cut the tree down, it would do great damage with its great length and spreading branches. If he let it remain, his family was in constant danger. In a storm it might fall, or the wind might blow it down, and his house and family would be crushed by it.
As he turned away, he said sadly, "I wish I had never seen that squirrel." (parables etc., 17.1.5)
As with that farmer, it’s true for us that sometimes there are truths that we would rather not see. Because once we see the squirrel, we will have to make some tough decisions.
Surprisingly, the Lord’s Prayer opens up this kind of truth for us. When we pray "Give us this day our daily bread," it sounds pretty harmless. But if we consider what it is we are asking for, we may see out of the corner of our eye, a couple of squirrels that may well be gnawing at the foundations of our life.
One of those squirrels is the tendency to worry. And a close cousin to the worry squirrel is the packrat squirrel. Both of these rodentsthreaten our Christian life by diverting our attention away from that which is of greatest importance, and by leading us to give our energy and time and passion to things of much less value and permanence.
"Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?" Jesus asks us. Well, can you? In fact, with the medical knowledge that we have now, we know that not only does worry not add to the length of our life, worry in fact contributes to a host of life-shortening conditions. In the squirrel called worry beats a heart of fear. Fear is the beginning point of worry. What are we afraid of? Afraid that there will not be enough. Enough money, enough time, enough love, afraid we won't be smart enough, good enough, competent enough. That fear is based on a lie called "scarcity." Do we indeed live in a universe where the basic stuff of life is in short supply? Do we indeed have a God who cares so little for the children of God that they are daily in danger of going wanting, physically, spiritually, emotionally?
NO! "For indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things; but strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
Give us, this day, our daily bread.
Many years ago, in the pioneer days of aviation, a pilot was making a flight around the world. After he had been gone for some two hours from his last landing field, he heard a noise in his plane, which he recognized as the gnawing of a rat. For all he knew the rat could be gnawing through an essential cable or control. It was a very serious matter. He was both concerned and anxious. As he contemplated his dilemma, and thought about the fact that he was at least two hours away from any air field, he suddenly remembered that the rat was built for low altitudes. So the pilot began to climb in that little plane, until he was more than twenty thousand feet up. The chewing stopped, because the rat could not survive in the thin atmosphere.
Here's the point: worry is a rodent. It cannot live in the secret place of the Most High. It cannot breathe in the atmosphere of prayer. Worry dies when we ascend to the Lord through prayer and the Word of God. (illustrations unlimited, 496)
Give us this day our daily bread.
This prayer is a matter of faith and trust, and obedience. To pray this prayer we need to believe that God cares for us. That God will give us what we need. It also requires that we seek first the kingdom of God. God calls us forward. Then, God provides everything we need for the journey. But God hasn’t promised to provide everything we think we need for our own schemes. God provides for every need as we follow Christ.
When the children of Israel were on their way to the Promised Land, a trip that took them 40 years, food became sparse. But God provided a wonderful food called manna. The manna appeared in the morning, and people would go out and collect what they needed for the day. There was always just enough, none to spare. If someone worried about tomorrow's ration, and hoarded some overnight, it rotted and got maggots. This becomes a very powerful symbol for us, as we consider our own lives and our tendency to accumulate things.
The story is told of a woman who was brought to New York City's Bellevue Hospital in an acute state of psychiatric collapse. The hospital staff could find no identification on her person, and could not induce her to say so much as her name--but they did notice that she had an object clutched in the palm of one hand. After much effort, they managed to pry her fingers open: only to discover that she was clutching a single penny. On the individual scale, this woman's behavior is easily categorized as mental illness (Carlos Wilton). But it becomes for us a strong symbol of what is true for many in our society. There is a pervasive fear of economic disaster, in spite of the fact that we are substantially wealthier than any other people in the world. We are among the 20% of the world's population that consumes 80% of the world's resources. It is that fear of economic disaster that entices us to hoard the wealth that we do have, rather than to spread it around. We feel poor, needy. There’s never quite enough.
Someone once asked John. D. Rockefeller this question: "Mister Rockefeller, how much money is enough?" Rockefeller smiled and replied, "Just a little bit more."
A survey that was taken a few years ago showed that most middle income families felt that they didn't have quite enough income. Most believed that they would be content if they could earn $10-15,000 more a year. Just a little bit more.
The famous preacher William Sloane Coffin once said that "There are two ways to be rich. Make a lot of money or have few needs."
Give us this day our daily bread, we pray. Not baked Alaska or filet mignon for every meal, but daily bread. The things we need.
We all know that squirrels like to hoard things, and they need a hollow place to keep their stash. And it just so happens that human beings have an empty place that needs filling. One of the problems with accumulating things is that no matter how much we accumulate, it won't fill up that hole. This hollow spot we are trying to fill can only be filled with the love and grace of God. Another problem with accumulation is that it tends to leave someone else wanting. God has placed enough resources in the world for everyone to be well cared for. But they are not scattered evenly around the globe. That places a very serious responsibility in the hands of those who have more.
Give us this day our daily bread. There's that pesky "us" again. At the beginning of the prayer we prayed "Our Father" and now we pray "give us." The Lord's prayer is not the prayer of a hermit who can pretend that it's just you and me, God. It's the prayer of one who recognizes that there are others who also have daily needs. And when we pray give "us" this day our daily bread, we need to look around and see who the "us" is in our own life. Are we hoarding love or affirmation or food or drink? Are we by our hoarding, withholding the basic needs of others? Watch out, because those squirrels will destroy your life.
On the other hand, if we learn to trust God and share, our life will be full.
In 1987, a woman named Oral Lee Brown was walking on an Oakland CA street when a little girl asked her for a quarter. She only had a $5 bill, so she took the girl to the corner store and offered her a treat. She knew something was wrong, when the girl passed up candy for a loaf of bread and some bologna. She asked the girl why she wasn’t in school, and the girl just shrugged. "Do you go to school?" the woman asked. "Sometimes," the girl said as she walked away.
The encounter haunted Oral Brown, and she made a decision that would change her life and the lives of 23 first graders. She went to an inner city elementary school, and made a class of first graders this promise: you stay in school and I’ll see you through college.
She kept in touch with those kids and helped them with tutoring, books, and field trips. She encouraged them as they struggled to stay away from crime and in school. She began to set aside $10,000 each year from her salary of $45,000. "There were days I ate beans," she said. She now holds fund raisers in the community as well. She’s put together $183,000 and expects that another $275,000 will finish the job. Last fall she made good on her promise, sending 19 of those original first graders to college. One of them, Toney, is now at Columbia College. His ambition? "I want to own my own business, and I want to help some kids like Mrs. Brown." (Readers’ Digest, April 2000, 15-16)