Luke 11
In my Bible, the beginning of Luke chapter 11 is neatly titled, “Jesus’ teaching on prayer”. While this passage (and its parallel passage in Matthew 6-7) contains some of the most well-known and most-memorized bits of the New Testament, our ears should perk up afresh at these words. Prayer is one of the most fundamental practices of the Christian faith, and here we have the words of Christ himself on this most important topic.
Christ speaks simply: “Father, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.”
How different this is from how I pray today!
I have never prayed for my daily bread. I’ve given thanks for the food I had before me countless times (which Jesus also had a habit of doing), but I have never been in a place where I felt the need to ask God for food. My food has always been in the refrigerator, or at the nearest grocery store, or in “desperate” times, the nearest fast food place. My first instinct is to suggest that times have changed, and that unlike the first century, most people (in the developed world, at least) are well fed and this command doesn’t directly apply to us. We should just make sure we’re very thankful for the food we have, and remember that it’s a gift from God.
As much as I would like to run with this idea, the surrounding passages don’t line up with it at all. In chapter 9, Jesus commands the Twelve: “Take nothing for the journey; no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic.” In chapter 10, he repeats himself to the seventy-two: “Do not take a purse or bag or sandals… When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is before you.” In the next chapter, the “rich fool” is reprimanded for “having plenty of good things laid up for many years” and taking life easy.
People in the first century were capable of growing food and saving wealth. I suspect most people were not naturally any more dependent on God for their day-to-day sustenance than we are. Yet Jesus speaks the word, “give us each day our daily bread” all the same.
I must stop myself here; hundreds of volumes have been written on prayer and I could ramble on with no end in sight. Perhaps that’s a topic to wrestle with once I finish Luke.
