DISSECTING THE LORD’S PRAYER
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
In Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, food, along with clothing, belongs to the bottom-most part of the pyramid, the Physiological Needs. It is among the most basic of our needs. Jesus is aware of this.
Becoming human himself, Jesus knew what it means to be hungry. He fasted for forty days and forty nights in the desert and was tempted (see Matthew 4:1–11). Although he persisted, he is aware of how important food is to humans and animals. Hence, in the heart of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray:
Give us today our daily bread.
(Matthew 6:11 NABRE)
When we hear this petition, it seems very simple because, through it, we ask God for the most basic of human needs — food for subsistence. It seems very simple because we even ask God directly to give us our needs. (We didn’t even ask him to help us find food or to help us buy food.) And it is simple because we only ask for food for today (not for tomorrow or in the future, but only for today).
Yet the simplicity of this petition — “Bread”, “Give us”, “this day” or “daily” — is also the very reason why this petition is so profound.
Bread
Yes, this verse is about food, but it does not only refer to physical food. When Jesus was tempted by the devil to command that the stones be turned into loaves of bread, Jesus replied:
It is written:
“One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”
(Matthew 4:4 NABRE)
Here, Jesus is quoting a verse in Deuteronomy:
He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your ancestors, so you might know that it is not by bread alone that people live, but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.
(Deuteronomy 8:3 NABRE)
That verse in Deuteronomy is followed by verses on how God disciplines his people as a man disciplines his son, urging the Israelites of Deuteronomic times to keep the commandments of the Lord.
This parallels what Jesus said:
My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.
(John 4:34 NABRE)
We then learn that when we talk about bread or food here, we are also talking about doing the will of God and keeping his commandments.
More than this, we also recall how Jesus claimed to be the living bread:
I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.
(John 6:35 NABRE)I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.
(John 6:48–51 NABRE)
Hence, here we recognize that when we are not just referring to ordinary bread, but are, in fact, referring to Jesus, the Bread of Life. So when we say, “Give us this day our daily bread”, it is like saying, “Give us this day, Jesus the Bread of Life”. And when we say this, we not only look forward to partaking of Jesus in the form of bread during Holy Communion, but we also look forward to receiving Jesus as the Word of God.
And when we receive Jesus as bread and wine, and as the Word of God, we become part of his Body, following the commandments of God.
Give Us
These two words are so passive that it seems that we are asking God to provide, and only are expecting to receive from God without doing anything. However, a closer look at the early Christian communities tells us that this is not the case.
In his second letter to the Thessalonians, St. Paul admonished:
When we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.
(2 Thessalonians 3:10 NABRE)
It is clear here that people are expected to work. St. Paul himself even worked to provide for himself while he was preaching so as not to burden the other members of the early Christian community.
Instead, the words “give us” are words that recognize that even if we do everything, we cannot have food if God does not give us food. It is a sign of gratitude for God and a recognition that only God provides.
A saying of unknown origins believed to be said by either St. Augustine of or St. Ignatius, “Pray as if it all depended on God, work as if it all depended on you”, is indeed a good statement to live by.
Knowing that if God does not will it, no matter how hard we work, we cannot have food, we are then called to share what we have with others. This is how the early Christian community lived.
Whoever had much did not have more,
and whoever had little did not have less.
(2 Corinthians 8:15 NABRE)
This is also consistent with what Jesus expects from us when he talked about the Last Judgement when he will place the sheep on his right and the goat on his left and say to those on his right:
Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.
(Matthew 25:34–36 NABRE)Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.
(Matthew 25:40 NABRE)
This Day
When we think of the petition for this day, we recall the story of when the Israelites ate the manna in the desert. Moses instructed the Israelites to only gather what they can eat for the day; however, some people gathered more, and those who did not listen saw the next day that what they have kept stank and became wormy.
In one of his sermons, Jesus taught:
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?
(Matthew 6:25–26 NABRE)Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.
(Matthew 6:34 NABRE)
This is then teaching on faith and total reliance on God. We are called to believe that God will take care of us today and will continue to take care of us in the future.
Therefore, the next time we pray the Our Father, when we utter “Give us this day our daily bread”, let us remember that we are asking God for Jesus, the Bread of Life, the Word of God, who guides us daily to do the work of God. Let us also remember that this very statement is a statement of complete faith, trust, and reliance on God, our Provider, as we also do our part for the building of his kingdom here on earth.
This is the sixth in a series of articles dissecting the Lord’s Prayer beginning with Our Father which was followed by Who Are in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom Come and Thy Will be Done on Earth as It is in Heaven.
