The model prayer

by J. D. Jones

“Give us this day our daily bread.” Will you notice!—

(1) That this prayer proclaims the fact of our dependence upon God for the very simplest of boons. “Give us bread.” At first glance we might be tempted to think this was a poor man’s prayer; a prayer for the man who is face to face with hunger; a prayer for the man who does not know to-day how he is going to live through to-morrow; a prayer for the man whose balance at the bank has been exhausted, and whose last shilling has been spent; a prayer for the man whose cupboard is empty, and who has nothing in basket or store. “But,” we say, “this is not a prayer for a rich man; this is not a prayer for a man whose barns and storehouses are full; this is not a prayer for those who are nursed in the lap of luxury—the well-to-do, the affluent, the millionaire.” This is a prayer for Lazarus, not for Dives. But, as a matter of fact, I do not read that Jesus anywhere says that this is a petition the rich men need not offer. In the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, you will find that some of the prayers, e.g., the general thanksgiving and the prayer for all sorts and conditions of men—contain petitions which may be inserted or omitted according to the circumstances of the congregation. Such petitions you will find printed in italics and enclosed in brackets, and the instruction is given at the side, that such a petition is only to be used when any members of the congregation specially desire it. But this petition is not printed in italics. It is not enclosed in brackets. There is no instruction at the side to say, “This petition is to be offered by a congregation of the poor, but may be omitted by a congregation of the rich.” Oh no! there it stands in the body of the prayer. Before it you will find the command of Christ “When ye pray, say, Give us this day our daily bread.” There are no exceptions made. This is a prayer for all men, for the prince as well as the pauper, for the rich as well as the poor—“Give us this day our daily bread.”

And it is thus a prayer for all, because all are absolutely dependent upon God. We have nothing which we have not received. Every good and perfect gift cometh from above from the Father of Light, with whom is no variableness neither shadow cast by turning. In God we live and move and have our being. All men depend upon God, and they depend upon him for everything. For life, for breath, for vigour of mind, for strength of body, we all depend on Him. And nowhere is this utter dependence of man upon God more clearly seen than in the matter of DAILY BREAD. The possession of wealth is apt to blind us to the fact of our dependence. Men who are rich and increased with goods are always in danger of thinking they have need of nothing. Men whose affairs have prospered, like the rich fool in the parable, are always prone to think themselves secure and safe for future years, and say to their souls as he said, “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” Why, we talk ourselves about a man who has private property which brings him in a few hundreds a year being “independent.” Independent of what? Independent of whom? It is not simply that wealth has a curious trick sometimes of taking to itself wings and flying away; it is not simply that life is full of instances of tragic vicissitudes of fortune; it is not simply that we see the supposed possessor of millions the friend of titled lords one day, figuring in the Bankruptcy Court the next. Even assuming that riches when made can be kept, of whom is a man “independent”? Why, though you had the wealth of the Rothschilds, you would still be as dependent upon God for mere bread as the meanest pauper in Christchurch workhouse. For consider for a moment the facts of the case. All wealth in the last resort depends upon the produce of the soil. In these days, when civilisation is so complicated, this is a fact we are always in danger of overlooking and forgetting; but it is a fact, nevertheless, all wealth in the last resort depends upon the produce of the soil—the simple necessaries of life. Gold is only valuable for what it can buy—its power of purchasing what is needful for the support of life. But supposing for one moment that the earth did not yield her increase; supposing a summer should pass without a crop; supposing there should be no harvest of corn or fruit; supposing the world suddenly found itself without food, of what use would your glittering sovereigns be to you? Of what use would your railway shares and bank shares be to you? Of what use would your costly diamonds and precious stones be to you? You could not live upon them! They would be as worthless as the very dust of the street if there was nothing to buy! Yes, that is the simple truth; if the world should wake up in the morning to find itself absolutely without food, the man whose safe is stuffed with share scrip and whose plate-chest is crammed with gold and precious stones, would be in just as sad a plight as the poorest beggar in Bournemouth. In the last resort all men depend upon the produce of the fields; and the produce of the fields is the gift of God. Man cannot make food. He cannot create bread. With all his knowledge of chemistry he cannot command a harvest. God must GIVE it. And He gives the harvest year by year. Some things, as Dr. Dods remarks, God gives us once for all—our supply of coal and the various minerals and metals. But corn, food, and bread He gives us year by year, as if to emphasise the fact of our dependence upon him. I have read somewhere that when the month of August comes round the world is each year within two months of famine. The world’s granaries at that time contain only eight weeks’ supply of corn. How forcibly such a fact preaches the truth of our dependence upon God! Rich and poor alike depend for very life upon the harvest God shall give. “Give us this day our daily bread” is a prayer for us all. It is a prayer for Job in his prosperity quite as much as for Job in his adversity. It is a prayer for Joseph amid the well-stocked granaries of Egypt quite as much as for Jacob face to face with starvation in Caanan. It is a prayer for rich and poor, for the man who has his thousands as well as the man who has not a shilling; for we are all pensioners upon the bounty of God; what He gives us we gather, and it is only when He opens His hands that we are filled with good.

Now, let me pass on to speak, in the second place, of:

(2) The modesty and simplicity of the request made in this prayer, “Give us this day our daily BREAD.” “Bread” that is what is asked for—the bare necessities of life. As T. T. Lynch quaintly puts it, “This is a prayer for daily bread, not for daily cake.” And as if to emphasise the modesty of the request, it is not for the necessities of a lifetime, but for the necessities of to-day that we are to ask. “Give us this day our daily bread.” The adjective which is translated “daily” is a word that has caused scholars no end of trouble. It is found nowhere else in literature, either sacred or profane, and there have been at least thirty different meanings assigned to it. But only two interpretations need be considered. One is that which we have in our familiar version of the prayer, “daily bread”; the other would make the word to mean “sufficient for my sustenance.” The old Syriac version translates it “bread for my need.” So that you will notice that whichever interpretation is adopted “human wants,” as Godet says, “are here reduced to the minimum.” We are to pray for bread; we are to pray for only as much of that as will suffice for the day, or meet our present needs. The spirit of this petition is that of the prayer of Agur of old, “Feed me with food convenient for me.”

I cannot help feeling that our modern life, with its insatiable appetite for wealth and its love of luxury, stands rebuked by this prayer. Men in these days desire not simply enough for their wants; they desire more than enough—more even than they can use. They struggle and strain that they may get a superfluity; and the result is poverty at one end of the social scale, and luxury, extravagance and waste at the other. Now, I am not prepared to say that to acquire wealth is wrong. But I am prepared to say this, and in saying it I base myself on our Lord’s own words, wealth and the luxury it buys are perilous to the best interests of the soul. Rome was strong and vigorous and happy while her people lived simply, and her noblest sons thought it no shame to share in humble manual labour. But when wealth and luxury entered in, when her populace, despising honest toil, lived on the doles of the Emperor, and her nobles wasted tens of thousands of pounds upon a single banquet, Rome became weak, rotten, wretched.

On that hard, Roman world, disgust

And secret loathing fell;

Deep weariness and sated lust

Made human life a hell.