Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Daily bread? Why bread? Why not, say, broccoli or carrots or cake? Why does our LORD teach us to pray, Give us this day our daily bread (Matt. 6:11) ? 

The fourth petition of the prayer our LORD taught us has a history, like everything else in the Bible. It goes back to the Exodus of the Children of Israel from bondage and slavery in Egypt in the 13th century B.C. Once they made it to the wilderness area between Egypt and the promised land they believed they were in big trouble. And they immediately began to complain about it.

And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, "Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." - Exod. 16:2-3 ESV

The LORD's response to this grumbling disbelief was to "rain bread from heaven" for them. Every day they were to "gather a day's portion"—no more—so that the LORD might test their faith in Him and whether they were willing to walk in His commands. On the sixth day they were to gather twice as much, for on the seventh day they were to rest (Exod. 16:4-7, 21-27).

And what was this strange food that appeared with the morning dew? No one could tell. This is why they said to one another in Hebrew, "Man hu?" What is it?
Moses reply was simple and to the point,

"It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat. This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an , according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.'" - Exod. 16:15-16 ESV 
omer

An omer was equal to a couple quarts in our terms. Some gathered more, some less, but they discovered that whoever gathered much had nothing left over for the next day and whoever gathered little had quite enough nevertheless. Some tried to save it over to the next day, but they soon found that it bred worms and stank. And they also learned that it melted in the sun's heat. So it was a day by day existence. They were completely dependent upon the blessings of the LORD, for there was little else to eat in that wild, deserted area.

Many have offered guesses about Manna, but they remain but guesses. Here is one such, based upon a 2010 NY Times article.

The Bible describes it as being “like coriander seed,” and “white, and its taste was like wafers with honey.” 

But as miraculous as its biblical apparition may seem, manna is real and some chefs have been cooking with it. 

The dozens of varieties of what are called mannas have two things in common. They are sweet and, as in the Bible, they appear as if delivered by providence, without cultivation. 

Most of this manna is either dried plant sap extruded from tiny holes chewed out by almost invisible bugs, or a honeydew excreted by bugs that eat the sap. 

Rarer are the mannas not from sap, including Trehala manna, the sweet-tasting cocoon of the Larinus maculates beetle from Turkey; and manna-lichen (Lecanora esculenta), which occasionally dries up and blows around to form semisweet clouds out of which manna settles into drifts from western Greece to the central Asian steppe. 

Mannas form best in extremely dry climates — like the Middle East’s — where sap oozes at night and dries up in the morning. The favored theory on what the Israelites called manna is the sap of a tamarisk tree. 

In Calabria and Sicily, Italian farmers cut the bark of the flowering ash (Fraxinus ornus) to get the dried sap, the only domesticated form of manna. Italian apothecaries used it for centuries as a laxative, and other mannas have been used for medicinal purposes.

I suppose its OK to claim to know what Manna was. The real point is that it was always there for them throughout the 40 years before they claimed the land promised to Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 13:14-18).

Jesus' prayer for today's bread has all this in mind. More about this in my next post.

Some Hard Words Of Jesus

If you're familiar with Bible stories at all, you've heard about Manna, that strange bread that the Children of Israel found on the ground each morning during their 40 years of wandering in the Sinai peninsula. But what was it? And that's the very point. We don't know what it was. In fact, that's is what the Hebrew word Manna means, what is it?

Of course there are many speculations and attempts to find some kind of natural explanation for what was going on. Here's what the Bible says about it.

And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground.When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" (Hebrew man hu) For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat. . . When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat. ... 

Now the house of Israel called its name manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. 

Moses said, "This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.'" And Moses said to Aaron, "Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the LORD to be kept throughout your generations." As the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept. 

The people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan. - Exd 16:14-15, 31-35 ESV

Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance like that of bdellium (resin). The people went about and gathered it and ground it in handmills or beat it in mortars and boiled it in pots and made cakes of it. And the taste of it was like the taste of cakes baked with oil. - Num 11:7-8 ESV

And the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year. - Jos 5:12 ESV

The Wikipedia article offers scholarly attempts to provide a natural explanation for Manna.

Some scholars have proposed that manna is cognate with the Egyptian term mennu, meaning "food".[13] At the turn of the twentieth century, Arabs of the Sinai Peninsula were selling resin from the tamarisk tree as man es-simma, roughly meaning "heavenly manna".[12] Tamarisk trees (particularly Tamarix gallica) were once comparatively extensive throughout the southern Sinai, and their resin is similar to wax, melts in the sun, is sweet and aromatic (like honey), and has a dirty-yellow color, fitting somewhat with the Biblical descriptions of manna.[14][15] However, this resin is mostly composed from sugar, so it would be unlikely to provide sufficient nutrition for a population to survive over long periods of time,[14] and it would be very difficult for it to have been compacted to become cakes.[15]

So back to Jesus' argument with the people who followed him after he had provided bread for thousands out in the wilderness north of the Sea of Galilee as recorded in John 6. They pointed to the Manna provided to the people of the Exodus. Jesus' response:

I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." - Jhn 6:48-51 ESV

When the people heard him say this they took it literally and began to dispute among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" - Jhn 6:52 ESV. Jesus made no attempt to correct their understanding. He simply said

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven,not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." - Jhn 6:53-58 ESV

So there it is—right in the face of the people who followed Jesus to Capernaum after the sign he had provided by feeding thousands. Did he literally feed thousands with five loaves of bread and two small fish from a little boy's lunch? There was no natural explanation for it, even though many unbelievers have suggested such silly things as that he gave them an example and so encouraged people to share their lunches with one another. Those who came after him to Capernaum knew otherwise. They did not dispute the wonder. They had witnessed it and wanted Jesus to do it again and again. The feeding had literally happened.

And now Jesus is literally saying, "Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him."

Is there any indication in John's account of Jesus' words that we should take this in any other manner than literal? The Israelites literally ate Manna, even though they did not know what it was. That bread literally sustained them for all forty years of their journey and it stopped as soon as they crossed the Jordan river. No one, neither the Jews of Capernaum nor Jesus disputed it.

Likewise, nobody argued with Jesus about what he had done. He literally fed thousands and thousands of people with a little boy's lunch. This is why they wanted to make him their king. No more working for food. With Jesus as the head of this new government, all they had to do was line up and accept the daily handout. The miraculous Manna would once again be available. What a deal!

So now when Jesus says that he is the Bread that provides eternal life, where do we find the right to say he's talking symbolically or in picture language? It certainly sounds like he means us to take him literally, like he really does want us to eat his flesh and drink his blood. At least that's how the text reads.

It also appears that this is John's account of Jesus pointing to what was later called the Lord's Supper in which, as Jesus and his disciples were eating the Passover, he took unleavened bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said,

"Take, eat; this is my body." And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." - Mat 26:26-29 ESV

So we're facing the same dilemma as many of his disciples at Capernaum. When they heard his words, they said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" - Jhn 6:60 ESV

A hard saying indeed. Who can listen to words that seem literally to say eat my flesh and drink my blood? It just doesn't make sense. There has to be another explanation, a more natural one. Many, many disciples of Jesus right up to the present day try very, very hard to soften his words.

We'll have to pursue these hard words next time.

How Shall We Christians Address Social Issues?

Today we continue a discussion of discipleship, based upon John 6.

Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, "Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost." So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, "This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!" Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. - Jhn 6:10-15 ESV

What prophet were the people talking about? As the people of Israel were about to enter the promised land Moses told them he knew they would always want to know what the future held for them. Because of this curiosity they would be tempted to go to fortune tellers, people who inquire of the dead and even go so far as to offer their children as sacrifices to the strange gods of the land they were about to occupy. All this was forbidden . . .

for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this. 

"The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers--it is to him you shall listen-- just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.' And the LORD said to me, 'They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. - Deu 18:12-19 ESV

The fact that Jesus was able to feed the thousands in the wild places even as the Israelites of old had been, convinced many in the crowd that Jesus was that prophet that Moses spoke about. Who wouldn't want such a man for king?  But Jesus would have none of it. He fled the scene. The kind of king they talked about was certainly not the king He had been sent to be. Yet he was a king. Later in John's Gospel as Jesus stood condemned by the Jews before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, we hear Pilate ask, "So you are a king?"

Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world--to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." - Jhn 18:37 ESV

Ah, the truth, but what is truth?

As the 20th century began in the United States the industrial revolution was in full swing. The war to end all wars devastated Europe and bankrupted entire nations. But the United States prospered—at least for a time. Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918), a Baptist minister among the poor and the industrial workers of New York city, lived in what was called Hell's Kitchen. He wrote about the fantastic increase of wealth among a few in the upper class.

The bulk of the increase in wealth has gone to a limited class who in various ways have been strong enough to take it. Wages have advanced on foot; profits have taken the Limited Express. For instance, the report of the Interstate Commerce Commission of June, 1902, stated that from 1896-1902 the average wages and salaries of the railway employees of our country, 1,200,000 men, had increased from $550 to $580, or five per cent. During the same period the net earnings of the owners had increased from $377,000,000 to $610,000,000, or sixty-two per cent.

Rauschenbusch pointed out how this inequity was ignored by the wealthy capitalist owners and managers and how poverty, sickness, drunkenness, despair and death ravished the workers and their families. He writes,

Wealth--to use a homely illustration--is to a nation what manure is to a farm. If the farmer spreads it evenly over the soil, it will enrich the whole. If he should leave it in heaps, the land would be impoverished and under the rich heaps the vegetation would be killed. 

The new wealth created in the Roman Empire was not justly distributed, but fell a prey to a minority who were in a position to seize it. A new money aristocracy arose which financed the commercial undertakings and shouldered the old aristocratic families aside, just as the feudal aristocracies were superseded in consequence of the modern industrial revolution. A few gained immense wealth, while below them was a mass of slaves and free proletarians.

So it was in the United States, to say nothing about other nations around the world. Rauschenbusch's writings were part of the "social gospel" movement, particularly in the United States among liberal Protestant leaders. These leaders insisted that churches must address the sins of the nation and lead the way to correct the huge inequities between rich and poor. Following World War I the movement began to decline, but the same ideas reappeared in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. In many ways, these issues remain in the current campaigns to elect or re-elect the president of the United States.

What part must the church as the church, the living body of Christ, play in addressing the issues outlined above? How can we be the followers of Jesus who fed thousands in the wilderness and not be concerned about poverty, sickness, drug addiction, the break up of families, the death of children and the despair and hopelessness that follows? The answer to these questions seems obvious. We cannot ignore the issues. We must not—in the name of Christ.

But note this. When the crowd wanted to elect Jesus as their king, he "withdrew again to the mountain by himself." Yet he was their king. How shall the church remain the church and Jesus remain king? How do we who are disciples of Jesus deal with the questions of Bread in the 21st century? I suggest that Lutheran teachings about vocation and the two kingdoms have vital answers to these questions. I will take them up in my next postings.