a kingdom built of seeds

Give us this day our daily bread.

Yet they starve by the millions, your children, without bread or water. Children die sick in slums or in the streets. Thousands perish every single day from preventable causes.

“It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Yet you said, “And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you.” You said if an earthly father does not give a serpent to his child when asked for fish, how much more will the heavenly Father give the holy spirit to those who ask. But what of those who ask for bread for their stomach, or their family’s stomachs, but go away empty-handed? Did they not ask in the right way? Did they use the wrong words? Did they not have enough faith?

“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

If God is good, why the suffering? The hunger pangs of empty stomachs? The famines and wars that most adversely affect the poor?

If there’s a God, he must be asleep.

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Perhaps if you’re lucky, or privileged, or successful, or have enough money, or live in the West, or are a white heterosexual Christian male. For instance, where was the evidence for an African slave, the private property of another human? Where is the justice in Jesus’s words for the oppressed?

There is bread, and then there must be a better bread that fills even the poorest, hungriest, most oppressed and unjustly treated. There must somehow be a promise fulfilled even when the pleading seems to go unheeded.

The prosperous, the middle-classes, the well-off, those fortunate enough to win the birth lottery, they need not ask for bread when they already have more than enough in plenty. Is it only the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the abandoned, the hungry and thirsty, who need ask?

“…[A]nd the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.” God heard. God responded. But there were many years of much suffering with many lives lost before God seemed to hear and respond. How many cries must he hear before he acts?

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” The bread of life. The living water. They meet more than physical needs. But it’s difficult to look past the body of a hungry, sick, or dying human to the soul without first addressing the physical need.

Why was Jesus’s first miracle one of turning water into wine at a wedding for those who had already been drinking? If the physical matters to Jesus then what does that say about God?

The kingdom of God is compared to a wedding feast. Eating and drinking, laughter and conversation. The intimacy of a family event, open to all. Everyone is invited. “And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

How much this simple prayer for daily bread must mean from one who never has quite enough, or nothing at all. I don’t know what it’s like. Many of us don’t. There’s something about the simplicity of it that may mask the desperation, but a desperation that doesn’t drown out the earnest trust. Almost like a command. “Give us…” And who is God, if he truly be a good father, to deny it?

Wear out God with your requests. “…yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.”

Teach us to ask for bread, and not just the loaf that fills our stomachs.

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