Jackson Community Church

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Give us the bread we need for tomorrow

Reflections on Bread as Part of the Lord’s Prayer

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Music I heard with you was more than music, and bread I broke with you was more than bread. — Conrad Aiken

Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new. — Ursula K. Le Guin

If it is bread that you seek, you will have bread.  If it is the soul you seek, you will find the soul. If you understand this secret, you know you are that which you seek. ― Rumi

SONGS about BREAD:

Hymn excerpt — John Macleod Campbell Crum
Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

BREAD SHARING

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. — Viktor Frankl

The piece of bread is an ambassador of the cosmos offering nourishment and support. — Thich Nhat Hahn

Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one. — Nikolai Berdyaev

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread. — Mahatma Gandhi

It is not accidental that all phenomena of human life are dominated by the search for daily bread – the oldest link connecting all living things, man included, with the surrounding nature. — Ivan Pavlov

We believe that salvation is to be found in wholesome work in a beloved land. Work will provide our people with the bread of tomorrow, and moreover, with the honor of the tomorrow, the freedom of the tomorrow.  — Theodor Herzl

When you fight to give your family bread, that’s not passion anymore: that’s conviction. — Yoel Romero

When we cast our bread upon the waters we can presume that someone downstream whose face we will never know will benefit from our action, as we who are downstream from another will profit from the grantor’s gift. — Maya Angelou  

When the children of Israel were suffering from hunger and thirst, Moses prayed to God and God answered his prayers with food from heaven. The Qur’an says: “And We caused the clouds to comfort you with their shade, and sent down unto you manna and quails. [saying,] ’Partake of the good things which We have provided for you as sustenance’” (2:57). — Muhammad Shafiq

There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.  ―Mother Teresa

A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou. – Omar Khayyam

Even in the inevitable moments when all seems hopeless, men know that without hope they cannot really live, and in agonizing desperation they cry for the bread of hope. — Martin Luther King, Jr

There is a basket of fresh bread on your head, yet you go door to door asking for crusts. ― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

When you share your last crust of bread with a beggar, you mustn’t behave as if you were throwing a bone to a dog. You must give humbly, and thank him for allowing you to have a part in his hunger. — Giovanni Guareschi

BREAD MAKING

You can’t just leave out one part; the bread won’t rise if the yeast isn’t there.  — Holly Near

I like reality. It tastes like bread. — Jean Anouilh

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. — Nelson Mandela

We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it … If I survive, I will spend my whole life at the oven door seeing that no one is denied bread and, so as to give a lesson of charity, especially those who did not bring flour.  — Jose Marti

Sense the blessings of the earth in the perfect arc of a ripe tangerine, the taste of warm, fresh bread, the circling flight of birds, the lavender color of the sky shining in a late afternoon rain puddle, the million times we pass other beings in our cars and shops and out among the trees without crashing, conflict, or harm. — Jack Kornfield

To each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread. We were just a family. —John Irving

COMMENTARY on BREAD in LORD’s PRAYER

In the Lord’s Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach. — Woodrow Wilson

The devil took advantage of Christ’s hunger to tempt him to limit his concern to the relief of human need. These are vital concerns, but they cannot be the sole concern of the Church. We need daily bread; we need, too, a reason for living, a sense of purpose, a vision. — Basil Hume
Obviously Jesus was not telling His disciples to pray only for bread. But bread was a staple in the diet of the Jews, and had been so for many years. Furthermore, bread was a powerful symbol of God’s provision for His people …. We remember how God cared for the Israelites when they were in the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt. Life in the wilderness was hard, and soon the people began to complain that it would be better to be back in Egypt, where they had wonderful food to eat. In response to these complaints, God promised to “rain bread from heaven” (Ex. 16:4). … This petition of the Lord’s Prayer, then, teaches us to come to God in a spirit of humble dependence, asking Him to provide what we need and to sustain us from day to day. We are not given license to ask for great riches, but we are encouraged to make our needs known to Him, trusting that He will provide.— RC Sproul 

Bread was important; in fact, where some eat and some do not eat, the kingdom is not present. — Fred Craddock

Truth is, I think, if God just gave us our daily bread, many of us would be angry. ‘That’s all you’re going to give me? You’re just going to give me enough to sustain me for today? What about tomorrow or next year or 10, 20, 30 years from now? I want to know that I’m set up.’ And yet Jesus says just pray for your daily provisions. — Francis Chan

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