Matthew 6:9-13
There is a chain restaurant called “Le Pain Quotidien.” Their menu celebrates the simplicity of fresh, nourishing food.  If you are an English speaker, you may wonder if it is a good idea to have the word “Pain” in the name of a restaurant. Perhaps what people do not know is that this restaurant chain borrowed its name from the Lord’s Prayer. You see, “Le Pain Quotidien” is French for “The Daily Bread.”
At first glance, the meaning of “Give us each day our daily bread” doesn’t seem complicated. It appears to be a straightforward request for God to give us the food we need to survive. Asking for daily bread acknowledges that everything we have, including our ordinary food, ultimately comes from the Lord.
The Greek word translated in v. 11 as “daily” (epiousios) is quite unusual. Though there is still no scholarly consensus, the strongest arguments support the literal reading, “Give us each day tomorrow’s bread.” Now, it’s quite possible that Jesus was praying with a double meaning here. Not only was He asking for literal food, but He also was asking for bread in a metaphorical sense. Later in Matthew, we’ll encounter Jesus saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son” (22:2). One of the ways faithful Jews in Jesus’ time envisioned the future kingdom of God was as a lavish banquet (see Isaiah 25:6-10). Because of this, “Give us today the bread of tomorrow” seems to have had a dual meaning. On the one hand, it was a prayer for the daily provision. On the other hand, it was also a poetic way of asking for the coming of God’s kingdom, following on the heels of “Your kingdom come”.
There is one more curious matter in the language of “Give us this day our daily bread.” In Luke’s Gospel, “Give us” is the present tense imperative in Greek, a continuous sense. It meant not just “Give us this day our daily bread” but “Give and keeping on giving us each day our daily bread.” In other words, “Give” reminds us that we need God’s provision not just once, but day after day after day.
When we pray “Give us our daily bread,” we are asking God to provide what we need to sustain our life. It reminds us of how much we depend on God and His grace daily. When I pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” I’m reminded that I am not self-sufficient. Yes, the food I eat today was purchased with money I have earned. But our capacity to work, our ability to purchase food and so much more are gifts from God’s own hand. Thus, asking for daily bread reminds me of my need for God. It also encourages me to be grateful for the bread on my table.
Saying to the Lord “Give us this day our daily bread” is also a way to ask, once again, for the coming of God’s future kingdom. But we aren’t saying in effect, “May your kingdom come someday in the future.” Rather, we are asking for “tomorrow’s bread” today. We are urging God to give us a foretaste now of the messianic banquet of the future. We are yearning for an appetizer of God’s grace, justice, and world-transforming peace. We are expressing our longing for the future kingdom to permeate our lives and our world right now.

Psalm 127:2
“Are you keeping busy?” This is often the first question Matthew’s father asks him when he visits. Even though Matthew’s father has Alzheimer’s dementia and doesn’t remember much past a minute or two, “Are you keeping busy?” or sometimes “How are you keeping busy?” is often the first two questions he asks Matthew, and the seventh, and the tenth, and so on. For Matthew’s father, keeping busy is a good thing. To not be busy, in his mind, is laziness. So, for him to ask “Are you keeping busy” is a bit like asking “Are you being a good and worthwhile human person?” His father understands that labor is a good thing.
And yet . . . and yet there were still a few ways in which his attitudes reflected aspects of a secular upbringing and culture. That is true of all of us, no matter how long we have followed Christ. As Romans 12:2 reminds us, we all need God’s transforming work in our lives so that our thoughts are renewed and shaped by Him rather than conformed to the world’s pattern; we need continuously to reexamine our thinking to see whether it is being shaped by our culture or by our relationship with God. Our perspective on busyness is one such area of tension between cultural values and a Biblical perspective. Certainly, work is a good thing: a gift and responsibility given to us by God. Part of what God made us for is to do good and worthwhile work.
Unfortunately, one of the ways our culture distorts the goodness of work is by idolizing busyness. Being constantly busy is often seen as a badge of glory in our world. It’s a way to earn worth in a society that in so many ways devalues human life and relationships. Even many of our “complaints” about extreme busyness are really hidden boasts; saying, “I’m just so busy” is a way of signaling our virtue and worth. We often fall into that, not only at work but even in church.
God the Father, through Biblical teachings and the example of His Son Jesus, offers a different way. While work is a good gift, God also calls us to rest. While it may be appropriate to have times of the day in which we are busy with labor we have been given, we should not be always keeping busy. Constant busyness is not spiritually, relationally, or physically healthy. We need rest. God built rest into the very fabric of creation. He gives us the gift of daily periods of rest (sleep, mealtimes, and times of quiet reflection with Him) and He calls us to accept those gifts. Along with daily times of rest, He also calls us to a weekly time of rest: a day of Sabbath we are instructed to honor and keep holy. And God also grants us much-needed seasons of rest when we lay aside work for longer periods. For the Israelites, these included seasons of celebrations and festivals.
I encourage you to meditate on Psalm 127:2: “In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat— for He grants sleep to those He loves.” Saying no to the cultural idolatry of busyness, and instead accepting times of rest—daily rest, weekly Sabbath rest, and seasons of rest—is one of the most important steps of faith we can take. It is a way of trusting God as our provider, and saying “yes” to God’s blessings, while allowing God the time and space to do His transformational work in us.

Matthew 5:14-16
Jesus clearly sees Himself as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (Isa. 9:2): “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). For followers of Jesus, this is not surprising. What is surprising (if not breathtaking) is that Jesus turns and applies Isaiah’s oracle to us.
“You are the light of the world.” Really? The “you” Jesus uses is inclusive and plural. He means each of us, and, perhaps more significantly, all of us together. Jesus is not so much interested in finding a few exemplary individuals as in creating an entire exemplary community. That suggests our relationships as a community are how we become “the light of the world.”
Jesus’ metaphors of salt and light are brilliantly chosen to help us to reflect on our purpose as human beings. Salt’s purpose is to bring out the unique flavors of what it seasons. So, light’s purpose is to illume its subject, and, as Jesus states, to point to its source. As with Jesus’ metaphor of salt, light only fulfills its purpose in relation to others. He points out, with no small irony and humor, that no one lights a light to cover it up. In His teaching, light provides people with the ability to see the world as it is intended to be.
First, Jesus’ focus on our “good deeds” suggests that we are to model what being human is meant to look like, rather than to focus on other people’s deficiencies or faults. Being light as believers means owning our responsibility as exemplars, rather than merely becoming critics of other individuals or organizational and societal culture.
Further, our light must be sufficiently bright to enable people to see their world in full color. In low light conditions, we cannot see full bright colors; the human visual system reverts to seeing shades of grey. In the same way, when we lack an appreciation for and the capacity to deal with complexity and nuance, in other words, when everything seems black and white, something has gone wrong. Of course, some things are black and white. But if everything looks black and white, we should suspect that we are suffering from a lack of adequate light.
Finally, as Jesus reminds us, the light of our “good deeds” should point people back to a Source beyond ourselves. Our sun is the source of all daylight, and our good deeds should point to the source of all goodness, to God. As Canadian musician Steve Bell has wisely noted, “We become by grace what God is by nature.”
Being light is not something we do alone. As Jesus taught, light is best seen in the work of a community of people. So, it is about us, as a community, offering our combined light to the world. We are to be “a town built on a hill.” In our own unique way, we each have the opportunity to help our church to be the “town” Jesus envisioned: a beacon of light to the world, demonstrating radical generosity, hospitality, and self-sacrifice to those around us.
Then again, in our generation, Isaiah’s oracle will be fulfilled:
“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.