SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 1 December 1923, Page 11

SUNDAY READING

(Sa

Rev. A. H. Collins.)

OUR DAILY BREAD. "Give us this day our daily bread.” St. Matt, vi., H. Quaint old Matthew Henry, with his pretty fancy, likens the Lord's Prayer to a letter. The Person to Whom it is addressed is “Our Father.” The address is “in heaven.” The date is '“this day.” The body of the letter is its several petitions, and the seal is the “Amen.” Our text marks the second half of the prayer, and is really the first petition. “Our Father” is Adoration; “Hallowed by Thy Name”; “Thy kingdom come”; “Thy will be done” is Aspiration. In breathing these sentences we walk on sunlit altitudes. Earth is bathed in the sunlight of heaven. Self is forgotten in the contemplation of God. Now we are called to walk the familiar ways of men. Instead of God’s Name, we speak of daily bread; instead of God’s Kingdom we think of our oft transgressions; instead of God’s will we contemplate human peril. Adoration, Aspiration, Supplication—these are the elements of the great prayer. Here are seven monosyllables, and we shall think our way through them in detail and then try to reach spirit which breathes through the whole. SIMPLE BUT DEEP. “Give.” That is Hie first word, and it is exceedingly simple; .but, like most simple things, it is very deep; and this word holds meanings we may not care to accept. It suggests poverty, need, dependence on our part, and riches, energy, generosity on the part of another. These are the thoughts present to our mihd when we say “give” to our fellows; but are these the thoughts present when we say “give” to the Creator and Preserver of all things? Would a pauper ask in the same listless and mechanical way we sometimes adopt when we ask for “our daily bread”? Yet each time we say “Give us this day our daily bread” we quit pride and renounce our self-sufficiency.

“Give us.” Whom does that mean? Is it each one for himself? The clause, “Our Father” teaches us fraternity. We Cannot monopolise the Fatherhood of God, but needs must include all men in the sonship, we claim, and so here we cannot monopolise the Providence of God, but needs anust include other folk in the prayer for daily bread. “Our Father . . give us.” The “qfir” and the “us” match, and as many as we include in the one we must include in the other. If we shut out any from the Sonship we exclude them from God's Providence; and if we cannot do the one neither can do the other. Thus we are not allowed to indulge in vague and sloppy sentiment about Divine Fatherhood and Human Brotherhood and have no care for others’ need. We may not ask for any blessing we are unwilling to share. We must pray in the spirit of that lovely litany, “That it may please Thee to have mercy on all mankind.” “THIS DAY.” ‘Give us thia day.” What does that mean, “this day”? It means taking short views of life. ft means “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” It njeans living a day at a time. It means— Cast foreboding care away. Take the manner of to-day. It means yesterday is gone past recall, and to-morrow is longed in God’s sovereign hand, but to-day is ours; and by living within the narrow fence of the day we escape the fret and the fever which lead men to gamble and scheme and snatch. “OUR DAILY BREAD.” € *Our daily bread.” Our! Not the bread which belongs to another. "Our daily bread” is the bread of honest labour; the bread of just acquirement, and of moderate use. ,< Qnr daily bread” cannot mean bread gotten by social injustice or fished out of the gutter of social depravity, or gained at the price of fraud and corruption of public morals. It must mean the bread gained by the giving of an equivalent, and that of course rules out gambling of every sort, whether in horses, or stocks, or land.

The next word, “daily,” has been a puzzle to expositors for centuries, and is a puzzle still. The word is not found anywhere else in the New Testament or in classic Greek. It is probably the free translation of an Aramaic word, “the mother tongue of Jesus.” Some thirty different renderings of the word have been suggested. Perhaps the true sense of the word is that we ask for bread enough for the coming day without presuming to say how much. "Give us neither poverty nor riches but feed ug with food convenient for us.” The last word is “bread,” plain wholesome food, without “sauce or side dishes.” Not fancy meats to pamper a jaded appetite, not luxuries, but “bread.” How far that carries us! It isn’t getting daily bread that cuts lines of care on the brow, and turns life into an ungodly scramble, and society into a paltry and vulgar attempt to outdress and outshine. “How many things there are I don’t want,” cried Socrates, and it these needless things that make life so hard and cruel. “Give us this day our daily bread.” THE ESSENTIAL SPIRIT. So much for these seven monosyllables. But what of the essential spirit of the whole, for that is the important matter? It seems strange to some that they should offer the petition at all. They can understand the hungry and penniless turning .sorrowful hearts to 'God and asking for food. They can echo “The Song of the Shirt” by Tom Hood. 0 God. that bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap. But what of those whose larder is well stored and have wealth, or if not wealth an assured income? Is it insincerity for such to pray this prayer? If Christ intended this prayer for universal use, there must be some sense in which it overleaps the barrier of rank and station. Now the basic fact is this: that we are dependent creatures; we are not self-sufficient. 'We possess certain physical or mental qualities—a quick eye, a deft hand, an agile brain, a reserve of strength. We can ge; on in the world, and oqtpace and outlast our competitors; and we are a bit impatient, perhaps scornful, of tfhe less gifted and less prosperous. In effect we say, “See this Babylon I have built!” Yes, but who gave you these qualiti.s, and who holds them in being

A second thipg is simplicity, for, as I have said already, it is not our daily bread which makes life so hard and cruel: it is the needless and harmful luxuries. Bishop Gore said long aw that the real cause of social unrest is not simply the desire for higher wages and shorter hours, or any one amelioration of the lot of the workers, but a deep resentment against the attitude of society which seems to them a perpetual insult to their personality. Miss Maud Royden says the same thing in more explicit and stinging phrase. She is bewildered by the selfishness of men and women, the brutal, challenging, unashamed selfishness which publicly seeks its own pleasure, publicly parades the symbols of its offensive wealth, publicly indulges in shameful and infuriating luxuries while children die in ■poverty and rage, and their fathers -who fought to save civilisation tramp the streets hungry and bitter hearted. It is a terrible indictment of modern life. For a tithe of the money squandered in senseless and wicked luxury would feed starving Europe and evangelise the heathen at home and abroad. DEEPER TRUST. But if dependency and simplicity, no less does this prayer teach brighter gratitude and deeper trust. How lacking we are in praise and confidence! How much readier to make request than give thanks. One sharp winter’s day, so the story runs, a poor woman stood outside the conservatory of a king. Her child was sick, and the mother coveted grapes for her sick child. She turned home to earn a halfcroWn at her spinning wheel and offered that sum to the king's gardener, ,but I he waved his hand and £ent her awayl ! She earned twice that sum and offered | it. only to be refused, and the man spoke roughly. Then the king's daughter appeared on the scene and demanded to know the reason of the man’s anger and the woman’s tears. When the king's daughter heard the pitiful story she | said: “My dear woman, you have made In. mistake. My father is not a mer- | Giant, he is a king. He does not sell, ! he gives,” and suiting her action to her : words, she dropped a purple cluster in the woman's lap. God’s good things are gifts. Pardon is not for sale. Salvation is not for sale. Eternal life is not for sale. Glory everlasting is not for sale. “He that spared not His only begotten Son, but freely gave Him up for for us all, luJw much more shall He with Him freely give us all firings.” 0 Lord, how happy should we be If we could cast our care on Thee; If we from self could rest, And feel at heart that One above, In perfect wisdom, perfect love, Is working for the best. How far from this our daily life! How oft disturbed by anxious strife, | By sudden wild alarms! Oh, could we but relinquish all Our earthly props, and simply fall On Thine almighty arms! \ Could we but kneel and cast our load. E'en while we pray, upon our God: Then rise with lightened cheer, Sure that the Father, who is nigh To still the famished ravens’ cry, Will hear in that we fear. Dependence, simplicity, gratitude, trust —these are the lessons we need to i learn. Once wo realise that our Heav- ! enly Father understands us utterly, and feels for us entire)}’ and knows precisely what we lack, our prayer will become natural and easy and simple. Mortals cease from care and sorrow God provideth for to-morrow.

and balance? How easily they might be lost! A epark,, and your house goes up in flames; a miscalculation, and your business is mined; a speck of poison and your blood runs liquid fire; a slip on the causeway and your limb is fractured; a shot of a madman, and your mortal heart would cease to beat! “Strange that a harp of thousand strings should keep in tune so long.” Who keeps it in tune ? God, and we are taught to recognise the fact of our dependence. Day by day the manna fell; O to learn this lessoq well! Still by constant mercy fed, Give me Lord my daily bread. THE HARMFUL LUXURIES.