He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. – Hebrews 1:3a
You may have heard people say from time to time, “Every moment is sacred.” Often this is said in a highly sentimental way and so comes across as a passing comment without deep substance. Yet, what would it be like to take seriously that not only every moment but also everything we encounter is seen to be truly holy? It would, I suspect, radically alter how we approach everything. I daresay, though, that this radical change is precisely what we pray for again and again in the Lord’s Prayer. In the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, we pray that God’s name be holy in our lives, that God’s kingdom be realized in our lives, and that God’s will happen in us. If those three things truly become part of our lives, then our lives truly become holy. They become holy because the Holy Spirit is truly present in us and works in us to make the presence of God known around us. In other words, in those three petitions we dare to ask that the reality of God be present to us and in us.
The fourth petition moves us into even bolder territory. We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” That sounds simple enough, but we are in fact asserting that God can come to us in the most ordinary of things, because God is to be found in the things of this world. Not only does God come into our lives and make us holy, but God comes into the world in its basic ordinariness and makes it holy as well. God is in something as ordinary as bread. In traditional Lutheran language, we say that God is “in, with, and under” the bread and wine of communion. I would add that it is not just that God is in the bread and wine of communion. God is really and truly present in, with, and under all things of this world. The world is saturated with God. We are only able to see it when we hear and trust Jesus’ promise that when we eat the bread and wine, we will see that his body and blood are truly there, and in that we will know that God is truly present with us. It is not that the bread and wine are transformed into something different; it is that our eyes are changed to see it. St. Augustine once said that if we could truly see the glory of God present in a kernel of wheat, we would be blinded. We do not notice that glory because in our separation from God we do not think to look for God around us. That’s why we need to hear that promise from Jesus.
If God is present in something like bread, surely God is also present in the other things that we need. When we say “give us bread,” we are not talking literally. It is not just bread that we are asking for. We are asking God to be involved in our everyday affairs, in the things that we need for daily living and not just the times that we think of us sacred or holy. We are asking God to be holy in our lives each and every day, and not just when we go to worship on Sunday. “Daily bread” includes everything that allows our home life to go well and everything in our civil life. We are also asking God to eliminate all those things that distract us from seeing God in the world and in our lives. In the Large Catechism, Luther says, “Now, our life requires not
only food and clothing and other necessities for our body, but also peace and concord in our daily activities, association, and situations of every sort with the people among whom we live and with whom we interact – in short, in everything that pertains to the regulation of both our domestic and our civil or political affairs.” Government, economy, business, education – these things are not religious, but God uses them to bring about the kingdom of God, Luther is saying. We are asking in this petition, then, that God give us peace and beneficial relationships in having enough food, in having good government, and even to be able to see God’s presence in things like our social media interactions. We are asking that God be holy in our lives each and every minute, that we might live our lives shining with the glory of God’s presence. When this happens, Christ’s work is done in us and God’s will for our lives is fulfilled.
To live as if God is with us making each moment sacred would shake up our lives, causing us to interact with the world in very different ways. It would mean caring deeply for all of creation, because wherever we turn God’s glory is radiating. It means seeking at all times to work together to make the lives of all people better, ensuring that all have enough. It means dedicating ourselves to care for our neighbor, our community, and all in need. To see our daily bread as a blessing given to us by God means also seeing it as empowering us to share in these good things for the sake of others, and working against that which would tear down those blessings of basic needs and a supportive community.
.