Halden Doerge meditates on what it means to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." I agree with Halden that there has to be more to it than cloaking a consumerist lifestyle in an aura of piety. However, I disagree that the only faithful response to the prayer is a lifestyle of apostolic poverty--where one literally doesn't know where one's next meal is coming from, save for the providence of God.
Apostolic poverty, in its first century itinerant evangelist mode, or in its Francis of Assisi mode, or in any contemporary manifestation, depends on the generosity of others--others who do know where their next meal is coming from. As Gandhi wryly put it, "It takes 20 people to keep me in poverty." And there is a blessing for these benefactors, just as there is for those who throw themselves completely on the mercy of God. Didn't Jesus say that there was a reward for anyone who gives a cup of cold water to his little ones?
I especially disagree with this comment, that the only time Israel lived faithfully was in the Wilderness. No. Israel was disobedient in the Wilderness. She gave into despair in the Wilderness. She worshiped a golden calf in the Wilderness. This type of romanticizing poverty just won't do. Grace, not any socio-economic or historical context justifies the sinner. Israel and the Church has never, ever gotten in right, in plenty or in want. The temptations change, but the failures are the same.
Moreover, the Wilderness was not Israel's destination when she came out of Egypt. The Promised Land was the destiny--a land not of scarcity but of abundance. Therefore I do not believe that our destiny, in this life or the next, is permanent living from hand to mouth.
What then, is the meaning of the Wilderness journey, or of Jesus' prayer for daily bread? According to Deuteronomy 8, Israel is to remember God's providence in the Wilderness in order that she does not succumb to self-congratulations in a situation of abundance. Remembering that "We didn't have a lot, but we had enough" is what keeps you from turning Zion into another Egypt, a land whose abundance is hoarded by a few and denied to the many.
This is the limited purpose of a lifestyle of apostolic poverty in today's society--to be a a sign and a living memory that calls both Church and society to do justice and righteousness so that abundance doesn't breed slaves and overseers.
Apostolic poverty's purpose cannot be that it's the only way to live faithfully in light of the Lord's Prayer, for as I've already pointed out, apostolic poverty's parasitic nature demands that someone has to be the instrument of God's providence. There's a whiff of monastic elitism in that sentiment that I cannot abide. The old monastics felt superior in terms of sexuality, the new in terms of economics. But self-righteousness is sinful.
The stress needs to lie on the word "us" as well as "daily." Rather than obsessing about how I can faithfully respond to this prayer, a healthier obsession would be about the we. In a world where some of us have bread stored up for months and years and others, not by choice but by external necessity, literally don't know where our next meal is coming from, a faithful response to the prayer will struggle with questions of public policy and international trade.
Unfortunately, these are just the types of questions that get eschewed by so many who contribute to Halden's blog, as if the hipster's pose of ironic detachment from politics is a necessary prerequisite for faithfulness to Christian community. It's not. It certainly wasn't for someone like Frances Perkins, a devout Episcopal layperson and architect of Social Security. Since I'm not above quoting myself:
She loved the concept of insurance because it married religion and science--the parable of the Good Samaritan written into actuarial tables. With Social Security, risk is dispersed through the general population through the pooling of assets. Everyone contributes, and the safety net is spread underneath everyone. With Social Security we "bear one another's burdens and fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2).
Christianizing actuarial tables--now that's some kind of missional feat! Not to mention the fact that Social Security has put daily bread on the table of more American widows and orphans than all poetic waxing of communitarian bloggers everywhere.
It is along these lines--the truly social and communal, not communitarian--that we ought to be thinking about the Lord's Prayer.
Last of all, there's something not quite right about a blog post on prayer that begins and ends with my faithfulness to the prayer. What happened to God? It's a prayer, not a commandment. If answering the prayer is finally up to us, then prayer is no longer a dialogue but a monologue. There's a whiff of practical atheism in the post that I don't like. I understand the concern not to pray hypocritically, but if it's a prayer, some room has to be left for God to answer it, apart from my grim determination to go into the Wilderness and stay there forever.
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