6/5/66

Scripture: Read Luke 11: 1-13.

The prayer which Jesus taught to his disciples, and which we recite together at each Sunday worship service as "The Lord’s Prayer," is remembered and recorded by two of the Gospel writers -- Matthew and Luke. The version which we customarily recite together is approximately that found in the "Authorized" or "King James" translation of the book of Matthew. It is slightly different in the Revised Standard Version. And it is considerably different in the book of Luke, from which we have read this morning’s Scripture lesson.

The prayer includes, of course, an ascription as we address the deity. "Hallowed" - "holy" -- "be Thy name" --- even though we have called that name "Father." One can hardly meditate upon Jesus’ repeated use of the name "Father," when addressing God, without realizing that Joseph must have been a splendid man in the household where Jesus had been a boy. There are some few boys now alive whose mental image of the world "Father" would only be someone to be hated. Not so the kind of father whom Jesus had known in his home and in the homes of his friends. They were at least a guidepost toward understanding of God himself .

The Lord’s prayer includes a petition for forgiveness; for guidance or leading, for deliverance from evil. The prayer is short, compact comprehensive. And it is practical in the utterance: "Give us this day our daily bread." The Luke version reads, "Give us each day our daily bread" ---the very means of livelihood for our bodies --- not just my body, but your body and the bodies of life-loving people everywhere --- our daily bread.

This past week I drove through a lot of bread-producing country in this state, in Minnesota and in South Dakota. The farm fields reflect the trust of farm planters, and the hope of millions for the harvest of grain. Grain fields are green; corn is up; the season’s cultivation is on its way. We of this nation hope for another generous crop of food. We even take it too much for granted, for ours is a prosperous nation.

Some fifty years ago Abraham Rihbany wrote a book entitled The Syrian Christ. Though an American by education and by choice, he wrote as one born in that same part of the world where Jesus had lived. Rihbany had heard some contemporary Americans remark that the petition "Give us this day our daily bread" sounds like a lazy man’s prayer. Some even suggested that perhaps this petition might be omitted from the prayer since it pertains to "material things." Of course it does! And we usually get bread only by working for it!

One point is that work does not always yield bread. A lot of us who live here do not know that. But some of the field hands on the Mississippi delta know it. And millions of farmers in India know it right now! Rihbany calls attention to an Oriental understanding about bread. He says that the Oriental understands that even though one works for his bread, he does not create it. Rather he simply finds it. And the prayer: "Give us each day our daily bread" is not alone a petition but is also a note of pure gratitude to the "Giver of all good and perfect gifts." The Oriental knows that:

Back of the loaf is the snowy flour,

Back of the flour is the mill;

Back of the mill is the wheat and the shower

And the sun and the Father’s will.

As a boy, Abraham Rihbany remember the devout attitude of his mother in preparing brad. Being an Eastern Orthodox Christian, she would make the sign of the cross as she drew the flour out of the earthen barrel in which the precious stuff was stored. She worked it into dough, added the precious leaven or yeasty stuff from the last batch, and kneaded it into the mixture. She prayed as she shaped the loaves and as she put them to bake in the large community oven. She rejoiced when there was enough bread for her family and, when it was scarce, she carefully allotted a proper portion to each one. Bread was treated with reverent respect. None was wasted. One did not step upon a piece that chanced to fall from the table, but picked it up as something to be treated with dignity.

Possibly one needs to remember what the lack of bread (food) can mean among the millions where want is known. The last issue of the United Church Herald contains a distressing article on "Starvation in India" by Telfer Mook. Mr. Mook is the regional secretary for Southern Asia for our United Church Board for World Ministries. He has recently returned from a trip in India. What he saw in central India is not pretty. But it must be seen and Mook is our "contact man."

First warnings of dire hunger were first heard in central India last September. The monsoon clouds of July, and the harbinger winds, brought no rain. River beds ran dry, baked hard, blistered and cracked. Wells went dry. Dust hung in the air. The young green rice plants yellowed and died before maturing any crop. Rice is the staple crop and food of that area --- like bread and potatoes to some of us -- only more so. When rice fails, there is nothing to take its place and famine is sure. By November, many villagers had come to the end of their stored rice and were beginning to eat the seed rice which should be planted in the coming season. By December, much of the seed rice was gone and villagers began leaving their homes. If one still had a plow, he tried to sell it; also the bullock that could pull it.

A farmer turned up, with his large family, at the home of our mission agricultural worker and pleaded for work. The worker said, "I might be able to find something for you to do, but I can’t take care of your family. You’ll have to send them back to the village." "I can’t," the farmer replied. "There’s no food there. The village is empty."

By February, the situation was truly desperate. One village family of 15 in Khariar lost members of hunger and diet deficiency. Parents pleaded with the Christian hospital to take their babies. Some babies were simply abandoned at the hospital gate.

The situation has worsened. No rain can be expected before July. At least 6 months more will be needed for a crop to mature, even where seeds can be shipped in for planting. The Indian government has recognized 5 whole areas in north and central India as desperately near famine and is doing all it can to help. The US government responded to the need by promising 9 1/2 million tons of grain in 1966 --- later talks of 12 to 15 million tons if the situation worsens. Meanwhile the UCC Board for World Missions has sent available funds to "Meals for Millions" in India to purchase and distribute multipurpose food. Other Christian groups are doing what they can. In 5 months the UCC supplied between 7 and 8 tons of multipurpose food at a cost of $3,750. It may take that much more for another 5 months, or twice that much for another 10 months, or longer if the emergency continues.

In Holland, the Christians rang their bells for 2 hours all over the country, during which time they raised $5 million for Indian relief. German Protestant church raised $2 1/2 million to feed 400,000 children for the next 5 months. They are shipping milk powder from Europe and rice from Thailand. Christians from many lands are teaming up with the Indian government to supplement massive programs -- which our American Ambassador believes can be successful if people like us will pitch in.

Let us look again at the need as seen from a local worker. Yesterday, a personal note came to my desk from Telfer Mook. He enclosed a copy of a letter from one of our Indian agricultural workers - a Mr. Budh Singh. I want to share parts of that letter, for it speaks far more poignantly than any well-fed American, like me, could speak.

----------------------------------

[Read it] (this letter is not in the file)

----------------------------------

According to Telfer Mook, the Executive Council of the United Church of Christ has authorized a special offering for India Famine Relief in June and July. So we may be receiving materials soon for such an appeal. That is for consideration a little later.

Meanwhile, though the emergency program will reach at least a million people in 1966, the long range program continues to be a most important part of our mission in India. We have established demonstration farms, development extension programs, dug wells, taught animal husbandry, established an agricultural college and in many other ways helped people to help themselves. In so great a population as that of India, it is a trickle, when a flood is needed. But it is significant.

And it is no mere option for Christians. In the face of India’s hunger, and the world’s hunger, words, statements, and leftovers are not enough. There must be vicarious sharing, else we will stand condemned by our own Christ. We can help others toward their daily bread by Christian response. We can help by continuing our support of mission efforts, for they continue as they have always done to encourage people in helping themselves. We can, with our approval, support our government’s efforts to help on a massive scale.

Last Tuesday evening, Mrs. Kingdon and I were present at the commencement exercises of Huron College in South Dakota. That school is alma mater for both of us and for other members of my family. A feature of this year’s commencement there was the fact that honorary degrees were conferred upon Mrs. Hubert Humphrey and upon her husband, the Vice President of the United States, who was the commencement speaker. Huron is a kind of home town for Mr. Humphrey, since his family operates a drug store there, in which he still has an officer’s interest. His mother still lives there, in a nursing home for elderly folk. His father is buried there as are also the parents of Mrs. Humphrey. So they spent some 30 action-packed hours there on and following Memorial Day.

The Vice President’s speech to the graduates and their friends in the Huron Arena dealt extensively with this matter of "daily bread." He recalled vividly the days of the great depression, when the Midwest’s difficulties were compounded with drought and dust storms. The country needs no more of those "good old days." But this generation was reminded that the people of today face no less challenging and demanding problems --- and no less vital to our survival. The filthy slums of cities, the racial bitterness and unrest in our land and over the world, delinquency and illiteracy are enemies within our gates. Our life --- our survival --- depends on how effectively we deal with these problems.

We prosperous people in American can hardly comprehend (and we must try!) what life is like for 2/3 of humanity living in world poverty, 2/3 whose lives are marked with the horrible facts of malnutrition or outright hunger, disease, ignorance and violence. It is a restless, turbulent world. It is the world of the numerical majority. It is the world to which the late Pope John referred when he said, "Where there is constant want, there is no peace."

There is desperate need to "narrow the gap" between the rich and the poor nations of the world. Tens of thousands will die today because they have not the strength and health to keep going. Those who remain alive, in acute want, will tear apart the fabric of peace unless they have reason to believe that there is hope for a better life and hope for justice. Our government has, in recent months, made proposals designed to help the developing nations with those essentials for their nation-building: health, education, food. All three are interrelated. Part of the food problem is aggravated by ignorance as to how it may better be produced and distributed.

Surely we want, as a people, to support the continuing efforts of our nation to encourage others in their efforts to obtain food -- not alone on an emergency basis of food for survival, but in the effort to secure food of a quantity and quality sufficient to release the energies for sustained economic growth. Much of the hunger and malnutrition and famine threatening the world in the last decade has been averted by the distribution of millions of tons of food sent to hungry people by our country. But the world population explosion, most threatening in the hungriest areas, forces our attention to problems of long range improvement.

Hundreds of millions of children in the world today face stunted minds through lack of protein in their diet, before they even reach school age. Our goal should be, with the cooperation of all wealthy nations, to change that picture in terms of helping people to produce their own needed food and fiber. It can be done if we maintain the will to do it. The Vice President insisted that it is being done, even under great handicap, in Vietnam. Since 1954, the South Vietnamese people have doubled their production of rice, their most important crop. Modern agriculture is being introduced, including the services and guidance of native agricultural agents, and agricultural education. And the people benefit. Primary credit for this achievement belongs to those people for their hard work, and initiative. But we have helped these vital and quick-learning people to help themselves.

In India, where our emergency help may save millions of lives (though others will surely be lost) we propose to help India to take long steps toward self-assistance --- to develop a price-incentive program for food grains; long-range water conservation program; agricultural extension and research; and other things.

The American attempt to help build self-sustaining economies is the work of peace. Let us learn to be more effective builders of peace. We can develop far more understanding of people’s basic needs. We can encourage a truly international attack on the food problem through expansion of such movements as the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, and the efforts of international banking organizations and the United Nations Development Program.

The cause of peace is served by the stopping of aggression. But that is not enough. Peace is served when people are led into a practical hope for plenty -- or even sufficiency. 2,000 years ago a Roman philosopher, Seneca, observed that "a hungry people listens not to reason, nor cares for justice." This world can not rest upon a base of hungry, needy, ignorant and despairing people (at home or abroad) without sooner or later experiencing violent explosion. No one nation can safely live in isolated plenty, callous to the needs of others, without moving further toward the destruction of peace.

Jesus understood this truth when he spoke the parable of the rich man at his banquet table; and the poor man, Lazarus, lying at his gate full of sores and longing for the very crumbs of the banquet table. Read that brief and pointed story in Luke, the 16th chapter beginning at the 19th verse. It is as pointed for us as it was for the prosperous of Jesus’ time in Palestine.

There is one kind of war which is fully justified in today’s world -- and that is the war on hunger. That kind of war ought to be escalated!

Peace is not only speeches and treaties, not only wishes and longings; it is food and fiber; health and education. It can be found in fertile fields and pastures, in productive people of many vocations who have a vision of a better day and are not afraid to devote themselves to it. It is day-to-day building, and hard work, and sacrifice. It is extra-mile volunteering for service. It is the effort not alone to secure bread, but to produce and share bread that God’s world may be a good world for all His people.

When we pray "give us this day (each day) our daily bread" it is not a request for spiritual nourishment alone. It means bread for the body. We are not bidden to pray for so luxurious a meal as would sustain a poor family for a week or more. But we pray for the necessities of life, understanding by "bread" all that is essential for the preservation of health and strength.

Must not our prayer be also for others as well as for ourselves? --- not just "Lord give me my bread this day" but "Give us our daily bread," with the dominant desire that all our brethren, everywhere, shall be adequately clothed, housed and fed.

You and I are not God’s pet. Let us be His people. And if fortune has favored us, let us be good stewards of the goodness that floods our lives.

Amen.

------------------------

Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, June 5, 1966.