Help!

Help!

I need somebody.

Help!

Not just anybody.

Help!

You know I need someone.

Help!

Ever felt like your prayer life could be the soundtrack of this Beatles song from 1965?

There is certainly plenty of stuff lately to cause us to cry out Help!

War. Tsunamies and other natural disasters. Two days ago the Washington printed a list of 18,500 children’s names who have died in Gaza, pausing to let you know how many names you have read every 500 names. It is overwhelming and exhausting and perhaps leaves your prayers feeling like all you can mutter is “help!” Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

And then there is all the everyday stuff.

I have another nail in my tire and the check engine light is on.

How am I going to pay these medical bills?

I am not sure what I really want to do with my life. What now?

I had the biopsy but still haven’t gotten results. Maybe it’s nothing, but I can’t stop worrying about it.

My mom has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t have a will. Now it’s too late to really know what she would have wanted.

I had this surgery but don’t seem to be recovering as quickly as I had hoped.

I have tried to call to check on my reservation ten times but never seem to be able to get an actual person to talk to. On top of that, my flight has been delayed.

I am worn out all the time. I keep thinking things will eventually slow down, but they never do.

I feel like my adult life has turned into constant decisions about what to make for dinner and trips to the doctor.

Help!

But does God really care about the everyday stuff as much as the big stuff? Are there certain prayers that seem to move ahead in line, leaving yours on the backburner? With so many help prayers, where do we even begin?

When Jesus was teaching the disciples on prayer, one of the petitions he gave them was “give us this day our daily bread.” We say this prayer every week, but I want you to think about this. Bread. Of all the things Jesus could have taught the disciples to pray for, he included daily bread. What’s the deal with daily bread?

Is it actual bread? Spiritual superfood? Annnnd daily? That feels like a lot.

The Greek word that we translate as daily in this prayer has been studied for centuries. The word is epiousios. It is a unique word to be sure. What is interesting is that it’s use in the Bible is limited to the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3. The word itself is a combo word. Ousios means substance or essence. Before that there is a prefix epi that boosts the meaning of the word, like super. Carolyn Arends says it is almost as if Jesus is here referring to super-sustenance. With that in mind, many early scholars saw this bread purely in spiritual terms. But then an archeological dig uncovered a fifth-century Egyptian papyrus that contained several uses of this word as part of a grocery list. So is this give us this day our fresh bread?

Eugene Peterson loved this news. He imagined a mother sending her son to the market with the admonition “Don’t get me that day-old bread; get me the fresh stuff, the epiousios bread!” The Message translation of this verse goes along with this in saying “keep us alive with three square meals a day.” Carolyn says that this prayer reminds us that we never outgrow prayers of petition, prayers in which we are asking God for our needs, even the everyday ones from food to bills to worries to relationships. Just as the manna feel for the Israelites in the wilderness, we pray for our daily sustenance from God.

One of my professors in seminary said during difficult seasons of life, all she could manage to pray was “daily bread. Just give me enough for today Lord, enough for today.” Enough help for today. This kind of daily bread prayer is what Richard Foster referred to as simple prayers in which we lay it all out before God. Foster said “the truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives, altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. Frankly, this side of eternity we will never unravel the good from the bad , the pure from the impure. God is big enough to receive us with all our mixtures... In simple prayer, we do not pretend to be more holy, more pure or more saintly than we actually are.” Simple prayer or daily bread prayer are the prayers lifted out of our actual lives. Jesus instructed his disciples to pray in a closet when many of them didn’t even have closets. Why? Because prayer is more about showing God our hearts than putting on a show.

Just like we want our children to tell us about their days, God wants to hear all the details and then leans in to ask “do you want my help? Have a seat. Tell me everything. I’ve got some fresh bread for you.”

Returning again and again to help! is to return again and again to our dependence on God. Philip Yancey describes how theologian Ole Hallesby “settled on the single word helplessness as the best summary of the heart attitude that God accepts as prayer.” Hallesby said “only he who is helpless can truly pray.” Author KJ Ramsey who is battling insurance coverage for her Lupus reminds us that “when life is *too much*for you to handle,*you* are not too much for needing support.” She says “I’m not okay is sacred speech. “Help is a full prayer.” Maybe you have time even forming words. It isn’t required that you even have all the right words. My friend Rev. Erin Hicks once shared with me that what she often tries to get her patients to understand is that their groans, their tears, those too are prayers to God.

The help and daily bread prayers continues to orient our hearts towards our reliance on God. You might ask yourself, “Do I trust God to care for me and know what I need? In my prayers, am I asking God to take control or to put me in control again? Philip Yancey says “most parents feel a pang when their child outgrows dependence...but with God , the rules change. I never outgrow dependence. ..asking for help lies at the root of prayer.” Real, raw, honest, I need you prayers.

When it comes to our faith, early church father Tertullian felt that a regular diet of the superfood of prayer is what is needed. He said “For Christ is our Bread; because Christ is Life.” The early Christian community broke bread together but always connected this physical nourishment to the nurturing presence of God in their midst. When we break bread together, we consider how Christ nourishes our bodies and our spirits and we long for the day when none are left hungry, when we all feast together at the heavenly banquet.

In a few moments, you will be invited to come forward to receive holy Communion. Each week during this series, I want to be intentional about inviting you to bring your own sticky note prayers before God. You should each have some sticky notes and pens. Take a few moments to write down your help! prayers, your daily bread requests whatever they may be. When you come forward for Communion, I invite you to place your sticky note prayer on the altar rails. I hope that over these next couple of weeks, these prayer rails would be filled with our prayers.

Let’s lean in together. Let’s pour our hearts out before God. Let us lay down our prayers for help and ask again, Give us this day our daily bread.