Our Daily Bread & a Parliamentary Inquiry

With the bread we need for today, feed us. 

In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. 

In times of temptation and test, strengthen us. 

From trials too great to endure, spare us. 

From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

 For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever. Amen. 

excerpt from the New Zealand Prayer Book paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer

2nd convict:

I've done no wrong Sweet Jesus, hear my prayer

Chorus:
Look down! Look down! Sweet Jesus doesn't care...

Valjean
I stole a loaf of bread! My sister's child was close to death,
And we were starving!

Javert
You will starve again, Unless you learn the meaning of the law.

from Prologue:Work Song -- Les Miserable

 As a mid-1950s birth Baby Boomer I grew up reciting the Lord's Prayer/Our Father/Prayer of Jesus pretty much from the cradle. This was a given during Sunday worship and in school, right through to the now defunct Grade 13. So, thousands and thousands of repetitions of the petition, "give us this day our daily bread". I can't think of a day in my life when I was bereft of basic sustenance but it's not something we should take for granted. 

There were no prayers when the various CEOs and potentates of Canada's grocery chains were summoned before a parliamentary committee recently to explain soaring food cost for consumers but perhaps something about bread and maybe a "lead us not into the temptation to fib" would have been helpful. It's simply a fact that the profits of the leading grocers have soared yet there was Galen Weston of Loblaw explaining that margins are woefully low. This from a guy whose personal wealth in estimated at over $7 billion. The credibility of these guys is considerably lower than the profit margins of their companies and the members of parliament attempted to press the issue, to no avail. 

We are a position as senior citizens with a more than adequate income that while rising prices vex us they don't threaten our ability to put nutritious food on the table. More often than not our daily bread was baked in our home, and we often buy lots of flour when it's on sale because we can afford to save money by spending money. The same is true of other grocery items.

This simply isn't the case for many people and a growing number of Canadians are struggling to pay for groceries. Ruth, my wife, volunteers at the Bridge St. UC meal ministry and they always have more guests in the last week of each month when funds run low. Some of these folk are the so-called working poor. 

 I read not long ago that certain judges are deliberating about sentencing for grocery theft, attempting to take into account the desperate circumstances of some of those who have been charged. When I saw this I couldn't help but think of Les Miserables and Jean Valjean spending years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. 

I am convinced that Jesus does care, and we should too, but there seems to be a hardness of heart about those who do struggle to pay for their daily bread and so much more.