Give us this day our daily bread

I've often thought, as I pray the Lord's Prayer, about the "us" in the phrase, "Give us today our daily bread."

Are we praying for our own needs, our own daily bread? Usually this is what comes to mind. I'm praying that I will have enough food for me and my family to eat. But someone once told me that the "us" is everyone in the world.

That means that when we pray the Lord's Prayer, we're praying that everyone in the world will have enough to eat. Whoa. That's an entirely different prayer.

The Gospel reading for Sunday is the story of the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus takes five loaves and two fish and feeds five thousand men plus perhaps another five thousand women and children. Jesus feeds everyone.

Give us this day our daily bread. Feed the planet. In a global economy, we're all connected, and our food supply is the same "basket" that people from Africa and South America are reaching into.

The current surge in food prices is affecting everyone worldwide. The recent use of corn and sugar cane in the production of biofuels has resulted in a scarcity of land and crops available for food, and so the prices have gone up dramatically.

Jesus fed everyone who gathered on the hillside. Can we feed everyone who is gathered on the planet?
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