Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday July 11, 2010, the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time. If the church had a video projection system, I would have played this video before the sermon:



Amos 7:7-17
Psalm 82
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

If you know the lyrics, sing along. If you don’t, then just hum. Nobody is going to mind.

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood; it’s a beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
It’s a neighborly day in this beauty wood; a neighborly day for a beauty.
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
I’ve always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.
I’ve always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.
So, let’s make the most of this beautiful day; since we’re together we might as well say:
“Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?”
Won’t you please, won’t you please, please won’t you be my neighbor.[1]

New episodes of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” were shown on PBS stations from 1970 until 2001 and on National Educational Television two years before that. Reruns can still be seen on many PBS stations including the one I saw this morning on KAFT.[2]

The show was characterized by its quiet simplicity and gentleness. Episodes did not have a plot, but they did have a theme. They consisted of Rogers speaking directly to the viewer about various issues, taking the viewer on tours of factories, demonstrating experiments, crafts, and music, and interacting with his friends. The half-hour episodes were punctuated by a puppet segment chronicling occurrences in the “Neighborhood of Make-Believe.”

At the beginning of each episode, Mister Rogers enters his television studio house singing “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” He hangs his suit jacket in a closet, puts on a zippered cardigan, and takes off his dress shoes to put on his sneakers. One of Rogers’ sweaters now hangs in the Smithsonian Institution, a testament to the cultural influence of his simple daily ritual.

Rogers covered a broad range of topics over the years, and the series did not shy away from issues that other children’s programming avoided. In fact, Rogers endeared himself to many when, on March 23, 1970, he dealt with the death of one of his pet goldfish. The series also dealt with competition, divorce, and war. Rogers returned to the topic of anger regularly and focused on peaceful ways of dealing with angry feelings.[3]

All of this happened in the context of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, a mystical place where the imaginary fourth wall of the television screen magically disappeared for a half hour and we were all welcomed into a world of peace and grace.

Considering Mister Fred Rogers was a graduate of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and an ordained Presbyterian Minister of Word and Sacrament, welcoming everyone into a world of peace and grace was right up his alley.

So the expert in religious law came to test Jesus asking, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replies in true rabbinical fashion, asking a question when an answer is sought. “What is written in the Law?”

The lawyer answers this question by a perfect recitation from Leviticus and Deuteronomy[4] saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus affirms the lawyer’s answer saying, “Do this, and you will live.” The experts in the law commonly accepted that observance of the Torah was essential to inherit eternal life.[5] So when Jesus and the lawyer agree on this point, they share the truth of thousands of years of tradition.

But the lawyer’s questions are more than an academic or rabbinic exercise. He wants to justify himself. So he asks Jesus another question, “Who is my neighbor?” This is an important question, more important than we may suppose. What gets lost in the translation of Leviticus is that the original command to love the neighbor specifies “your kin” and “any of your people.”[6] So the lawyer wants to be justified that by helping his family, his people, and his nation he will inherit eternal life.

Then Jesus tells the legal expert a familiar little story and asks him another question, “So which of these three, the Priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan, do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

The lawyer answers, “The one who showed him mercy was a neighbor.” In saying this, the lawyer, the expert in the law tells the world that being a neighbor is about more than just being kin or members of the same nation. It has to do with action and it has to do with mercy. Being a neighbor now means more than it did in Leviticus. As a result, Jesus gives him his charge, “Go, and do likewise.”

Jesus shares the vision of inheriting eternal life written in the Torah with the lawyer. Then he shows him that the Living Torah, the person and the work and the word of Jesus Christ, expands the Torah given to Moses. Justification by the Torah now means that loving God and loving your neighbor are inseparable.[7] Being justified means more than just taking care of business as usual.

The hardest part about this story is that the holy men in the parable, the priest and the Levite, were doing what they were supposed to do. They were going to work. They were keeping their hands clean. They were doing what was right in the name of the Law. They followed the rules and abided by the regulations approved by the General Assembly, er, the Presbytery, er, the law handed down to Moses. They did the right thing, but by doing just what was right was no longer enough in the eyes of God.

To the Greco-Roman world, mercy was a character flaw; the ideal was justice. Since mercy involves providing unearned help or relief, it was contrary to justice. This unearned relief, we call it grace.

Sociologist Rodney Stark put it this way. “The notion that the gods care how we treat one another would have been dismissed as patently absurd. This was the moral climate in which Christianity taught that mercy is one of the primary virtues—that a merciful God requires humans to be merciful. Moreover, the corollary that because God loves humanity, Christians may not please God unless they love one another was something entirely new.”[8]

Mercy is the new benchmark in justification. Mercy is the new benchmark in being a neighbor. Mercy has a place in the administration of justice in the Christ’s kingdom. The ancient Greeks disagreed, but theirs is not the way to inherit eternal life. Our courts may disagree, but theirs is not the way to eternal life. The priests and the Levites met their obligations to the temple, but they didn’t act out of love. Only the despised Samaritan acted in accord with the living Torah.

Only the despised Samaritan showed love in an act of mercy. Only the loathed foreigner connected loving God and loving your neighbor as the way to being justified. Only the reviled outsider saw his brother in the man left beaten on the side of the road. Only the detested alien saw the way to justification through mercy. Only the abhorred stranger showed the divinely required attitude of mercy we are called to have toward one another. And all of this came from the mouth of a legal expert.

An ancient rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day was on its way back. “Could it be,” asked one student, “when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?” “No,” answered the Rabbi. “Could it be,” asked another, “when you look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it is a fig tree or a peach tree?” “No,” said the Rabbi. “Well, then what is it?” his pupils demanded. “It is when you look on someone’s face and can see… your brother. Because if you cannot do this, then no matter what time it is, it is still night.”[9]

Eternal life and mercy; peace and grace; isn’t this what we want from our neighbors? We want people in our lives who show what it means to demonstrate the fullness of God’s mercy. We want people in our lives who act in ways that benefit all of us, not just a specific few. We want to know what it is to receive divine mercy, God’s divine loving-kindness. We must realize that this mercy arises out of a mutual relationship one for another, not just as a winner-take-all justice the ancient Greeks favored.

You all might remember this story Marie Bolerjack told:

She, Austin and the kids were going from Mississippi to Oklahoma to visit family. It was the mid 1960’s and the boys were still quite young. Well, it was about noonish when they hit Little Rock and the kids were hungry. Austin and Marie didn’t want to pull off the highway in Little Rock, so Marie promised the boys that they would get some lunch as soon as they got past the city. Well, being the mid 60’s there wasn’t one or six fast food places at every exit, so they ended up traveling quite a way before finding a little diner. They got out of the car, and I bet the boys were cheering as they went to the door. By this time, it was a little after one in the afternoon, they went into the diner and Marie asked if they are still serving lunch. The black woman behind the counter said “Sure honey, have a seat.”

As the afternoon went on, one at a time, several people, all black, came into the diner. They walked up to the woman at the counter, whispered something, and left. After this happened two or three times, it occurred to Marie that they were in a café for blacks. Oh. “But you know,” Marie said, “nobody made us feel uncomfortable. We had a nice lunch and got back on the road.”

Hearing this story, and knowing the volatile racial climate of Little Rock in the 60’s, this story is amazing. Who is my neighbor? To the woman running this diner, her neighbors were a family from Mississippi traveling across Arkansas who needed lunch. Austin and Marie became her neighbors as soon as she helped them on the side of the road.

The lawyer in the story accepts Jesus’ revision of the Torah. He learns that the one who shows mercy like the Samaritan is the neighbor, not those who share family or heritage like the priest and the Levite. What might have started as a theological exercise between the lawyer and teacher becomes more when the Torah comes to life in Jesus Christ.

When the law comes to life, we can no longer answer these questions like we’re taking a college entrance exam. We now have to answer the questions with our hands even more than we do with our heads. Jesus commands us to be good neighbors; loving the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind; and our neighbor as ourselves. On this the words of the Law and the prophets hang.

This is our call, this is our vocation. It is no longer enough just to do what the written law tells us; now there is more. We are called to this new word of discipleship when he charges the lawyer, “Go, and do likewise.”

So, let’s make the most of this beautiful day; since we’re together we might as well say: Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?

[1] Rogers, Fred, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” Pittsburgh, PA: Family Communications, Inc., 1967.
[2] KAFT is the Arkansas Educational Television Network/Public Broadcasting System affiliate in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
[3] Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Rogers%27_Neighborhood, retrieved July 8, 2010
[4] Leviticus 19:18, Deuteronomy 6:5
[5] “Adlet and Blink,” Commentary section, from Homiletics Online, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/printer_friendly_installment.asp?installment_id=930000347, accessed June 10, 2007.
[6] Cousar, Charles B., Gaventa, Beverly R., McCann, Jr., J. Clinton, Newsome, James D., Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, YEAR C. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, page 427.
[7] Kittel, Gerhardt, “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. vi, page 316
[8] Galloway, Paul, “How Jesus Won the West: Christianity became dominant because it offered better ideas and unexpected mercy,” The Lutheran, November 1998, 19.
[9] Thompson, Marjorie J. “Soul Feast” Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995, 127.