February 15, 2007
Mister Rogers
Last of Epiphany
Fred Rogers of TV’s “Mister Rogers’s Neighborhood” was asked once why it is people so often seem afraid to talk to one another.
He sat quietly for a moment, then he answered. “Perhaps we think that we won’t find another human being inside that person, and how sad it is to think that we would give up on any other creature who’s just like us.”
I wonder how he might feel about the current meeting of the primates of our church over in Tanzania. Some of these fellows have made it altogether clear that there are not only certain of their number they won’t talk to, but with whom they won’t even stay in the same room or at the same table. If Mr Rogers is right, there’s a lot of fear at hand at that meeting.
Maybe we’re missing perhaps one of the most distinguishing characteristics of Mister Rogers’s Neighborhood. That was his recognition of our common humanity and how that seemed so often almost inseparable from our fear. What a sight it would be to see him now at the primates’ meeting. There he is, inviting us in, taking off his suit jacket and putting on his sweater, taking off his loafers and putting on his sneakers, feeding his fish, suggesting we change out of our purple shirts and let the air out of our puffery, but always listening respectfully to whomever might be talking about their craft or their concerns or their big, impressive province somewhere around the world.
Maybe he would gently introduce topics likely troubling to a four-year-old, maybe even to them. Are scary things on television really real? Will I be sucked down the bathtub drain with the water? Will people who leave come back? Is it all right to get angry? Such questions in one form or another are not all that far off the mark for many of us.
And I can especially see Eddie Murphy’s parody, his Mister Robinson lamenting with embarrassing accuracy, “I hope I get to move into your neighborhood someday. The problem is that when I move in, y’all move away.”
Rogers once told of his often puzzling over a verse in one of our more popular hymns, A Mighty Fortress is Our God. The verse says, “The prince of darkness grim, / We tremble not for him; / His rage we can endure, / For lo! his doom is sure, / One little word shall fell him.” He asked one of his favorite seminary teachers, then retired, with whom he had studied for the Presbyterian ministry and with whom he visited often, “What is that one little word that would wipe out all evil?”
“Forgiveness,” said his professor. “Evil disintegrates in the presence of forgiveness. For Satan would prefer that you look with accusing eyes at your neighbor, thus extending the accusing spirit, the greater power of evil. On the other hand,” his professor continued, “if you can look on your neighbor with the forgiving eyes of the one who is our Advocate, those are the eyes of Jesus, himself.”
Fred Rogers was of certain a pastor. His compassion was prophetic, as well. His clear, almost palpable caring could often challenge one into a nourishing reflection and resolution. The neighborhood he created and welcomed us into as fellow advocates was literally permeated with forgiveness and acceptance, reconciliation and the banishment of fear. It knew nothing of judgment.
It’s not easy for us to discover the human in the other person and not succumb to our fear of the unknown. The church struggles with this very problem now and not all that successfully. We seem to prefer keeping our distance. When there comes an opportunity to open ourselves to everybody or even to somebody, perhaps unconditionally as healers, including these “others,” we pass. We say “No, thanks.”
We make covenant in our baptism to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. I suppose all the primates vow somehow to do something like that, or, if they don’t, we might suggest that they do. For this Christ — this other human being of whom we seem to be so afraid, who seems so often elusive and unknown — is in fact God’s beloved son in whom he is well pleased, to whom God would have us listen, the very same image in which we are all uniquely created.
We err when we so often would make the church a remote shrine above it all for our protection. Mr Rogers’s Neighborhood is as good a metaphor for the church as I can imagine. If it’s not, may it pray to become a neighborhood where we can discover not only our own humanity and begin to fulfill it, but where we can discover the humanity of others. May we there dare to become more human precisely as our fear is dispelled, and to do so by the grace God gives us to love our neighbors as ourselves.
It is a pastor’s work to lead people into reconciliation and truth. It is especially a primate’s work. Fred Rogers was a pastor and prophet, perhaps one of the finest. As we now leave this Epiphany time, this time of telling others where we have been and what we have seen, may we enter into this more introspective Lent to become now such a Mister Rogers neighborhood where fear is no more.
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