Seventh Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 10B

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 10B July 11, 2021 This week in the life of the church, we’ve been offering Vacation Bible School to children from the church and the neighborhood. Our theme has been “Who is my Neighbor?” and our curriculum has been modeled on the long-running popular children’s t.v. show Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. All week, we’ve been exploring with the children what it means to be a good neighbor. As a part of this experience, I’ve immersed myself in learning more about Fred Rogers, the man who was a formative part of my own childhood. I’ve read a book exploring his theology and how he was formed in it over the course of his life and ministry as a t.v producer and ordained Presbyterian Minister. I watched the documentary about him that showed clips of his shows and interviews with his wife, his sons, his friends, and many people who worked closely with him over the years. And a few things were made clear to me in all of that. Fred Rogers communicated his understanding of the gospel which can be boiled down to “Love your neighbor. Love yourself.” In all of his work with children, he faithfully worked to communicated two truths that he had learned. “I like you just the way you are,” he said to his audience over and over again, which flows from his understanding that God has created each and every one of us good. (Or as Fred often put it: “the bedrock of our being is good stuff.”i ). This was a core affirmation that Mister Rogers repeated over and over again. Mister Rogers was also very intentional in his use of the word “neighbor.” Those of us who are Christian can’t hear that word without harkening back to the question from the lawyer to Jesus that sparked one of Jesus’s most well-known parables which is the parable of the Good Samaritan. The lawyer asks Jesus, “who is my neighbor.” Jesus tells the story and then asks the man “which of these three was a good neighbor?” and the man answers, “the one who demonstrated mercy toward him.” In the book Exactly as You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers, author Shea Tuttle writes, “When Mister Rogers called his viewers “neighbors,” when he hosted us in his neighborhood for over thirty years, he was playing out his own greatest parable: calling us, gently but firmly, into lives of mercy and care for one another. He knew we wouldn’t always get it right, that we are prone, like the [puppet] king [Friday the 13th] that he so lovingly created, to bow to fear and to serve competition, to privilege our own safety and to neglect others’ real needs. Maybe, in calling us neighbors, he knew he was calling us something better than we actually were…and that maybe we could grow into real neighbors to one another.”ii In a perfect world, our lectionary would have given us the parable of the Good Samaritan for our gospel reading for today, and that would be the end of this sermon. But alas…we have this strange and macabre story of the beheading of John the Baptist. What on earth does that have to do with Mister Rogers? First, it’s important to notice the placement of this horrid story in Mark’s gospel. It’s actually wedged right in the middle of our gospel reading from last week—when Jesus sends out his disciples, telling them to take only what they immediately need, and gives them the power to heal people and cast out demons. This is actually what King Herod hears about, the work of Jesus’s disciples that is going on, that makes him reflect on what he did to his old friend John. And immediately after this story, the disciples return to Jesus completely elated and bursting to tell him of all the good works they accomplished in his name. Mark is setting up the dichotomy between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdoms of this world as presided over by the Herods. What is key to this story of Herod and John the Baptist, I think, is that Herod was sad to kill John but he wouldn’t stand up to those who tricked him into doing it because he was worried it would make him look weak. In talking about his own theology, Mister Rogers spoke about this: “Evil will do anything to make you feel as bad as you possibly can about yourself…because if you feel the worst about who you are, you will undoubtedly look with evil eyes on your neighbor and you will get to believe the worst about him or her.” In other words, evil travels, creating a kind of domino effect: “Accuse yourself. Accuse your neighbor. Get your neighbors to accuse somebody else, and the evil spreads and thrives.” “Jesus would want us to see the best of who we are, so we would have that behind our eyes as we looked at our neighbor, and we would see the best in him or her. You can be an accuser or an advocate. Evil would have you be an accuser in this life. Jesus would have you be an advocate for your neighbor.” Put another way, “if we are lovable and acceptable because we are God’s, then our neighbor, who is equally God’s, is also lovable and acceptable. And we are called into that work of that loving and accepting.”iii This week, as you go out into the neighborhood that is your life, may you be like Mister Rogers: looking at yourself through God’s eyes and seeing yourself as the best of who you are and seeing your neighbor through those eyes as well. May you look for ways to gently show mercy and care to people you encounter over the course of this week and beyond. In the words of Mister Rogers: “You’ve made this day a special day, by just your being you. There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are.” Tuttle. Shea. Exactly as You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers. Eerdmans Publishing: Grand Rapids, 2019, p30 Ibid pp101-102 Ibid. pp 59-61.