A Beautiful Day for a Neighbor
The Rev. Canon Frank Logue preached this sermon at Calvary Episcopal Church
in Americus, Georgia on July 14, 2019
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Luke 10:25-37
“Who is my neighbor?”
This seemingly simple question opened the way for Jesus’ best-known parable in which robbers beat and man and leave him half dead along the road and to his aid comes neither of the two religious leaders who pass him by but a hated Samaritan who shows godly mercy.
I want to look at the story of the Good Samaritan through the lens of the world’s best neighbor. The neighbor I have in mind is Fred Rogers, the Presbyterian minister famous for creating a children’s television show Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. I don’t come to this example of nostalgia, as I confess: I never watched the show as a child or later. I did see clips and I have read about Rogers’ life and admired the way her served God through raising the self-esteem of children. I also see how Fred Rogers’ unique ministry helps us see this parable from a new angle.
The man we know as Mister Rogers described his own childhood as isolated. He said that he was shy and overweight and stayed indoors a good bit of the summer due to asthma. For Rogers, that isolation led to empathy as his maternal grandfather for whom he was named, Fred McFeely, helped him gain self-esteem. With his own sense of worth bolstered by an adult who loved him into confidence, Rogers would see the unique opportunity television created for a very intimate connection to children just as in need of that love as he had been as a boy. He started working with a Pittsburgh public television station, co-producing The Children’s Corner in 1953. A decade later he finished seminary and was ordained a Presbyterian minister. While he never served in a traditional church call, Rogers became a pastor to millions when Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood debuted in 1969.
Each of the nearly 900 episodes began with the song:
It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor,
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
The song ending:
Won’t you please, won’t you please,
Please won’t you be my neighbor?
To say the least, this is the opposite approach from the lawyer in our reading from Luke’s Gospel. Let’s take a look back at the story from the Gospel before bringing the two threads of the sermon together.
The man is not an attorney as we understand that profession, but an expert in Moses Law, the Torah, and so was a religious official. He asked Jesus what he needed to do to “inherit eternal life” and when Jesus asked him what he saw in the Torah, he proved he was an expert in God’s Law. He summarized the Torah just as Jesus’ would, “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.”
Then as one versed in law, he asked for the definition: “Who is my neighbor?” A good definition is how we can identify the loopholes. Figure out who is the neighbor, show those people love and forget about the rest. The lawyer seems to see himself at the center of the diagram with concentric circles going out to family, friends, acquaintances, those who live in his part of the city, and so on. He wants to know how far out to draw the line between insiders and outsiders.
The setting would have been familiar as the road between Jericho and Jerusalem is just out of town headed west and to this day is a rocky, barren, waterless expanse. The passersby who do nothing to help the injured man are both religious officials. Like the lawyer who posed the questions they should have known God’s Law teaches that we are to love God and our neighbors as ourselves.
Then there is the unlikely hero of Jesus’ little story—the Samaritan. Samaria sat smack dab in the middle of Israel. Jerusalem and the rest of southern Israel, known Judea, sat to the south and Galilee and the rest of Israel to the north with Samaria in between. The Israelites despised the Samaritans. who practiced a religion similar to Judaism, but not exactly the same brand of Judaism espoused at the Temple in Jerusalem. An Israeli view of the Samarian religion was probably not unlike how many Christians view the Mormon faith or how Muslims look at The Nation of Islam.
If you needed a butt for an Israeli joke, a Samaritan was a good choice. Nobody liked Samaritans so you were free to poke fun at them. But here’s what Jesus said, “But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.”
Understanding this word pity really helps. The Greek word for moved with pity is “Splanchnisomai.” It sounds kinda funny when I say it, “Splanchnisomai.” But when Jesus said it, I bet no one was laughing. You see that splanchnisomai is a special word. It’s sort of a theological word as it was reserved to describe the compassion and mercy God has for us. It is a common Biblical word for God’s compassion and mercy. But splanchnisomai is a rare word indeed otherwise. In fact, only Jesus ever uses it to describe human action. Everybody else reserved the word for God alone. Now Jesus has the nerve to say that a Samaritan can show God-like compassion for someone in need. If that’s not shocking, it should be. Of course, the story doesn’t stop there. It just gets worse. The good for nothing Samaritan risks his own safety, spends his own money and a good deal of time to make sure that the Israelite who was beaten by bandits is taken care of. While the crowd is still trying to sort out the jarring images Jesus asks the lawyer, “Which one of the three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The no-doubt dumfounded legal expert said, “the one who showed him mercy.” The Samaritan moved by the compassion God alone has showed mercy to the injured man and was his neighbor.
Jesus answered the question inside out. The lawyer asked who’s my neighbor. That equation starts with me, or in your case you and works outward. For a good person the concentric circle stretch out farther and farther. You not only include your close family and friends, but can be neighborly to people you don’t even know. That’s just great, but Jesus works the equation the other direction. Jesus starts with the person in need and says the person who is closest is the neighbor. If you see a need, if you know of a need, then you are a neighbor, the one God is looking to express that Godly compassion and mercy.
This is the part where a preacher is tempted to look for some modern-day equivalent of the Good Samaritan. I think that’s too tall an order. After all, the Samaritan in our story risked personal injury, gave up not inconsiderable amounts of time, energy and care and all for a person who considered him and all Samaritans to be beneath contempt. You can’t really boil this parable down to one meaning alone. But neither can you avoid the conclusion that being a neighbor is not about you or your goodness. Being a Good Samaritan to someone else is about their need and God’s compassion.
This is where I think Mister Rogers Neighborhood is helpful. For that day on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was in the words of Mister Rogers’ song, “a beautiful day for a neighbor.” Fred Rogers did not like television. He told many interviewers that he hated it and saw the potential it had to spread fear and violence. But just as a hammer is a tool that can be used to tear down as well as build up, television had the potential to speak right to children who most needed someone to love them. The soft-spoken Mister Rogers taught children to love themselves and to love their neighbors. I was struck in seeing Mister Rogers Neighborhood as an example that fits the Good Samaritan, because the example we need can’t start with you and me. We need to see that this story is about the one in need. Fred Rogers saw kids increasingly raised in front of screens and he longed for those kids to have someone who cared for them on the other side of the screen. He was willing to be a neighbor to anyone who would watch and to tell that person “I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.”
In just a moment, I we will move from the sermon to the baptism and on behalf of Elizabeth Reed, her Mom, Danielle, and her Dad, Bryan, and the Godparents will answer some questions that get at just this sort of life. The questions come in the Baptismal Covenant. First, those who are being baptized tell their beliefs about the Trinity using the words of that ancient baptismal formula, the Apostle’s Creed. Then there are five questions and answers that spell out how we can love our neighbors. To each question, the answer is “I will with God’s help.” The questions are:
- Will you continue in the apostle’s teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers?
- Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
- Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
- Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
- Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
Seeking and serving Christ in all persons. Striving for justice and peace among all people. And respecting the dignity of every human being. This is what it looks like to be a neighbor. And you don’t do this on your own, but with God’s help. This seeking, serving, and striving start with God and God’s compassion. Seeing the person in need as a neighbor whose dignity you respect flows from God. When you allow yourself to be moved by Godly compassion and mercy to act on another’s behalf you are being a Good Samaritan. That is not the world as it is now, but it is the Kingdom of God and into that kingdom we cannot yet fully see other than in glimpses, we now come to initiate Elizabeth Reed, a beloved child of God.
Amen.
