Reflections on Mr. Rogers and the Good Samaritan
[Originally written in October 2018]
"Deep within us—no matter who we are—there lives a feeling of wanting to be lovable, of wanting to be the kind of person that others like to be with. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving."
-Fred Rogers
Mr. Roger's Neighborhood will be forever remembered as a classic children's television show, featuring the fictional kingdom of puppets in the Neighborhood of Make Believe. It's enduring message "won't you be my neighbor?" is one that echos the life of the man responsible for the show, Fred Rogers. Mr. Rogers took a bold stand on love and inclusiveness. In an era when there were heated arguments about segregation of swimming pools and other public spaces, Mr. Roger's was joined on the show by his new good friend, Francois Clemmons, an African-American man who plays the role of a police officer. Mr. Roger's gives the man the stool he was sitting on and grabs another chair to sit next to his friend. Together, they bathe their feet in a small children's swimming pool - and sing "Many Ways to Say I Love You." What a beautiful, simple sermon on love and acceptance.
"You'll find many ways to say I love you.
You'll find many ways to understand what love is.
Many ways, many ways, many ways to say
I love you."
Almost a quarter century later, then as an openly gay man, Francois Clemmons joined Fred Rogers for a final appearance on the show, in which they would re-enact this heart-warming scene. (See video here - worth spending the time to pause and watch the two-minute video).
Mr. Roger's legacy will live on as one who truly sought out and loved his neighbor as himself.
------
In the Gospel of Luke, we are introduced to a certain lawyer who approaches Jesus and asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus, knowing the lawyer to be learned in the written law, turns the question back on him to answer. The lawyer dutifully cites scripture that he must love God and love his neighbor as himself (References to the Jewish daily prayer known as "the Shema Yisrael" which included Deuteronomy 6:5 on loving god, as well as a reference to Leviticus 19:18 on loving your neighbor). But in a desire to further define and put limits on the law, "willing to justify himself" in excluding certain individuals from that requirement of love, the lawyer poignantly asks, "who is my neighbor?"
Jesus then gives the famous parable of the Good Samaritan. As many a Sunday school class has pointed out, he chooses the despised Samaritan as the moral protagonist hero of the story and the "villains" were the traditional church authorities (the priest and Levite) who were unwilling to show compassion, perhaps in part because doing so would make them ritually unclean and unfit for their Church responsibilities.
In the eyes of the Jews, the Samaritans had polluted God's law by doing things like building their own temple on Mt Gerizim, away from the designated site at Jerusalem, and intermarrying with the Assyrians, which was contrary to the law expressly forbidding such marriage in Deuteronomy 7:3-5. The Jews destroyed the Samaritan temple and then made that day a holiday - Mt Gerizim Day. The Samaritans, in turn, desecrated the Jewish temple by throwing human bones into the temple at Jerusalem on the day of Passover.
This intense dislike for the Samaritans is evidenced by the Jewish lawyer's response to Jesus' question asking which of the three acted as a neighbor, "He that shewed mercy on him." The lawyer couldn't even stand to name the individual as "the Samaritan." This was not a "feel-good" story when delivered to its original audience. It is one that cut them to the core and directly confronted their own ideology and social prejudices.
The hatred and animosity toward Samaria has been lost through the ages, but the parable lives on as a powerful message about overcoming our own preconceived notions about those who are different than us. It is a profound message about overcoming the deeply ingrained prejudices that weigh us down on our journeys through mortality - prejudices we seek to hide from everyone - including, and perhaps most especially, from ourselves (If you want to take a quick, free online test on your own unconscious biases, check out the Implicit Association Test from Harvard - you might be surprised at the results).
If Christ were teaching this parable to the us today, who would he use as the protagonist hero? Likely someone who is an outsider, one who is looked down upon, one who we would perceive as not belonging in our religious, political or social group. Perhaps when speaking to a Christian American crowd, he would use a Muslim woman (as beautifully portrayed in this LDS Church video). Perhaps he would use a Democrat to a largely conservative audience or a Republican for a liberal audience. Or perhaps he would use someone who is so radically different than us to take us far outside of the confines of our cozy comfort zone - perhaps he would use someone who is openly transgender, bisexual or homosexual, a different race than we typically associate with, an undocumented immigrant.
When Jesus asks us to name the protagonist of one of these modern day "Samaritans," will we have the courage to find the good in those we might otherwise despise or feel uncomfortable around? Will we have the strength to stand up for the oppressed, to "lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees"?
Will we, like the lawyer, respond with reluctant, mumbled, "[S/he] that shewed mercy upon him"?
Or will we fearlessly stand up for someone in need, put our arms lovingly around them and say, "Won't you be my neighbor?"
"Deep within us—no matter who we are—there lives a feeling of wanting to be lovable, of wanting to be the kind of person that others like to be with. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving."
-Fred Rogers
Mr. Roger's Neighborhood will be forever remembered as a classic children's television show, featuring the fictional kingdom of puppets in the Neighborhood of Make Believe. It's enduring message "won't you be my neighbor?" is one that echos the life of the man responsible for the show, Fred Rogers. Mr. Rogers took a bold stand on love and inclusiveness. In an era when there were heated arguments about segregation of swimming pools and other public spaces, Mr. Roger's was joined on the show by his new good friend, Francois Clemmons, an African-American man who plays the role of a police officer. Mr. Roger's gives the man the stool he was sitting on and grabs another chair to sit next to his friend. Together, they bathe their feet in a small children's swimming pool - and sing "Many Ways to Say I Love You." What a beautiful, simple sermon on love and acceptance.
"You'll find many ways to say I love you.
You'll find many ways to understand what love is.
Many ways, many ways, many ways to say
I love you."
Almost a quarter century later, then as an openly gay man, Francois Clemmons joined Fred Rogers for a final appearance on the show, in which they would re-enact this heart-warming scene. (See video here - worth spending the time to pause and watch the two-minute video).
Mr. Roger's legacy will live on as one who truly sought out and loved his neighbor as himself.
------
In the Gospel of Luke, we are introduced to a certain lawyer who approaches Jesus and asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus, knowing the lawyer to be learned in the written law, turns the question back on him to answer. The lawyer dutifully cites scripture that he must love God and love his neighbor as himself (References to the Jewish daily prayer known as "the Shema Yisrael" which included Deuteronomy 6:5 on loving god, as well as a reference to Leviticus 19:18 on loving your neighbor). But in a desire to further define and put limits on the law, "willing to justify himself" in excluding certain individuals from that requirement of love, the lawyer poignantly asks, "who is my neighbor?"
Jesus then gives the famous parable of the Good Samaritan. As many a Sunday school class has pointed out, he chooses the despised Samaritan as the moral protagonist hero of the story and the "villains" were the traditional church authorities (the priest and Levite) who were unwilling to show compassion, perhaps in part because doing so would make them ritually unclean and unfit for their Church responsibilities.
In the eyes of the Jews, the Samaritans had polluted God's law by doing things like building their own temple on Mt Gerizim, away from the designated site at Jerusalem, and intermarrying with the Assyrians, which was contrary to the law expressly forbidding such marriage in Deuteronomy 7:3-5. The Jews destroyed the Samaritan temple and then made that day a holiday - Mt Gerizim Day. The Samaritans, in turn, desecrated the Jewish temple by throwing human bones into the temple at Jerusalem on the day of Passover.
This intense dislike for the Samaritans is evidenced by the Jewish lawyer's response to Jesus' question asking which of the three acted as a neighbor, "He that shewed mercy on him." The lawyer couldn't even stand to name the individual as "the Samaritan." This was not a "feel-good" story when delivered to its original audience. It is one that cut them to the core and directly confronted their own ideology and social prejudices.
The hatred and animosity toward Samaria has been lost through the ages, but the parable lives on as a powerful message about overcoming our own preconceived notions about those who are different than us. It is a profound message about overcoming the deeply ingrained prejudices that weigh us down on our journeys through mortality - prejudices we seek to hide from everyone - including, and perhaps most especially, from ourselves (If you want to take a quick, free online test on your own unconscious biases, check out the Implicit Association Test from Harvard - you might be surprised at the results).
If Christ were teaching this parable to the us today, who would he use as the protagonist hero? Likely someone who is an outsider, one who is looked down upon, one who we would perceive as not belonging in our religious, political or social group. Perhaps when speaking to a Christian American crowd, he would use a Muslim woman (as beautifully portrayed in this LDS Church video). Perhaps he would use a Democrat to a largely conservative audience or a Republican for a liberal audience. Or perhaps he would use someone who is so radically different than us to take us far outside of the confines of our cozy comfort zone - perhaps he would use someone who is openly transgender, bisexual or homosexual, a different race than we typically associate with, an undocumented immigrant.
When Jesus asks us to name the protagonist of one of these modern day "Samaritans," will we have the courage to find the good in those we might otherwise despise or feel uncomfortable around? Will we have the strength to stand up for the oppressed, to "lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees"?
Will we, like the lawyer, respond with reluctant, mumbled, "[S/he] that shewed mercy upon him"?
Or will we fearlessly stand up for someone in need, put our arms lovingly around them and say, "Won't you be my neighbor?"
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