Shortly after 9/11, Margy Whitmer, a former producer of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, approached
Fred Rogers asking him to record a message of hope and love and comfort for the
nation as only Mr. Rogers could. But
Margy, as she would later recount in the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? was surprised to find Mr. Rogers overwhelmed
by the magnitude of what had happened.
He would tell Margy in regards to the promos she had asked
him to do, “I just don’t know what good any of this will do.”
In the documentary, we see Mr. Rogers in a candid shot,
before action is called. He looks older
than ever, his shoulders slumped, as if he alone is bearing the world’s pain.
Here was a man who had comforted children after Robert
Kennedy was assassinated, a man who had made it his life’s work to confront
racism and fear, to reach out, not just to children, but to adults too, and let
them know that they were loved and capable of loving.
And 9/11 had shattered him.
Like many kids of my generation, I grew up watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
I’m sure I watched it daily, but truthfully, I can only
remember three episodes, three random episodes.
I remember Mr. Rogers visiting the set of The Incredible Hulk with Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby—also one of my
favorite shows. I remember an episode on
the making of crayons. And I remember an
episode where Mr. Rogers showed us that we were all too big to be sucked down
the bathtub drain.
That’s it. Those are
the only three episodes I can remember in any detail. But when I watched the Mr. Rogers documentary
Won’t You Be My Neighbor? this past
week, I was hit with a wave of nostalgia.
Suddenly, I was singing the opening and closing songs for the show as if
I had been singing them every day for the past forty years. And though I couldn’t remember many details
of the individual episodes, I could remember the emotions I associated with the
program when I was a child.
I remembered feeling safe and loved, this despite the fact
that those puppets, especially the Lady Elaine, were downright creepy. But watching again as Lady Aberlin and Daniel
Tiger rubbed noses together filled me with such good feelings, I couldn’t help
but take a deep breath and relax, like someone had just poured me a cup of hot chocolate
on a cold winter’s day.
What I didn’t know as a child, but probably still sank in at
some unconscious level, was just how revolutionary the show was. Fred Rogers, who initially delayed seminary
so he could work in television,
later became an ordained minister in the Presbyterian church. And though he never wore a collar on his show
or preached about God, he embodied Christ’s directive to “Love your neighbor.”
The show first aired fifty years ago and its very first week
on the air found King Friday XIII erecting a wall around his kingdom out of
fear. King Friday later orders the wall
torn down after the enemy he fears bombards his kingdom not with weapons of
war, but with messages of peace.
When segregation was literally dividing this country, Mr.
Rogers took time to share a wading pool with the show’s African-American police
officer, Officer Clemmons. And when
Officer Clemmons remarked that he didn’t have a towel to dry his feet, not only
did Mr. Rogers share his own towel with him, but he himself dried Officer Clemmons’
feet in a way that could only seem Biblical.
Mister Rogers’
Neighborhood tackled issues that no other kids’ program of the day would
touch … things like death and divorce.
And always at the heart of every show was Mr. Rogers and that
calm, soothing voice of his. He never
talked down to children. He spoke
directly to them, eye to eye, soul to soul.
It’s why Margy Whitmer brought Mr. Rogers out of retirement
after 9/11. She knew that not only did
the children of the world need to hear from him, but that all of us needed the
comfort that he could provide.
That Mr. Rogers was so heartbroken over 9/11 that he could
not imagine what good his words might do, shows how human he was. We all felt that way after 9/11. How will the world ever be the same? How will we get through this? How can we possibly make a positive impact in
this world when faced with such enormous evil?
In today’s Gospel reading, in Matthew 17:20, Jesus tells the
disciples, “…. if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to
this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be
impossible for you.”
Nothing will be impossible for you.
But after 9/11, nothing seemed possible—for any of us, did
it?
And yet, somehow Mr. Rogers pulled himself together for his
9/11 message, and mixed in with his standard message of love and acceptance and
forgiveness, are these words, “No matter what our particular job, especially in
our world today, we all are called to be Tikkun Olam, repairers of creation.”
Tikkun Olam—that’s Hebrew.
Repairers of creation.
Mr. Rogers knew that no matter how weary, how saddened, how
hopeless he felt, that we are all tasked with this job, and it is no small job.
We are not called to sit idlily by, watching the world move
on without us.
We are not called to feel sorry for ourselves.
We are not called to wallow in our own despair.
We are not called to wait for someone else to do it.
We are called to move mountains.
What is unsaid by Jesus, but very much implied, in his mustard
seed directive, is that he expects us all to move mountains. It is not an “if, then” statement. It is a first you do this (have faith) and
then second you do this (move mountains).
Or as James 2:14 says, “What good is it, my brothers and
sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works?”
Move mountains.
Repair creation.
Mr. Rogers had enormous faith. He loved others with a Jesus love. And even as hopeless as he may have felt in
the days and weeks following 9/11, he knew he had to put that faith to work.
And we are all better for it.
So, I have to ask, which mountain will you move today?
Amen.
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