Won't You Be My Neighbor | Do it Again - January 26, 2020

The invitation to grace was part of what made Mister Rogers and the Neighborhood of Make-believe tick. Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian minister. His calling was to care for children, me and you, in a world that often neglects the intelligence of children in exchange for easy distractions and questions unanswered. Mister Rogers once said, “Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”

This is grace at its most basic definition, extending love and acceptance to someone exactly as they are, exactly where they are. This is precisely what Jesus did in going to Galilee instead of Jerusalem. Jesus went to a place where the law, the thing that was supposed to guide the liturgy of the community was not always followed. He went to this place and said “Here comes the kingdom of heaven, not because of your ability to follow the liturgy of the community perfectly but because, as you are and where you are, G-d has come down from on high to heal and share the good news that while we may be filled with sin, G-d still loves you. G-d has not abandoned us, leaving us to figure it out on our own. The new liturgy for this community, for the world, we will write it together, guided by G-d’s love.

The pattern of our community may not always mirror G-d’s plan but G-d, in Christ can work with us, guiding us to a new pattern of holiness. This is at the heart of Jesus’ invitation to Change your hearts and lives!” Repent, turn towards G-d because the G-d’s Kingdom is at hand.

Jesus extended an invitation to the disciples he called by the Sea of Galilee and it is the same invitation he extends to use when we answer his call to follow him and we emerge from the waters of baptism. This invitation is to change the narrative of the community by changing the pattern, changing the liturgy that guides us. The patterns created by our lives together do not change because of anything we do but because we have been changed by Christ’s invitation to grace and cannot imagine doing anything but changing. 

A liturgy of grace, the work of God’s love we participate in does not remove us from the weekday and weekend liturgy of the neighborhood. Our work continues.