Here we are, the first Sunday of Advent, the start of our journey to Bethlehem and the much-anticipated baby. We begin with Isaiah and the Gospel of Matthew, but this year we are adding a twist of Mr. Rogers into our Advent journey. It’s kind of casting new eyes on very familiar scriptures – a story that we have heard so often that we think we already know what it means. I mean, we know that Isaiah is talking about peace and Matthew reminds us that we need to be alert because we never know when Jesus will come back. Easy peasy, right. We’ve got this figured out.
Right?
Advent invites us to slow down a bit, to take our time with the story and let it distill to its most basic and somewhat challenging meaning: living in love. At the heart of Isaiah’s passage is the yearning for a peace that is rooted in love. A love of neighbour that is so real that it has the potential to reshape the world. What better way to await the birth of the baby messiah than to be living love out in our actions – simple, daily choices that echo the ministry of Jesus?
This is the love that was the foundation of what Fred Rogers lived and taught. Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood may have been directed at children, but the wisdom found within the program was for all ages. Michael Long wrote a book called Peaceful Neighbour: Discovering the Countercultural Mister Rogers which gives us a peek into a side of Mr. Rogers that we may not have noticed: his work was deeply counter cultural for his time in history and in many ways still continues to be. Fred Rogers used his gentle, unassuming presence to challenge a violent, divided world to model a different way of being – a way of being that is rooted in the gospel (but he would never have said that piece aloud).
Fred Rogers grew up in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. His was the child of a wealthy family who intentionally chose to live and work among their neighbours instead of only hobnobbing with the other Latroube rich. Fred’s mother was well known for her generosity and extraordinary kindness. It was Fred’s mother who offered him words of comfort when he was afraid by saying: “look for the helpers. You will always find people helping.” These words grounded him all his life.
But the kindness Fred and his mother showed the world was not always reciprocated. As Long notes, Fred was a sickly, chubby kid and an easy target for bullies. And he was bullied – he was chased home from school by kids calling him “fat Freddie.” Instead of becoming bitter, Fred used those experiences shape his compassion and his desire to show kindness to the world. He wanted those children who felt unseen or unsafe to know that they weren’t alone and that they weren’t unloved.
From the very first time Mr. Rogers sand “It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood” and donned that trademark sweater, his goal was clear: to make sure everyone watching his show knew that they were loved, worthy, and capable. It wasn’t just a kids show, this was ministry.
Mr. Rogers lived that ministry in small, almost unnoticeable but powerful ways. For example, in the late 1960s when racism and racial tension was rampant in the United States, and segregation was the norm, including in swimming pools, Mr. Rogers invited Officer Clemmons – played by Francois Clemmons, a Black actor – to soak their feet together in a wading pool. A simple act – sitting barefoot together, side by side, sharing the cool water of the wading pool. This was Fred Rogers’ quiet protest against segregation – a wordless gospel message that every person belongs.
Years later, Rogers repeated this very same scene, intentionally, with Clemmons, knowing that the world needed to see it again. That the world needed a moment of hope in a divided world.
Hope through community, through neighbourliness. Hope through small gestures. Hope through love that refuses to draw lines.
In the book The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers, author Amy Hollingsworth describes how Rogers for people by name – on the hour, every hour – knowing that prayer changes the person being prayed for but also the one doing the praying. He once told Amy that every act of kindness “is an offering to the world,” and that this is how hope grows. Rogers didn’t believe hope was simply a feeling; he believed it was something we embody – that it is intrinsic hope.
Is this what our gospel meant when it calls on the listener to stay awake? Not anxious vigilance, waiting for the worst to happen, but hopeful attentiveness, staying awake to compassion, to justice, to the needs of neighbours. Awake to God showing up in the middle of everyday life unannounced and unexpected.
This is the hope of Advent, and friends, the world needs it.
Michael Long writes that Mister Rogers created a neighbourhood “that challenged the violent ways of the world by practicing gentleness.” He spoke openly and plainly about war, death, racism, anger and conflict – but always through a lens of peace. He believed that children deserved honesty and comfort, and openness. Peace, he believed, could be learned in small, steady, clear doses.
What would it feel like if we lived that way? Living out small, steady doses of peace, of hope, of love. What if we didn’t let fear and cynicism shape the words and choices we make, but let them be shaped by the hope that Isaiah envisioned – the hope that swords could be turned into plough blades, that war could be unlearned?
If we could do that, that maybe, we as people of faith, we might live with confidence that our actions reflect Jesus’ love. Maybe that would be us staying awake to Jesus’ presence, because we would see him in every neighbour.
The world is aching, yearning, for hope like this – for the words of love as spoken by Fred Rogers, by Jesus, by Isaiah. This is the hope that is nestled in our waiting for the baby Messiah. This is why we wait… with a hope rooted in love, made manifest in us as disciples of Christ who is coming and who is already here.
And so, with Fred Rogers, we pray the simplest prayer that he spoke each and every day, “Thank you, God.”
