It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor, would you be mine, could you be mine? I don’t know about any of you, but when I hear those lyrics, it immediately brings up good memories from my childhood. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was a show that I watched nearly every day as a child and I am grateful to have had Mister Rogers in my life, if only through television. So naturally, when the movie, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, came out several years ago, I was excited. It featured one of my favorite actors, Tom Hanks, playing one of my favorite people, Fred Rogers.
If you have not seen this beautiful story about Fred Rogers, I highly recommend it. It’s a powerful story of the transformative effect of genuine selfless love. The movie follows Lloyd Vogel, an investigative reporter sent to profile Fred Rogers. When he first meets Mister Rogers, Lloyd is not in a very good place in his personal life and is jaded about the prospect of doing such a “puff piece.” So he comes in cynically, looking for a way to find the “real” Fred Rogers behind the persona that everyone knew from his television series.
This film is great on so many levels, and one of the things it does really well is capture the way Fred Rogers paid attention to people when talking to them, showing that he really cared. Having watched interviews with the real Fred Rogers, I recognize that he had the ability to truly focus on the person interviewing him, attentive not only to their questions, but to them as persons. In fact, I read somewhere that Fred Rogers was notoriously difficult to interview, because he had a reputation for spending too much time trying to befriend the interviewer. In the movie, we see how Mr. Rogers’ growing friendship with this cynical reporter helps the reporter to have a change of heart.
One really beautiful scene in the movie shows Lloyd talking with Fred Rogers in a restaurant, and Lloyd mentions how he thinks Fred likes him because he is “broken.” He calls himself broken in a despairing way, as if he is broken beyond repair. But then Fred Rogers looks at him intently and invites him to do an exercise where they sit in silence for a minute and think of all the people who have loved them into being. Let’s do that together now.
In the movie, after the minute ends, Mr. Rogers says, “Thank you for doing that with me. I feel so much better.” And Lloyd smiles! I don’t know about all of you, but I feel so much better too!
Something powerful happens when we truly love another person for their own sake, willing the good for them without any agenda. I believe Fred Rogers, along with so many holy people throughout history, was a person who loved others in this way. This type of selfless love is what Jesus Christ Himself invites us and empowers us to give. In today’s Gospel, Jesus invites us to the very height of that love, the love of our enemies.
Loving our enemies was and always has been one of the high paradoxes of Christianity that makes it so challenging but also so attractive. Jesus presents us with the reality of a love that is even more powerful than hate, a love that refrains from responding to evil with evil. Jesus commands us, “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” The incredible thing about this awesome love is that it is possible for each of us as Christians because we have been given a share in the Cross of Jesus. On the Cross, Jesus looks at those who have put Him there, both those in His time and you and me, and says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” So when we make the sign of the Cross over ourselves during Mass and every time we pray, we recall how that love of Jesus on the Cross dwells within us and can shape our lives.
Love of our enemies only makes sense when we get out of our own way, which is one of the most basic tasks of the Christian life. Getting out of our own way means being open to the reality that we have first been infinitely and profoundly loved by God our Father. In spite of all of the ways we have been His enemies through our sins, He looks at each of us and says, “You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter.” Jesus tells us that when we love our enemies and do good to them, then we will be children of the Most High. The first step of loving our enemies is being self-forgetful enough to focus on the love of our Heavenly Father. Loving our enemies means allowing all the forgiveness and love that we receive from the Father as His children to flow through us, even to those who don’t deserve it. We don’t deserve the Father’s love, but He pours it out anyway. Our enemies don’t deserve our love, but we can show love, mercy and forgiveness to them anyway.
Allowing God the Father to empower us to love our enemies doesn’t mean that we have to feel good about them. Love means willing the good for another, which is beyond feeling. Willing the good for another means choosing not to hate them. Willing the good for them means mourning the sin that we recognize in their lives and praying that they will have a change of heart. Loving our enemies means being kind to them even if kindness isn’t returned.
Jesus points us to a love with no strings attached to it. So often our love for another person has strings attached. We will do good for so-and-so because we know they can do good for us. But that is not the type of love Jesus calls us to. He calls us to the type of love that stretches us, getting us out of the self-centered mindset that only looks to what will help me. And the beautiful secret is that when we love without strings attached, that is when we truly find ourselves. Giving ourselves away in love, especially toward our enemies, helps us become who God made us to be. This is because when we love in this way, we open our hearts to God’s love, which brought us into being from nothingness.
David’s behavior toward Saul in the Old Testament was a beautiful example of this selfless type of love of one’s enemy. David realized that Saul was the anointed King of Israel, that God loved him in spite of his obvious shortcomings. Thus, David refused to give into hatred of Saul by responding in hate, even passing up an opportunity to kill him. David’s love for Saul gave Saul the opportunity to have a deep change of heart. Unfortunately, it seems as though Saul never fully allowed this to happen. But that power was available to him because of David’s choice to love rather than hate.
Think back for a second on those who came into your mind during that minute of silence; those who have loved you into being. I would guess that many of them loved you even in those moments when you were their enemy, when you didn’t love them back, when you had nothing to offer them. Their love has made you the type of person you are right now. And their selfless love is a participation in the perfect selfless love of God which brought you into being from nothing! In the movie, Fred Rogers’ selfless love toward Lloyd – the reporter who came to him with bad intentions – helps to transform Lloyd’s heart. It turns his enemy into his friend. How beautiful would it be if we started loving the enemies in our lives in such a way that they started becoming our friends? This is a very real possibility when we open our hearts to the love Jesus invites us to in this Gospel. And think of how our relationships even with our friends would deepen if we started loving them without the strings that we too often attach to our love!
Let us pray for Jesus to touch our hearts today with His merciful, transforming love, so that we can be channels of that merciful love for others.
+ Father, thank you for the incredible love You offer us even when we turn against You. Jesus, thank you for the love You poured out for us on the Cross. Help us to open our hearts to Your merciful love so that it can flow through us to others. Holy Spirit, heal those wounds within us that keep us from more fully accepting Your love. We ask this through Christ, Our Lord. Amen. +