In December 2019, the motion picture, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” staring Tom Hanks as beloved television icon Fred Rogers made its debut. Rogers was the creator, showrunner, and host of the preschool television series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which ran from 1968-2001.

As a musician, puppeteer, writer, and producer, Fred Rogers’ gentle demeanor brought beautiful simplicity through nurturing interactions with young children to over 30 years of viewers. His enigmatic theme song, from which the motion picture takes its title, includes the following lines, which many adults can recall:

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, 

A beautiful day for a neighbor,

Would you be mine?

Could you be mine?

Fred Rogers was also a Presbyterian minister, and it’s likely those lines were inspired by another story of a neighbor.

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), Jesus asked the expert in law, in effect, “Who is your neighbor?”

It’s almost 2020, and the question remains, “Who is our neighbor?”

From the television neighborhoods of Beaver Cleaver and Andy Taylor, to Mr. Rogers, to Sam and Diane, to Jerry and Kramer, to Rachel and Monica and Phoebe and Chandler and Joey, to Phil and Claire, to Jack and Rebecca and Randall and Kate, it’s a question that mainly depicts an unfulfilled longing for a neighborhood that actually works.

It occurs to me that this is not a neighborhood;

It is only a collection of unconnected individuals.

Philip Langdon, A Better Place to Live

Long gone are the days where kids played in the yards and streets all day “till the street lights came on” and where neighbors talked across fences or on front porches.

It seems as if the people we live closest to appear only briefly when the car leaves the garage in the morning and comes back in the evening. 

It seems as if the idea of “neighborhood” has disappeared in reality if not actuality, and with it the idea of knowing for, and caring for, neighbors.

As Lance Ford and Brad Brisco write in Next Door as in Heaven:

What does all this neighborhood business have to do with the gospel? As Jesus followers – people of the Good News – we follow the one who said the most important commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We have a tremendous opportunity before us: to take notice and help resurrect rich relationship in our neighborhoods.

If anyone should “neighbor” differently, it should be us.

According to Leonard Sweet, if we really want to learn someone’s story, sitting down at the table and breaking bread together is the best way to start.

This issue of SUMS Remix looks at solutions that will help you see the importance of your “table” as a place of disciplemaking. The solutions include: 

• Set the tables in your life
• Share the table with others
• Practice table grace

A closing quote, by Rosaria Butterfield, author of The Gospel Comes with a House Key, seems most appropriate:

Radical, ordinary hospitality brings the gospel to our lost friends and neighbors. Such hospitality sees our homes as not our own, but as God’s tools for the furtherance of his kingdom as we welcome those who look, think believe, and act differently from us into our everyday, sometimes messy lives – helping them see what true Christian faith really looks like.  

SUMS Remix 134, released December 2019

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