Rob Beamish reflects on the question, Won't you be my neighbour?
‘Won’t you be my neighbour?’
On 27 October 1986 the pilot episode of the Australian soap opera Neighbours was shown on BBC 1 and became an almost immediate success. At one stage daily UK viewing figures of around 16 million exceeded the then total population of Australia. It was a legitimate cultural phenomenon, and the story line and subsequent wedding of Scott and Charlene, aka Jason and Kylie, felt absurdly significant at the time.
The Neighbours pilot, 1986
Having a catchy theme song helped and the opening refrain ‘Neighbours. Everybody needs good neighbours’ is a classic earworm, perfectly summing up the ethos of the programme. At a push I could still have a good go at singing the whole song despite not having watched the show for at least twenty-five years.
Why was the show so popular and the song regrettably so unforgettable? In common with Cheers, and then later Friends, it tapped into our innate desire for community and connection. The story lines ebbed and flowed through a variety of human experiences, but at its heart it was all about interconnected community.
Some years earlier the Presbyterian minister Fred Rogers began a children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood which ran from 1968 to 2001 exploring the idea of what it is to be a good neighbour. This show became a touchstone for generations of American children as the unique blend of the real and make-believe created space to explore what it was to grow up in a changing and sometimes unfamiliar world. The 2018 documentary ‘Won’t you be my Neighbor?’ and the 2019 biopic A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, with Tom Hanks playing Rogers, shone a light for a whole new generation on what made his approach to educating children so challenging and effective.
Rogers spoke to children with emotional honesty and humility creating a world where kindness and understanding thrived. He took time and care to help kids understand that it was okay to feel angry, scared, or sad. He made emotional discourse normal and encouraged kids to express their feelings constructively and understand the feelings of others. The show was deliberately inclusive of all races and disabilities at a time when that was not always so, and the theme song gently challenged the viewer on what it was to be a neighbour to all.
It's a beautiful day in this neighbourhood A beautiful day for a neighbour Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
It's a neighbourly day in this beauty wood A neighbourly day for a beauty Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
I have always wanted to have a neighbour just like you I've always wanted to live in a neighbourhood with you.
So, let's make the most of this beautiful day Since we're together, we might as well say Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be my neighbour?
Won't you please, won't you please? Please, won't you be my neighbour? Neighbours are people who are close to us And friends are people who are close to our hearts I like to think of you as my neighbour and my friend.
Whilst Neighbours, Cheers and Friends all needed to create dramatic storylines to keep our attention, Rogers simply engaged children with the small dramas of everyday life, seeking to give them ways to navigate its complexity. He put it like this…
When I say it's you, I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.
Title card for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
When Jesus was asked to name the greatest commandment, he first stated that we should ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ However, he then followed this by declaring that all should ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ His connecting of loving God with loving others regardless of who they are would have been a surprise to many listening. The parable of the Good Samaritan where an injured man is helped by his enemy rather than his supposed allies was a direct answer to the question ‘who is my neighbour?’ and remains a pertinent challenge to us even today.
The current global Covid crisis has seen us comfort and support our neighbours in ways that we may have been too busy or preoccupied to do before. We were forced to slow down and the result was often uplifting and humbling as people went out of the way to help others no matter their respective walks of life or world views. There remains the challenge of addressing the global inequality in the approach to the crisis, and the fall-out, both economic and ethical, from our own UK wide response. But even with so much to consider I cannot get away from the question posed by Mister Rogers, ‘won’t you be my neighbour?’ His call for us to seek relationship with one another is rooted in the clarion call of Jesus for us to love God, ourselves, and each other. The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, put it this way,
Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.
This quote has been on my mind since I joined the school at the start of the Autumn term. It has been a great joy to follow in the footsteps of Revd Nick Sissons and to seek to build on all his years of faith service. The first half-term has been a busy and varied one but it has been a delight to join a community committed to creating space for all to work out what it is to love God, ourselves, and our neighbours. So, my challenge to myself and all of us as we continue to build relationships in these difficult times is to keep asking ‘won’t you be my neighbour?’
Reverend Dr Rob Beamish
Rob speaking at the Harvest Service this term
