July 13, 2025

Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus

“Won't You Be My Neighbor?"

by Rev. Trip Porch

July 13, 2025                                                                                                                                                                Based on Luke 10:25–37

"Won’t you be my neighbor?”
If I say those words, I know almost everyone in the room is transported to the same place. That moment that played out at the beginning of every single episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Fred Rogers comes through the door singing gently. He takes off his dress shoes and puts on sneakers. Swaps out his blazer for his iconic cardigan. 
And then he looks straight into the camera straight into the eyes of whoever was watching, young or old and asks them…
"Won’t you be my neighbor?"
It’s a question that sounds almost too simple, too sweet to take seriously. But Fred Rogers knew exactly what he was asking.
He wasn’t asking, "Do you live on my block?" or "Do you look like me?" or "Did you vote like me?"
He wasn’t interested in any of the lines we draw around our lives. He was inviting each and every person, no matter their background, no matter how they arrived at the television that day, into a relationship of kindness, trust, mutuality and shared humanity.
"Won’t you be my neighbor?”
When we moved into our neighborhood it was the pandemic, and everyone was spending a lot of time out of the house on walks. We did the same, but we also spent a lot of time out on our front porch. We met almost all our neighbors that way, which was a gift.
Twice a day we saw two older men, in their upper 80s probably walking together. We’d come to meet them and learn they were a couple that lived a block away. That they’d been together for 60 years and spent most of that time in the same house.  
Two years ago, we started to notice that on the daily walks only one would be walking… consistently alone and clearly saddened. We learned his partner had gotten sick, and ultimately passed.
Right away, something changed. His long-time neighbors rallied around him. Each day we’d still see him going for a walk, but now each day, he was accompanied by a different neighbor. Walking with him, being a friend, giving him space to grieve, helping him not feel so alone.
“Won’t you be my neighbor?”



In today’s scripture, Jesus gets asked a different version of this question. A lawyer — an expert in religious law — stands up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asks, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus, as he so often does, answers with a question: "What is written in the law? What do you read there?"
The lawyer responds, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself."
"Exactly," Jesus says. "Do this and you will live."
But the lawyer, maybe wanting to justify himself, maybe wanting to corner Jesus pushes further. "And who is my neighbor?"
That’s when Jesus tells the story. You know it well. A man beaten, left for dead on the side of the road. Two religious leaders, folks who are pious professionals a priest and a Levite, people who you’d expect to do the right thing, they see the man suffering and cross to the other side of the road. Maybe they had justifiable reasons: purity laws, safety concerns, busy schedules. But they keep walking.
And then comes the Samaritan — the foreign outsider, the one despised and distrusted, the one no "respectable" person would expect to help. He sees the beaten man, and this despicable outsider is moved with compassion, and goes to him. He binds up his wounds, carries him to an inn, and even pays for his care.
"Which of these three," Jesus asks, "was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"
The lawyer answers, "The one who showed him mercy."
"Go and do likewise," Jesus says.
It turns out that in God’s kingdom, neighbor isn’t a noun about geography or proximity. Neighbor is a verb. Neighboring is something you do. You neighbor when you seek relationship with people. You neighbor when you show mercy and kindness, you neighbor when you go the extra mile. You can neighbor without being physically neighbors, you can neighbor to folks outside of your community.
In our time, it seems people are still asking "Who is my neighbor?" 
Like the lawyer in the story, the question is still along the lines of who is worthy of my love?
People that live with me? People in my neighborhood?
People ask the question and it’s clear they have an obvious boundary drawn for who their neighbor can be. I wonder how Jesus would respond today when we have headlines daily of people detained at grocery stores by undercover ICE agents, families torn apart by deportation orders, entire communities of citizens living in fear of being labeled "illegal" or "alien." We have endless rhetoric about outsiders — who belongs and who doesn’t. It’s clear a narrative is trying to be built that tells people who is your neighbor and who is not. Even in the language used repeatedly to dehumanize… refusing to refer to folks as people, and instead using the noun… illegals or criminals.
There’s a story that came out recently from Kennett, Missouri — a small farming town nestled in the southeastern corner of the state, the kind of place where nearly everyone knows each other and nearly everyone voted the same way.
For 20 years, a woman named Ming Li Hui — known to everyone simply as Carol — had quietly built a life in Kennett. She was a fixture at John’s Waffle and Pancake House, where she worked the early morning shift. Carol served up pecan waffles and hugs in equal measure. She read leftover newspapers to improve her English. She raised three kids, went to Sunday Mass, and cheered from the bleachers at Little League games.
Then one day, Carol didn’t show up for work. And in a town where everyone knows everyone, people noticed. It turned out she’d been summoned to an immigration office in St. Louis, where she was arrested and detained for overstaying a decades-old tourist visa. She faced immediate deportation to Hong Kong — a place she hadn’t lived in 20 years, a place where her children had never lived at all.
The people of Kennett were stunned. They may have supported immigration crackdowns in theory — but this was Carol. This was someone they loved. This was their neighbor.
Her church organized prayer vigils. The diner hosted a “Carol Day” fundraiser, raising nearly $20,000. Petitions sat on every table next to ketchup bottles and jelly packets. People wore “Bring Carol Home” t-shirts. Her name appeared on prayer lists and church bulletins.
People who had once supported mass deportations — who didn’t think twice about immigration policy — were suddenly faced with its human cost, right at their breakfast counter. One woman said “I voted for Trump… but no one voted to deport moms.”
Carol, speaking from jail, was shocked by the outpouring of support. “I didn’t know they loved me,” she said.
And then — remarkably — the village made a way. Through the pressure and prayers of her community, Carol was released from jail under a temporary humanitarian program that grants safe haven to some immigrants from Hong Kong. It’s not a permanent solution, but it was enough to bring her home.
On the night of her return, one of her neighbors drove four hours to pick her up. When Carol pulled into the diner parking lot at 9 p.m., dozens of people were waiting. Her kids were there. Her co-workers. Her customers. Her community.
There were hugs and cheers and tears. And for a moment, something holy happened in that parking lot.
Because the people of Kennett had answered the question Jesus asked: 
“Which of these was a neighbor?”
They didn’t just love Carol with their thoughts and prayers. They crossed the road. They stood by her. They brought her home.
If we are to still take Jesus seriously today, and I think we should, we have to see that it is not our paperwork, our zip code, our nationality, or our family tree that makes us neighbors. It is our willingness to show mercy. To cross the road towards suffering when it would be easier to look away. To bind up wounds when it would be simpler to walk on by.
Jesus is asked a simple question: Who is my neighbor? 
And Jesus flips the question on its head. 
The lawyer wants to know the minimum standard for belonging to a community: 
             "Who qualifies as my neighbor?" 
But Jesus asks him, "Will you be a neighbor?"
Will you step across the lines? Will you make space in your life and heart for someone who might be different from you?
Fred Rogers wasn’t naive. He knew there was fear and violence and loneliness and hate in the world. But he chose to believe that kindness could make a neighborhood out of strangers. He chose to believe that mercy could bind us together in ways that laws and borders never could.
"Won’t you be my neighbor?"
Today, we are invited to answer that question — with our lives.
So let’s put on our metaphorical cardigans and sneakers. Let’s roll up our sleeves and go out into the world as neighbors. Let’s show mercy to the weary, compassion to the stranger, love to the outsider.
Because in God’s eyes, the neighborhood has no fences.
"Go and do likewise," Jesus says.
Amen.

WE GATHER IN AWE AND PRAISE

PRELUDE                                                                      “ Be Thou My Vision”                                       arr. Brad Jacobsen                    

INTROIT                               “This is the Day”                                                       Pablo Sosa

WELCOME                                                                    Rev. Trip Porch

One: This is the day that the Lord has made

All: Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

*CALL TO WORSHIP

One: God calls us to love with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

All: And to love our neighbors as ourselves.

One: Not just those who live nearby, but all people who are deserving of mercy and compassion.

All: We come ready to cross the road and share God's love.

        Let us worship God, the One who makes us neighbors to one another.

*HYMN  203                        “Jesu, Jesu, Fill Us with Your Love”                                     CHEREPONI

*PRAYER OF CONFESSION                                                                                             Rebekah Gayley       

Merciful God, who knows no boundary. We confess that we have limited the expansiveness of your love. We have not always loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have ignored suffering, avoided those who are different, and chosen comfort over compassion. We have drawn lines of who belongs and who does not. Forgive us, heal us, and give us the courage to cross roads and show mercy, just as you have shown mercy to us. Amen.

*ASSURANCE OF PARDON

*REASPONSE OF PRAISE 659         “Know That God Is Good”                           MUNGU NI MWEMA

*PASSING OF THE PEACE                                       

     One:   The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,

     All:      And also with you.

WE LISTEN FOR GOD’S WORD

ANTHEM                              “Be Thou My Vision”                                          arr. Alice Parker

CHILDREN’S MESSAGE Trip Porch

PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION 

SCRIPTURE  Luke 10:25-37   MSG

Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus.

“Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”

 He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”

 He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”

 “Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”

Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”

Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.

 “A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying,

‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’

 “What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?”

 “The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded.

Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”

Holy Wisdom, Holy Word  

Thanks be to God

SERMON                                                                                              Rev. Trip Porch

   WE RESPOND TO GOD’S WORD

*HYMN 762                                “When the Poor Ones”    EL CAMINO

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE  

TIME OF OFFERING   online giving is available at  www. indianolapres.org/give  

OFFERTORY                                   “Microlude No. 1”                                Daniel E. Gawthrop

*OFFERTORY RESPONSE 648   “Thankful Hearts and Voices Raise”              THANKFUL HEARTS

*PRAYER OF DEDICATION

Generous God, Take these gifts and use them to heal wounds, lift up the lowly, and bring your love to life in this world. Help us to give not only our money, but also our hearts, our hands, and our lives. Make us true neighbors in all we do. Amen. 

*HYMN 747                              “The Lord Now Sends Us Forth”                                       ENVIADO 

TIME OF COMMUNITY SHARING

CHARGE & BENEDICTION

POSTLUDE       Three Waltzes from “36 Originaltanze, Op. 9, D. 365”              Franz Schubert

Acknowledgments: Unless otherwise indicated, all texts and music are printed and broadcast under OneLicense.net license #A-702452