When Helping Someone Costs You SomethingMost of us would stop to help someone. The harder question is what we do when stopping costs us something. About this episodeA man is robbed and left half dead on a notorious mountain road. Two respectable religious men walk past him. The person who stops is a member of the one ethnic group his community has hated for the better part of a thousand years. This week, Ade Birkby takes us on a journey through Luke 10, looking at why the priest and the Levite kept walking, what made the Samaritan's decision so scandalous, and what it actually cost him. Key points from Ade's talkTribalism is normal, which is what makes it hard to spot Human beings are wired for belonging. We find our identity in a group, and once we are in it we naturally favour, trust and forgive the people inside it. The flip side is that we start viewing people outside it with suspicion. Ade pointed to political loyalty passed down through families, to football rivalries in a city like Liverpool, and to the Brexit years, when a University of Bath study found tribalism scaling on social media in a way it never had before. Remainers were painted as arrogant elitists. Leavers were painted as ignorant and uneducated. Very little of it was about policy. Tribalism is not all bad. It builds mutual support, teamwork and strong social networks. The trouble is that it usually stops at the edge of the tribe. The Path of Blood The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a seventeen-mile mountain pass dropping around 3,000 feet, flanked on both sides by limestone caves. Perfect ambush country. In that culture it had a nickname, too. The Path of Blood, because of how often travellers were jumped on it. Everyone hearing the parable would have known exactly what kind of road Jesus was describing. Why the priest and the Levite kept walking Under Jewish law, touching a corpse made you unclean. For a priest or a Levite that wasn't just a technicality. It meant being barred from temple duty until they had been through a long and expensive purification ritual. From a distance, a man beaten and left half dead looks a lot like a dead man - which explains what was going through their minds (but it doesn't excuse them). Nine hundred years of hatred in one word Around 930 BC a dispute over heavy taxes split the kingdom of Israel, ten tribes to the north and two in the south. In 722 BC the Assyrians conquered the north, scattered most of the population, and those who remained intermarried with the Assyrians. Their descendants became the Samaritans. The Jews regarded them as half-breeds who had corrupted the bloodline. The Samaritans built a rival temple on Mount Gerizim, and in 128 BC a Jewish king destroyed it. A few years before Jesus was born, a group of Samaritans scattered human bones across the temple courtyard in Jerusalem during Passover. That is the backstory sitting behind the word Samaritan. Jesus was not choosing a neutral stranger for His hero. He was choosing the person His audience would least want to owe anything to. It started as a trap An expert in the law stands up to test Jesus, hoping to expose a flaw in His theology. Jesus answers the question with a question, which puts the man in the position of answering himself. By the time he asks "and who is my neighbour?", he is on the back foot and trying to save face. Jesus uses the parable to move the whole thing off legal ground and onto the question of mercy. The three things it cost the Samaritan He stopped, and stopping was dangerous. Samaritans also kept the first five books of the law, so touching a body carried the same risk of uncleanness for him. On top of that, lingering on the Path of Blood meant he could be attacked himself while kneeling over someone else.He met the need out of his own pocket. Bandages, oil, wine, time, his donkey, a journey interrupted. He was travelling a treacherous road, which suggests he had somewhere to be, and he gave all of it up.He covered a need that had not happened yet. He paid the innkeeper in advance and promised to come back and settle whatever else was owed. Ade lingered on Galatians 6:2, "carry each other's burdens". Carrying implies distance and sustained effort. It is not pick it up and put it down. Love is not the same as like Leviticus tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves. Ade's point is that we are told to love our neighbour, not to like them. Jesus then raises it further in John 13:34, love one another as I have loved you, because human self-love is flawed and God's love is not. Which one are we Ade turned the camera round at the end. Like the priest and the Levite, are we making ourselves too busy to help? Are we using other responsibilities to let ourselves off the hook? He was honest that he can look back at his own life and see both. His challenge for the week ahead was simple. Is there something you could do for someone outside your tribe that would be of genuine benefit to them? The Bible passageLuke 10:25-37 — An expert in the law asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, and then, wanting to justify himself, asks who counts as his neighbour. Jesus tells him about a man attacked by robbers on the Jericho road. A priest and a Levite both pass by on the other side. A Samaritan stops, treats his wounds, puts him on his own donkey, takes him to an inn and pays for his care. Jesus asks which of the three was a neighbour, and then tells him to go and do the same. Other verses referencedGalatians 6:2 — Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.Galatians 6:9 — Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.Galatians 3:28 — There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.1 Corinthians 9:22-23 — I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.1 Corinthians 12 — One body, many parts. Every part has a different function and the body needs all of them.Leviticus 19:18 — Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge, but love your neighbour as yourself.John 13:34 — A new command I give you. Love one another as I have loved you.Romans 8 — God is at work changing us into the likeness of Jesus. Quotes from the talk"We're not taught to like our neighbour, we're taught to love them." — Ade Birkby"This is milk. This is simple. This is something we can read once and do minutes after." — Ade Birkby"It's the original pay it forward story." — Ade BirkbyConversation Street highlightsCarrying a burden is not the same as an act of kindness Mike Harris picked up the Galatians line about carrying each other's burdens and put a number on it. Imagine saying to someone, you have got £100,000 left on your mortgage, I am taking £50,000 of it onto mine and I will carry it for the next thirty years. That is bearing a burden. Most of what we call kindness is given out of surplus, on a good day, when we have the energy. Paul is describing something else entirely. Dan Orange said the detail that surprised him was that the Samaritan put his body on the line, not just his time and money. He was on the same dangerous road, and he stayed there. What if you are already busy doing what God asked you to do Sharon asked how you balance being busy with the things you have genuinely been called to do. Ade took it on. Whatever the task is, the law we are working to is still love God and love your neighbour. There is a balance to find, because you cannot stop for every single person, but you also cannot shut yourself off until only the tasks in front of you exist. He added an uncomfortable observation from decades in churches. If you are lucky, around ten per cent of people do ninety-nine per cent of the jobs. If more people shared the load, the busy ones would have room to stop. Receiving help is harder than giving it This was the thread the community drove the conversation towards, and it went somewhere honest. Alicia said she sometimes finds it easier to do things for people outside her tribe, and that when help comes her way she gets hung up on whether she deserves it. Ellis noticed that the injured man had to let a rival help him, and made the point that giving is easier because you stay in control, whereas receiving means depending on someone who has good intentions but might not know what they are doing. Ellie raised the worry underneath all of it, that accepting help leaves you dependent on the person who gave it, and that sometimes you end up feeling like a duty. Ade recognised it from the other side. As an English kid growing up in Ireland in the eighties, he was the black sheep, and he still finds it easier to help people he does not know, because they do not judge him and they do not nitpick. Mike's take was that receiving well means accepting that you do not deserve it and that it is a gift. The moment you think you have earned it, it comes down to whether you are having a good day or a bad one. He was open about his own pride getting in the way, that he does not like being in anyone's debt, which is...
