Matthew 22.34-40 Acts 2.

37-47 They say that when the Titanic hit the iceberg there was hardly enough vibration to cause a ripple across your champagne. Yet the future was already sealed and would shortly be delivered. Or to use another metaphor - the writing was on the wall. Well I started to read similar writing when we put down the caravan steadies in Birmingham a few Mondays ago. For, when we switched on the TV, we found that there was a riot going on just a few miles away. From the screen it was clear a great many people were discovering something pretty frightening. In fact, there was more than ripple going through their lives. Because , just as the benighted people New Orleans found after hurricane Katrina, they were realising the hard way that the veneer of civilisation spreads mighty thin above abyss of lawlessness. For that night the whole of Britain was faced with a mob without just cause or discernable complaint. And, as a result, we all had difficulty seeing where it would stop. In truth, the wall writing was suggesting the whole side was being ripped out of societys frail vessel. Yet none of this should surprise us, for even in our apparently well regulated area, we see similar if less violent rents in order. You just need to look at the behaviour in our shops and on our roads to realise that something is amiss in all parts of our nation. Indeed, this attitude has been growing for many years. And it is an arrogant selfishness. It is the valuing of another in terms of what they have or get in their pay packet. It is a almost ruthless acquisition no matter who it disadvantaged. Put most directly there is an increasing mentality that I am entitled to do anything or have anything if I want it. Those appalling riots then, in the cities of England of a few weeks ago, were only showing the ultimate manifestation of this spirit of modern British.

Yet this type of devil has always been loose in human society. Since this was the very spirit of me first me now that Christ warns against when he gave us the greatest commandment. When he said to love your neighbour as yourself. When he implied we should wish for our neighbour as ourselves. We indeed must respect our neighbour as ourselves. Since that alone returns the love that Christ first showed for us. Or as Lisa K. Phan wrote: I had to learn to love the Lord My will fought long His great command. Though I saw merit in His word, I felt abandoned by His hand. My pouting soul, by grace, is free; For Truth revealed Loves selfless length And spoke that Christ is loving me With all His heart, might, mind, and strength.

So what is to be done? Where do we start to change this very unattractive world we are more and more encountering. How we as a Christian Community plan to turn the lumbering momentum of this titanic self centeredness? Well let us commence with something we can do relatively simply. Something we can be certain that is likely to yield surer and quicker results. And it was the very solution hit on by the earliest Christians. It was the idea of a citadel against the perils of their society. Because they knew that they were not strong enough to conquer the Jewish establishment and utterly puny against the momentum of the Roman empire. So they made themselves into a safe haven. The made their tiny community into a life boat in a society sinking all around them. And in time this protected

zone, this wholesome refuge, got another name and that name was church. Now dont think for a second, this first Christian fortress was not a soviet commune. No - it was simply a place where everyone was respected, everyone was valued and where everyone had the right rights and responsible responsibilities. And if that is a good starting point - how do we here pick up their baton? How to we make our own Frontier fort? When do we build a new bastion? Well, let me let you into a secret we already have. For last Saturday, we opened our new youth club. And its sole purpose is to offer a safe place for teenagers to meet and relax. Put another way, it is a sanctuary against some of the very attractive but dark forces that are out there. It is indeed a new foundation stone of a wider refuge for young and old, believer and unbeliever, for rich and poor. It is in truth the first stirrings that better land of which Tariq Jahan who lost one his sons in the riots begged for when he plead: "I believe that people can stay calm. If you look around here, there are black, brown, white and yellow people, they are all my community. We live together and we can stay together. Yet even with a plan and an excellent start, it is easy to slip into despondency. For surely the task saving societys juggernaut is too great. Well, back to our first Christian fortress community. Of them we can say they did good! For only a few hundred years, they made the Roman Empire their own. They brought the truly wholesome Jewish morality out into a wider world. In truth they did indeed forge a new civilisation. Let us then be like them let us be like the castellated cities of believers who weathered the dark ages, let us be like the bishop who went amongst the

London rioters and begged them to allow the injured through. Moreover, let us begin to build with the golden commandment here. For that will throw wider walls around this place of safety, this place of goodness and this place of mutual respecting. That will give a stronger base for the steering our community away from danger. And that will attract, in the weeks ahead, all who need a stout sanctuary from the foundering of even the biggest vanities. Amen HYMN..