Another fantastic night on board Nomadic on Sunday – a great crowd, lovely hymns, some food for thought and food for the soul.  And it was the exact anniversary of the refurbished ship’s grand opening to the public last year (so yes, ‘Happy Birthday’ was sungen)

As part of our service, Nomadic guides Maggie and Gayle brought us through the different levels of the ship (complete with dressing-up opportunities), from first to second to third class (with a glimpse of the crew toiling away down in the bilges) to bring to life the challenge to treat others as we would like to be treated.

You can tell I was inspired by getting ready for Nomadic – that challenge was also the theme of Thought For The Day on Radio Ulster on Sunday morning (I am your Thinker For The Day at 7:55am every Sunday in June) – you can listen here (beginning at 55:00) or read it here:

There’s a fantastic black-and-white photograph from 1911 showing the shipyard men streaming down the Queens Road on their way home for tea. In the distance you can just make out the ghostly outline of Titanic standing under the gantries, and in the foreground you can see the men hurrying past the completed SS Nomadic, the little tender ship built to serve the Titanic.

A hundred years later, you can place yourself exactly in that scene. Traffic still streams down the Queens Road at tea time. Titanic Belfast now stands where Titanic once stood. And the Nomadic is back in pretty much exactly the same place, 100 years later

I wonder what it was like for all those black-and-white men in their flat caps to work amidst the luxury of the ships they were building. In the grimy deafening bedlam of the yard they were working on ballrooms and turkish baths and Parisian cafes to fit out the floating palaces they were building. The meeting of those two worlds, the richest and poorest of 1912 society, can also be seen on the ships themselves. Take a tour of the Nomadic and you’ll see the artfully engraved panelling and sumptuous fittings of first class just a deck above the bare metal walls of the third class section – an empty box without even a seat or shred of comfort.

Walk up to the slipways where Titanic’s sister the Olympic once stood and you can see the division between rich and poor spelt out even more clearly. Sections of grass and decking on the slipway mark out the percentage of those who were lost and those who were saved in each class in the Titanic disaster, and as you walk from first to second to third class the areas of grass – those who were lost – get bigger and bigger.

The largest section of grass represents the crew – almost half of those who perished on Titanic were crewmembers, slaving away below decks to keep the lights burning and pumps running as long as they could.

It’s a stark reminder of the ‘classism’ of 1912 society. When it came to the crunch, people were treated as more or less deserving of a place on a lifeboat because of their class. But placing ourselves in the scene 100 years later, are we really any better? Any ‘ism’ – classism, racism, sexism, ageism, sectarianism – is an excuse to treat someone differently to yourself, to suggest that they are less deserving, because of how they are different.

It reminds me how profoundly countercultural Jesus was when he challenged us to love our neighbours as ourselves. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, he identified the neighbour as the most unexpected candidate, the one who was different. When the crunch comes, when the surface is scratched, is there anyone or any group who I will push aside for a place on the last lifeboat? Or am I ready to genuinely treat others as I would want to be treated myself?