Faith, Power, & Justice             Mardi Gras February 11, 2018                    Shelly Wilson

Football was a spiritual experience for me once, but not here, I’m sorry to say, at least not yet. It was in New Orleans, after Katrina. The Saints weren’t really marching in, before that. Future uncertain, seasons lackluster, fan base diminishing. But after the storm, when there was no shortage of heroes, the team became iconic—the destroyed Super Dome a place to try to reclaim, the players philanthropists raising tons of money to help those who’d lost everything, and against all odds, the team began to win and the tickets began to sell out.

I was down there at last, not just for demolition and rehab-ing houses, but for a business meeting like a regular place that was alive. At last. It was January 2010. The rebuilding of the city, then and now, stretching on for years. It felt good to walk down a regular street with sidewalks and restaurants and lights and heat on, where life had come back after so much death. After 8 hours in a hotel conference room, my friends and I escaped to a tiny dark-paneled establishment with a friendly fire place. The bar was packed to the gills with gold and black jerseys worn by all kinds of folks. On the widescreen was the game and all around it the room crackled with excitement. Strangers chattered to one another, people asked us where we were from, smells of frying shrimp snacks and scents of the dark, hoppy beers and the fresh cold air on the coats of newcomers packing the room and the talk was of the Saints and the game and the hope tasted good. The Saints ran away with it—defeating the Arizona Cardinals by a big margin, but it was the cheering I remember, the tears, and the hugs and the high-fives from strangers, the electric hope, the warmth of community together, the scents of life and the sacred possibilities of resiliency. Such a simple afternoon. It was only a game, only it wasn’t… only a game.

Still, I guess, for many people, the storm will always be central when they think of New Orleans, the shame and the sorrow and the tragedy of all who died. Right afterward, some people argued that the music had died for good, that the city would keep on being the big uneasy and there’d be no Mardi Gras, not ever again.

But what I know in my heart and from living through all we live through in any given year is this: the spiritual story of us is always all this joy, all this sorrow, all this promise, all this pain. You know that. I know that. It is the spiritual lesson of Ecclesiastes and Pete Seeger, who wrote the musical version–to everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to mourn and a time to dance… We need Mardi Gras and we need Lent. We cannot stop the music because we cannot stop the weeks when we have five funerals in a row of church members we love. We cannot stop the music because we cannot completely distract from the drone of injustice and hatred spewing out and assailing our ears and souls. We cannot stop the music because we cannot protect our children or our parents or our friends or ourselves from the pain of disappointment or disease or aging, and so we need Mardi Gras. We need feasting to prepare us for the times of fasting, for the valley of the shadow.
In the old liturgies the day before Ash Wednesday is not called Mardi Gras, but Shrove Tuesday and–fun fact–there is also a Shrove Sunday, today, and Shrove Monday, tomorrow. “Shrove” means absolution—to set aside time for self-examination, for considering the direction our lives are going, for making amends, and to move courageously in new directions so that spiritual growth and outward deeds of hope and justice can be accomplished. It is believed by some, that this spiritual process is enhanced by abstinence from rich foods and other distractions, starting Ash Wednesday and continuing through Lent until the biggest party of all happens on Easter Day.

This time of Shrovetide or Mardi Gras before Lent begins is known in many countries as “Carnival” which literally means, “to leave the meat.” And cheese and eggs and chocolate and other debaucheries for Lent, which by the way, is good health advice, no matter, but also, don’t waste food says the old tradition, so eat it all up from Sunday through Tuesday before Ash Wednesday—thus, the association in many places with pancakes that will use up milk and eggs, though the traditions of what is considered rich food to gorge on today vary according to place you live. I’m partial to the pancake tradition of Ireland myself or to the Spanish dia de la tortilla where everyone gobbles giant omelets, as opposed to an old Estonian tradition where they load up on some jam filled buns and green pea soup and then bundle up for some downhill sledding, a combo that would not work well for me.

In these days in which there is so much more to be done to live justly ourselves, to bring justice to our world, when there is so much suffering and pain, it is essential to remember the tri colors of Mardi Gras–to hold on to faith and to live into and out of our power to work for justice. And to remember to renew our spirits and to celebrate that, as human beings, we are made for beauty and for fun, to make and to hear soulful music, to march in the parade of life and death, maybe playing the music in the first line, maybe mourning the necessary losses, maybe dancing in the second line. To smell, to taste, to share, and to celebrate our blessings—to revel for a time, to renew our souls and to reorient our spirits, to help us remember who we are and how we will get through together. I believe we need the traditions of this time of year–the joy of this music that our Strutters have brought–the colors of New Orleans and other places of death and resurrection, the customs of deliciousness and feasting.

And as Lent approaches, and as we gather on this Ash Wednesday, our exhausted souls will also need the silence of the candlelit labyrinth, the taste of the bread and the wine, the gentle touch of the ashes on our foreheads and the quiet voice that will say, “Remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Remember your mortality and so, show up for the feast that is your life now. Remember all this joy, all this sorrow. Remember Katrina, remember the games when we won, remember those we have lost, remember the love we share between us that cannot be defeated by death. And every time you eat this bread and drink this wine, every time you care for the least of these, remember me, said the Christ, for wherever you gather and celebrate and are fully alive, I am with you, too.

Amen.