Carnival: Shrove Tuesday 2015 (Mark 10:35-45)

Today is a day of disruption.

We stand on the edge of the Lenten wilderness, forty days of fasting and desolation ahead. We may be heading towards the resurrection, but to get there we have to go through temptation and betrayal, conspiracies and false hopes, the violence of the Cross and the silence of the tomb. Easter is hard won.

We have Pancake Day in the UK, using up what’s left in cupboards. Elsewhere, however, things are more colourful; there’s music and dancing and colour; there’s carnival, in other words, and while there’s something subversive and transgressive about this, it’s also an echo of an upside down Kingdom.

After all, one of the themes of carnival is inversion – peasants become kings for the day, the normal rules can be suspended. This can be limited to taboo-breaking if you want, but there’s something deeper behind this, something that riffs on the words of Jesus:

“Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

We don’t always see this around us – kings aren’t servants, they’re politicians and businessmen, celebrities and sports stars. Jesus idea of kingship seems far away.

But that upside-down Kingdom was inaugerated with the Resurrection, and so while it may not always be visible, it is already here. It’s dotted throughout Lent – the mock military procession of Palm Sunday, the foot washing of Maundy Thursday, the victory-through-horror of Good Friday. If Carnival reminds us that another world is possible, then maybe it also serves to remind us that another world is already here.

If you want to really reflect Christ, you need to turn you hierarchy upside-down; don’t pursue riches or power or self; raise up the downtrodden, honour the marginalised, serve rather than be served. They may think you a fool but you’ll be dancing in Christ’s Carnival.