By Amy Butler
It happens every year, and on the scale of church conflict it can only be compared to an adjustment of the coffee-hour punch recipe without a full congregational vote of approval. Without fail, every single Lent somebody gets upset that the Alleluias have disappeared.
It usually takes a few weeks until someone notices, but invariably somebody asks why we’re not singing the Alleluia after the Gospel reading anymore. It’s as if there has been a horrible, weeks-long typo in the bulletin that nobody has noticed.
I always say: “It’s Lent. We don’t sing Alleluia during Lent.”
In recent years the sudden absence of the Alleluias in worship has become something of a joke around here, but you’d be surprised at the outrage. Every Lent we hear comments ranging from “but I miss the Alleluias!” to “that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
Take it up with church tradition, I say every year. Leaving out the Alleluias during Lent is one way — along with changing the colors in the sanctuary and the vestments of the pastors — that we mark the shifting liturgical season.
During Lent we also do other things like making time for confession in our worship services and reading and reflecting on Psalms of lament. Since Alleluia is the biblical song the angels sang — the happiest and most joy-filled exclamation we could offer — we leave it out during Lent in order to help us summon the appropriate somber and solemn care.
It’s not just us. Christians of all stripes from all over the world have been doing the same for hundreds of years. During Lent joyful Alleluias get nixed in a trade for repentance, contrition and turning our lives to follow the way of Jesus more closely.
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Nevertheless, I know it will come up again this Lent, as it always does. So this year we’re heading the question off at the pass the best way I know how: in the children’s sermon.
Thanks to a great idea borrowed from a colleague, on the first Sunday of Lent the kids will each get purple slips of paper marked “Alleluia!” We’ll talk with the children (and hope the adults are listening) about how we sing and say Alleluia in church. We’ll discuss the meaning of Lent. Then we’ll put all of our Alleluias in a special box, where we’ll save them for Easter Sunday, for a big, huge, wonderful Alleluia after Lent is done. We’ll put the box over near the piano, where the choir can watch the Alleluias for the next few weeks until we need them again on Easter.
With this strategy I’m pretty sure the kids will get the message about the Alleluias. I am betting, however, that a few weeks into Lent I’ll hear from one of the adults, “Hey Pastor, how come we aren’t singing the Alleluia in church these days?”
This year I’m looking forward to skipping the normal routine and just answering “Oh, the Alleluias? They’re just over there by the choir. In a box.”