{"id":4218,"date":"2018-02-16T10:19:26","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T16:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/?p=4218"},"modified":"2018-02-16T07:41:16","modified_gmt":"2018-02-16T13:41:16","slug":"burying-the-alleluia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/burying-the-alleluia\/","title":{"rendered":"Burying the Alleluia for Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"

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After a lifetime of Sundays, worship can seem so rote, so mechanical. Sermon lessons blend together, and we can float through liturgy on autopilot. But as I was reminded this weekend, once in a while something as simple as a children\u2019s sermon can catch us off-guard, grab us, and force us to pay closer attention.<\/p>\n

This Transfiguration Sunday, in preparation for Lent, the congregation I was with watched as the pastor gathered the children in front of the altar. Posted on the railings were hand-written signs proclaiming \u201cAlleluia.\u201d The pastor clutched her guitar while talking with the children about the meaning of the word and asked them about when they had heard it before in worship. Then she explained what would happen this week, when \u201cAlleluia\u201d is excised from our sacred speech as we journey through Lent.<\/p>\n

She presented them with a box and invited them to remove the signs and place them therein. Then, she rose and began strumming an \u201cAlleluia\u201d verse as the children placed the colorful signs in the monochrome chest, burying the \u201cAlleluia\u201d until Easter.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t new or novel. Lutheran churches around the world will do the same this week. The children\u2019s sermon and that final ritual was seasonally appropriate, liturgically relevant. Catechetically sound. And it was also one of the saddest sights I have seen on a Sunday morning. Each child carefully laid a handmade sign in the box, and on that Transfiguration Day, the signs became lifeless, the box like a tomb. In that moment, the death toward which we will accompany Jesus this season became real, and with it the many deaths that have come after Jesus\u2019 own.<\/p>\n

The simple act of youth during that children\u2019s sermon was a powerful ritual, made all the more poignant by the lilting tune the pastor strummed and sang. It was as if the juxtaposition of the happy tune and the grave act encapsulated all the tension and paradox within Lutheran faith. It was profoundly solemn and somber, even as the pastor held out hope for the opening of the box on Easter. It was a sermon for the disciples in the shadow of the cross, who lose their innocence as their Messiah is tried and convicted. It was a sermon about the deep sorrow of Lent, and the deeper sorrow of God for a fallen world. It was a children\u2019s sermon for people who can no longer be children.<\/p>\n

It recalled to me the millions of children who must keep their own \u201cAlleluias\u201d buried all year round:<\/p>\n