A Word from Pastor Lisa: Sorrow Over Singing

I waited patiently for the Lord;
    he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the desolate pit,
    out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
    making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
    a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
    and put their trust in the Lord.

—Psalm 40:1-3 (NRSV)

While I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, I love to sing praises to God wherever I am, especially with the people of God. Methodists are a singing people. Some religious traditions have thick tomes of theology to explain what they believe. We have John Wesley’s sermons and notes and Charles Wesley’s songs. Charles Wesley has helped us sing what we believe about…

Assurance of faith:

In Christ, your head, you then shall know, shall feel your sins forgiven;

Anticipate your heaven below, and own that love is heaven.

—“O For A Thousand Tongues to Sings” UMH #57

Salvation in Christ:

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness!

Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.

Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die,

Born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth.

Hark! the herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King!”

—“Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” UMH #240

The new creation:

Finish, then, thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be.

Let us see they great salvation perfectly restored in thee;

Changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place,

Till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise.

—“Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” UMH #384

For 200 years at First Methodist, we have sung our faith. With IU’s top-notch school of music in our backyard, we have been incredibly blessed by talented musicians who help us sing praise to God at the peaceful Morning Connection, in the robust Classic service with Chancel Choir, or with the dancing beat of the Common Ground Band. Scientific studies have found that when we sing together, our hearts literally synchronize to the same rhythm. Whatever style we use, singing is a primary way we connect with each other and with God.

That’s why it grieves my heart that if we slowly return to in-person worship during this COVID-19 pandemic, we will not have a full choir or any congregational singing. We will still have music from a small quartet, organ, and piano, but we cannot sing along. We may mouth the words or hum quietly underneath our face masks.

That’s hard news to hear. Here’s why: From Germany to England to Washington State, choirs have been super-spreaders for the coronavirus. Research shows that singing projects aerosols much further than speaking, even while wearing cloth masks. These aerosols, which may hang in the indoor air hours later, are very efficient transmitters of COVID-19. In a location like our sanctuary, the possible transmission of COVID-19 is much higher when we sing together.

This pandemic has already felt like the desolate pit that the psalmist sings about in Psalm 40. The loss of singing together in church feels like we’re digging even deeper in pain. When will things return to normal? We don’t know. Like the psalmist, we are waiting patiently for the Lord. When she cries out to God, she discovers that God lifts her up from the muddy pit and sets her feet on a rock. Notice she doesn’t say, “My life went back to just the way it was before the pit.” More than likely, her life is different now. Somehow, she finds a new song in her mouth, a song of praise to God.

Our new song, until there is a vaccine or treatment for COVID-19, will be a song of the heart, not of the vocal chords. But we will still praise and worship God as our hearts beat together.