I never know in advance what part of a worship service will make a deep connection. When I was an active worship leader, I used to marvel at the comments people made about what was most touching in a service. I might have spent hours and hours on my sermon and chosen the hymns in a rush without much thought and someone would comment on how much a particular hymn had meant to them. I might have composed a prayer at the last minute and a worshiper would tell me how the prayer had been just what was needed. Different parts of a service speak to different people at different points in their lives. As a worshiper, I find that I am often surprised by the intensity of my emotions as I worship.

Yesterday, it was a solo, sung by a young tenor. Accompanied by the piano he sang “Simple Song” from Leonard Bernstein’s Requiem Mass. I have been listening to that song for 50 years. I know it well. It is an amazing piece. Despite its lyrics and its name the song is far from simple. The intervals are not common.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis commissioned the Mass for the opening of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Its first performance was on September 8, 1971. The interplay of Christianity and popular culture was different then. That same month Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar” with lyrics by Tim Rice made its debut. I didn’t have much of a stereo in those days, but I had a turntable and I had 33 rpm albums of both Superstar and Mass. I played them both over and over again. The intersection of rock music, Christianity, and popular entertainment was exciting to me. I was a college student, majoring in philosophy, intending to go to theological seminary. I also was enjoying taking a few serious music classes and learning about some of the more technical aspects of music and composition.

The opening scene of Bernstein’s mass is a sort of cocktail party, with guests milling about and talking over one another. The Celebrant cuts through all of that chatter with a resounding chord on his electric guitar. When I was a young student, I thought that it was more than coincidence that the opening chords were G and D. Add one letter between those and you have a major religious character. As an amateur guitar player, I knew the chords for that song and could play them by memory. They are very simple, like the name of the song. The lyrics are also very simple: “Sing God a simple song. Lau da lau de. Make it up, as you go along. Lau da lau de. Sing, like you like to sing. God loves all simple things. For God, is the simplest of all.”

It is the pitch of that third “God” that marks the song as something very different. From the key of G, Bernstein suddenly has the singer come in with a C sharp - a very challenging interval for a singer. Then he has the soloist repeat that same line, almost as an echo. Then, with the audience’s full attention, the next line contains the same interval for a third time, “I will sing the Lord a new song.”

It is brilliant composition.

It is also incredibly hard to sing. The song is challenging for other reasons. It has a long range from the highest notes to the low notes. The song ends with the words “All of my days,” at the bottom of the tenor register, again with a half-step interval that must be sung precisely for the effect.

Yesterday’s song moved me and transported me back to decades of memories. Over the half century since the Mass was first sung, I have carried it in my heart and my head. I cannot read the 121st Psalm without hearing the tones of that song, “I will lift up my eyes to the hills from whence comes my help,” and “For the lord, is my shade, is the shade upon my right hand. And the sun shall not smite me by day.” I remember once, at a funeral, reading the Psalm and inadvertently repeating the words “is my shade.” They repeat in Bernstein’s song lyrics, but the aren’t repeated in the Psalm. I don’t think any of the worshipers noticed my little departure from the actual text, but it broke the rhythm of my reading and I had to concentrate to refocus on the task at hand. I often hear pitches and think of tonal variation when reading scripture out loud and the Psalms inspire such lyricism, but a funeral is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the grieving family. It is important not to get carried away or drift off of topic when leading that sacred ceremony.

Yesterday, however, sitting in the pew in a nearly empty church as the soloist faced the camera that was broadcasting the service on the Internet, I could let my mind drift. I could see the picture on the cover of my record album. The celebrant is dressed in light blue robes and rises above a blurred mass of people flooded in pink light, holding a chalice and a cross. The first hump of the letter M in Mass has a cross at the top of it, like a cathedral steeple. I haven’t seen or played that album for many years. I stream music from the Internet these days. But the memory of playing that album over an over is strong. Many times I would carefully lift the needle from the record and move it back to the outside so I could hear that first song. I played it over and over again, amazed by its simplicity, imagining that I might be able to sing it well. I sing it better in my imagination than in reality, however.

Yesterday was stewardship dedication Sunday. The sermon was well done and challenging. The prayers were deep and meaningful. This morning, however, it is the song that is in my head and my heart. If not in a performance, in my heart, I’ll be singing it all of my days.