C’mon, folks, it’s the Easter season, and Psalm 16 is the psalm prescribed for this Sunday. But why would you sing a setting of Psalm 16 without an Alleluia refrain? Much as I love Psalm 16 (and I really do), if you can’t find a setting of it with an Alleluia refrain, use Psalm 118 or whatever you sang for Easter Sunday—as long as it has an Alleluia refrain. This is the countercultural part: “we are the Easter People, and Alleluia is our song!” And we sing it throughout the Easter season.

Some other suggestions might get overlooked. For instance, the Second Reading (1 Peter 1:17–21) points out that we were ransomed “not with perishable things like silver or gold … ” Which makes me think immediately of John Foley’s deceptively simple song, “Earthen Vessels.”

Remember when we thought pirates were funny? Those archaic historical figures aren’t funny or archaic anymore, not when people around the world—often aid workers in troubled lands—are kidnapped by pirates or gangs or local warlords hoping to extract money from the captives’ families or government as ransom.

Families rarely have the kind of exaggerated wealth that is demanded; governments know that paying ransom only opens the door to more atrocities. And the captives languish, not knowing whether they will ever be freed.

A more obvious selection would be Bob Hurd’s “In the Breaking of the Bread”; I don’t care for didactic “bread” songs at communion but today’s Gospel makes this song very pertinent.

That’s life. At the very same time we sing “Alleluia!” and rejoice in the great blessings of Easter, we remember and hold up to God those who are captives, those who are ill and in pain, refugees fleeing disaster—the lowly whom God has chosen.