Good old President Harry Truman often used what his critics thought was a "bull in the china shop" approach to difficult situations and people. Never one to mince words or avoid saying what he felt needed to be said, his style even gave inspiration to a play called, "Give 'Em Hell, Harry." But Harry said, "I never give people hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell."

Well, that's sort of the way it is with those blessings Jesus pronounced. To most ears, those blessings sound more like curses to run away from as fast as possible! In fact, those blessings, (in the church called "The Beatitudes") are completely foreign to the public consciousness of America. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Listen to your neighbors, to the folks at the coffee shop, to the news, no one fesses up to being in such desperate need of God; not even powerful religious leaders want to call themselves poor in spirit! Every one tries to come off as having the answers, as being rich in faith, morality, or power.

Blessed are the meek. Forget meek! Power is what life is all about, the modern American insists. Look out for number one. Get angry, demand your rights, and sue their pants off. And forget mercy, too. Let's have "in your face justice." Blessed are the merciful. Forgiveness, understanding, compassion? Don't even think about it! That unforgiving attitude is so widespread now that to many Americans last week the report that Matthew Shepherd's parents asked the prosecutors not to seek the death for one of the boys who killed their gay son made no sense at all.

Hearing the Beatitudes thus serves to highlight the huge chasm between your ordinary citizen and the Christian way. For as we gather here to publicly acknowledge the reality of death and loss and sorrow, it needs to be said that most people not only want to deny death, they also don't want anything to do with a grieving person.

Any griever knows the truth of that! After a couple of weeks or months others begin to assume and some will actually tell you, "it's time to move on, to get over it. Don't be a wuss." But such people are only revealing their own fear of death and of the deep feelings of loss that lurk in their hearts. Again, the great American way of life is live in denial and to treat any pain by swallowing pills, or drowning one's sorrows in alcohol. Do anything but weep and try to talk about your loss! It's clear that most Americans simply do not believe Jesus' teaching, Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

But how will we be comforted in our mourning? A very wise man, Carl Jung, once wrote, "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." This means that we are not healed or brought into blessedness merely by attending worship or by believing we will see our loved ones in heaven some day. Belief in God and heaven keeps us focused, but to reach blessing and comfort we need the genuine experience in making the darkness conscious.

One who herself has entered into the suffering and struggles of many dying people and their families writes, "Like Christ, we must consider the experience of being wounded as the possibility of being permeated with light, otherwise we will fall into the temptation of severe caution, the need for safety at all costs, and withdrawal from life."

Withdrawal from life. Back in my little town in Wisconsin everyone knew about certain older somberly dressed sad-faced women who year after year went to everyone's funerals, no matter what the church. The cynical thought that they went to pig out on the food. The more charitable thought they went because they were lonely. And maybe those were the reasons, but I have a hunch they probably went to witness the sorrow of others, because they had not dealt well with their own. They were religious, yes, and they were believers, but they were also stuck in their grief. They avoided their grief work by their addiction to their funeraled darkness.

The truth is, mere outward religion can never be a substitute for actually doing our grief work. And grief work is probably the most challenging work any of us will ever do. You don't get over sorrow in a couple of months, after all. Normal grief work takes around two years, and sometimes even more. But it is worth it. It really is. Making the darkness conscious, dealing in an aware way with our wounds and festering feelings, we walk on the path to the blessing of a holy, and deep, comfort. And along the way, we become more merciful, entering com-passionately into the sorrows of others, on an adventure of understanding that is genuine.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. A grief group meets here at the church every Tuesday evening to work on bringing their sorrow to light. The participants are admit they are "poor in spirit" and mourning, nearly destroyed by their loss. They know they need something more than what they themselves have. In the group, they experience encourage-ment and acceptance. In the group no one is saying, "Hey, get over it, move on." In the group, it is OK to cry, it is Ok to say the angry, even crazy things that may be on one's mind.

But the greatest sign of the spiritual reality of the group is the laughter. Many are the Tuesday evenings when I've have heard what I assume to some must be shocking laughter of the grievers spilling out into the hallway like a stream of living waters, flowing from the baptismal reality of dying and rising in Christ. This is the same kind of honest human laughter-mixed-with-tears, I hear at funeral receptions, as family and friends for a brief and sacred moment experience the blessing way of Jesus-before ordinary life returns and everyone acts again no one's died.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Jesus wasn't laying curses on us. No, he was a griever, too. He grieved deeply for the sins of us all, and the love that drove him to the Cross is the same love that on Easter gave his beatitude deep, deep meaning. It's the hope of Easter that sparkles on our tears, and it's the compassionate, shared laughter of the community of saints that brings sorrow's darkness into the clear light of the risen Christ. And in that light we see what he meant when he said, "Rejoice and be glad, brothers and sisters, for yours is the kingdom of God." Amen.