About five years ago I read (for the first time) a book by Dr. Gerald Mann entitled “Why Does Jesus Make Me Nervous?” In the first printing of the book, there was a subtitle, “Taking the Sermon on the Mount Seriously.” For me, this is one of those books that “reshaped” everything I thought I knew about my personal theology. Mann has been labeled by some, a pattern I see so often happening to folks who think “outside the norms” of conventional theology, as a liberal. Well, regardless of anyone’s opinion of his theo-political stance or stances, it would do us all good to take Jesus’ sermon in Matthew 5 very seriously. I’d think we could all agree on that.

Many parts of the Sermon on the Mount are interesting to me, and I find as I go that it is practical in different ways at different times. The second “Beatitude” from Matthew 5:4, comes into play for all of us at one point or another. I think though, that we most clearly see it, when we see someone else in their turn to mourn.

After my ministerial ordination, the first funeral I was asked to help with was that of my paternal grandmother. As I prepared for it, inexperienced as I was, I got numerous pieces of good advice about how to “preach.” But the best piece of advice, and even it came from a preacher, wasn’t about the words I would say at all. An older, wiser fellow minister counseled me that I needed to “go cry.” He warned me that the emotions would come, and that letting them do so, before I stood to do my duty in an official way would be better. My friend was encouraging me to mourn, so that I could be comforted. I took some time that afternoon, a full day before the service and did exactly that. How I did it is immaterial, we all mourn differently, but that I did it was paramount to any moving forward that happened for me after that. I would NEVER have made it through the service the next day, not to mention the inevitable loneliness that comes after the loss of a loved one.

To borrow Mann’s title, on the surface it does make me a little nervous that Jesus calls us to mourn. I have seen what usually happens before mourning, and it isn’t pretty. But it is part of our human plight, and the promised comfort does come. Mourning is the only way in fact we can get that comfort.

This week another friend of mine lost her father. He had been sick for some time, but nonetheless the general “emotions on her sleeve” nature of who my friend is had me fearing how she might handle the death. When I got to the house, she had the obvious signs of someone who had cried her eyes out, been through the spectrum of emotions, and begun the grieving process. But she was fine, far better than I or anyone who knows her expected. She had mourned, and she was comforted. Such a simple concept, maybe it doesn’t make me nervous at all!