We hear it all the time. We hear it in church, in interviews with sports and movie stars, and we hear it a whole lot around the Fourth of July.

“I’ve been blessed.” “We’ve been so blessed.”

But what does it mean? What does it mean to be blessed? Usually we associate it with plentitude. It means that we have a lot of something: money, property, talent. Certainly, in that sense things haven’t changed much over the past 2,000 years. Ask any first-century Jew who the blessed people were in their community and they would have shared with you the conventional wisdom of the day.

Blessed are the ruthless, for they are wealthy.

And blessed are the wealthy, for they have lots of stuff.

Blessed are the Romans, for they have power.

And blessed are the powerful, for they get what they want.

Toda…