Who are the blessed ones? It’s a question my house church leader asked last week. When I call someone blessed, what do I usually mean?

In the past, I meant that they had God’s favor in some way. Or, in a more crass but honest way, God helped them get what they want. Tiger is blessed with golf skills to win major tournaments, eh? Or a neighbor is blessed because they got promoted or nabbed a raise. Or a student is blessed with smarts to get into the right schools. Or a couple is blessed because they got a deal on a new home or car. Or they have healthy children, or they found a great parking spot. Being blessed usually means they have all they want, and God is helping them get it. And they seem thankful. So they must be blessed, right?

But Jesus seemed to have a different definition, based on a sermon he gave to the crowds at the foot of a mountain. He preached to a bunch of Israelites, whose worldview isn’t too far from our own today: they thought that having health, wealth and many children was a sign of God’s favor on their lives — and thus, they were blessed by God. But Jesus puts it another way. Here’s my version:

You’re actually in God’s favor when you feel far away from him — you are welcome in God’s land.
You’re actually in God’s favor when you mourn — you will be comforted.
You’re actually in God’s favor when you’re not taken seriously and ignored — you will one day hold the planet in your hands.
You’re actually in God’s favor when you’ve been oppressed and abused yet long for justice — you will be filled.
You’re actually in God’s favor when you show mercy though others have hurt you — you will be shown mercy.
You’re actually in God’s favor when you are idealistic and taken advantage of — you will see God.
You’re actually in God’s favor when you try to get in the middle of things but end up being hated on both sides — you are a child of God.
You’re actually in God’s favor when you’re persecuted because of justice — you will be welcomed in God’s land.

Imagine that. If you feel far away from God and yearn for more, then you are truly blessed. If you long for justice yet weep when it doesn’t come, you have God’s favor. I sometimes feel like I’m out of God’s favor when I can’t feel his presence, but this passage is a reminder that I might actually be in His hands, not out of them. When you’re trying to do things rightly, but you only get more suffering, you actually have God’s backing. Instead of those who get their way, those who face hardship are actually the ones God supports, the ones who are blessed.

In Jesus’ time, the religious leaders would’ve considered the people on this list to have done something wrong to lose God’s favor. Clearly, because of their circumstances, they must be outside of God’s love, right? But Jesus uses these words to invite people back into God’s community, that the Job-like ones might actually be in God’s approval. And to people in these categories, that must’ve felt like good news.

So for those who feel like God is quite far away, but long for His presence, have hope. For yours in the Kingdom of heaven.

I’ve been doing more teaching about women’s roles in ministry lately, in part because of the popularity of the Da Vinci Code. In it, Dan Brown highlights the ways Christianity has oppressed “the feminine” over the centuries. He gets some things right, but gets much of it wrong. It is, after all, a work of fiction. But the topic of women in ministry has been on my mind. (If you want to read an article I wrote on a Biblical view of women in ministry, click here.)

So a week ago, I was reading through the book of Judges in the Bible. It’s a bipolar book, cycling between upswings of faith and downswings of infidelity. But the people go from bad to worse, with the highs getting lower and the lows even lower still — it’s downright depressing. But in the middle of it all is a highlight I’ve never noticed before: Manoah’s wife.

In Judges 13, she was barren and thus childless — a stigma of the day. But an angel of the Lord appears to her and promises her a son who would deliver Israel from the Phillistines. He also gives her instructions on how to raise the unborn son, and she faithfully reports everything to her husband.

This is where things get interesting: Manoah prays for the angel to return to teach them how to raise the coming boy — even though his wife already gave him the instructions. Just like a man! When the angel returns, he appears not to Manoah, but to his wife again. But she retrieves Manoah, who asks the angel directly about what to do with the unborn boy. The angel reminds Manoah that he already gave the instructions to his wife, yet graciously repeats them again for his benefit. Here’s the kicker: Manoah doesn’t even realize it’s an angel until the end and when he does, he’s afraid that he’ll die for seeing God face to face. In response, Manoah’s wife corrects him, saying that if they were going to die, then God wouldn’t have accepted their offerings nor gave them instructions on how to raise their son. Duh! Who’s teaching who?

In a time when women were often seen as property (cf. the rest of Judges), who’s the hero here? An unnamed woman married to a Danite. Again, the Old Testament uplifts a woman in the most unlikely of places.