Several years ago, a group in our Annual Conference was engaged in outreach and listening, particularly among the African American community, to understand why there was a lack of widespread support for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the UMC. I was invited to host a listening session at a gathering of Black clergy and laity. Armed with my questions, legal pad, and pen, I traveled to a church on the Southside of Chicago, expecting to facilitate an open and productive discussion.
I was assigned a small group, and as soon as I asked the first question, one of the lay leaders responded without hesitation. Her tone was both apologetic and exasperated, as though she had explained this many times before. “Honey, I think what you all are doing is admirable. I wish I could be more supportive, but we are working on getting our babies to school without them being shot. The only thing we’ve been able to do is walk them to school so that the gangbangers might shoot us instead of our babies.” Her church didn’t have the power to make the shooting stop, so she and other laity offered their bodies in a powerful act of powerlessness to protect their children.
Later, during the larger group discussion, concerns were raised that a church split could lead to fewer full-time clergy, forcing some pastors to take on secular jobs to make ends meet. An elder Black man spoke up, shaking his head slightly. “What do you think it’s been like in the Black church since the beginning? All our pastors work full-time jobs, sometimes two, while also pastoring a church. It can be done.”
Those stories stopped me in my tracks. I had come to listen, but I hadn’t expected to be confronted so directly with my privilege and assumptions. I learned that the witness of powerlessness in the Black church was a kind of faithfulness that looked more like Jesus’ than my own. And it was a lesson I needed to learn.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about that moment a lot. I’ve been hearing the phrase “I wish I could do something” over and over again. Many are feeling powerless in the face of the political climate, the disinformation campaigns, and the sheer force of selfishly wielded power. That feeling of being overwhelmed is, in many ways, by design.
There’s a political strategy known as “flooding the zone.” Steve Bannon, former advisor to President Trump, described it as overwhelming the public with so much chaos and misinformation that resistance becomes impossible. The goal is to make people feel powerless, to exhaust them, to convince them that no matter what they do, the powerful will always win.
It is not a new strategy. The Roman Empire used the same tactics in Jesus’ time—overwhelming military dominance, economic exploitation, and religious oppression made the idea of resisting Rome seem futile. Power has always known how to wear people down.
But Jesus shows us a different way.
Philippians 2:5-11 tells us that Christ “emptied himself” and took the form of a servant. When given the choice, Jesus did not grasp at power the way the world understands it. Instead, he embraced humility and self-giving love. And yet, it is through this very act of surrender that he is exalted.
Jesus’ power was never in military might, political influence, or wealth. His power was in choosing love, in giving himself away for others, in standing firm in the truth even when it led to the cross. The kingdom of God has always been upside-down in this way—where the small, the weak, and the marginalized are the very ones through whom God works to bring lasting change.
This has always been God’s way. God chose Moses, a fugitive with a stutter, to lead Israel out of Egypt. God chose David, the youngest son, overlooked by his own family, to be king. God chose Mary, a teenage girl, to bear the Savior of the world.
The early church was a persecuted minority with no political power, and yet it outlasted Rome itself. As Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 1:27, “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”
Howard Thurman, in Jesus and the Disinherited, reminds us that Jesus speaks directly to those who have been pushed to the margins. James Cone, in The Cross and the Lynching Tree, draws a powerful parallel between the suffering of Black Americans and the suffering of Christ, yet he reminds us that hope is found in resurrection. bell hooks describes love as a revolutionary force against dehumanizing power structures, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught that nonviolence—though it may appear weak—is actually the most radical kind of power.
These voices remind us that what feels like powerlessness is often the very place where God is at work. The kingdom of God is not about domination but transformation.
So if powerlessness is real, and if those who seek control are intentionally overwhelming us, what do we do?
We resist in the way Jesus taught us. We choose service. We choose love. We choose to keep showing up, even when it feels like we can’t make a difference.
It’s easy to think that small acts don’t matter. But history tells us otherwise. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was just people refusing to ride the bus. The lunch counter sit-ins were simply people sitting where they weren’t supposed to sit. But those seemingly small acts reshaped the nation.
Just this past weekend, a group from UMCG (along with AFS) volunteered at the Northern Illinois Food Bank. Our assignment was to pack “backpacks” so kids in the community could have meal security over the weekends. We set up an assembly line—one person opened bags, another placed an item in, another packed the boxes. In just three hours, we packed 13,870 pounds of food, providing 11,558 meals.
Think about that. No single person in that room could have fed 11,000 people alone. But together, through small, simple actions, we did. That is how we fight powerlessness. We link arms. We serve. We love. Jesus knew this.
If we only see power as something to be seized, we will always feel defeated. But if we understand that true power is found in surrender, in love, in self-giving service, then we will recognize the kingdom of God breaking in all around us.
We follow a Savior who looked powerless on the cross yet conquered death itself. The powers of this world can flood the zone, but they cannot flood out the power of resurrection.
So yes, the world is overwhelming. And yes, sometimes it feels like we can’t do anything. But we can. We can walk our children to school. We can sit at lunch counters. We can pack food for hungry kids. We can choose love over fear, faithfulness over despair.
And in doing so, we step into the kind of power that truly changes the world.
So, volunteer. Make calls. Check on loved ones. Write Congress. Link arms. Turn off Facebook. Trust that God uses what we might consider to be weak and insignificant to transform the whole world.
