Some Who Cheered Misunderstood Their King

A lot of us have what I like to call talk-to-the-manager energy. We take the initiative to find the person who can change things, politely but firmly make our case, and make sure they deal with the problem. It’s not about being petty; it’s about making sure the system works. Managers want to know how they can do better. Businesses know that happy customers mean repeat business. Well, that’s how we like to think about it, anyway.

I don’t know if any of you have called a customer support number lately, but that system is not working. I once tried to use a few gift cards for a computer company, but I had to call and navigate a complex phone system to consolidate them first. The automated prompts led me in circles—I went through five iterations before telling the AI that I spoke Spanish and needed to be transferred to another department. (I don’t speak Spanish.) The actual people I talked to were nice enough, but none had the power to actually fix my problem. After that ordeal, I finally ordered my computer. A week later, I received someone else’s computer—one they had sent in for repairs and still had all of their personal information on it. It took me two hours on the phone to resolve that issue.

As frustrating as that situation was, though, what does my talk-to-the-manager personality do when there is no manager, and there is no system to solve the problem? I remember taking an inner-city mission trip while in college and learning how systemic racism worked, how redlining pushed people into neighborhoods without the same resources as others, and how the system was made to perpetuate the problem, not solve it. With my innate ability to talk to managers, I immediately began plotting to get angry: write letters, yell at my friends who didn’t go on the mission trip with me and argue with strangers online. I bought a T-shirt. I made a few posts on my blog. Surely that would change things.

In listening to people who deal with systemic injustice every day, I quickly realized that most of them were not angry, scrambling to complain to the right people. There will always be things we can and should do to change the system, but we also have to realize that people have to live in that system even when it doesn’t change. It’s not a sprint. It’s not even a marathon. For many people, it’s just the world they live in, and they have to find ways to live in it, hoping for change, but bracing for inaction. That was not easy for me to deal with.

Looking at the Israelites hoping Jesus would overthrow the Roman Empire used to seem silly to me but knowing what I know now about how hard it is to change broken systems of injustice, I probably would have been waving a palm branch, too. The lesson for me today is that, while God will sometimes solve my problems for me, and God will often empower me to solve problems for myself and others, sometimes the immediate problems around me need to be addressed before I wear myself out chasing a philosophical ideal. For huge, systemic issues, endurance is the best trait people like me can develop, and that means showing up every day—sometimes to change the world, but sometimes to protect the people around me when the world doesn’t change. It’s easy for me to check out and take a break from everything, but showing up every day is more important than rushes of genius.