IS AN APOLOGY ENOUGH?

Repentance, Washing Feet, and Making Amends

By

Pastor Mike Berry

Bishop Craig Coates
Annapolis, Maryland

I recently saw on Facebook a designed T-shirt that stated, “You Matter!”  I thought to myself, “Exactly.” This shirt said it all. The struggle for human dignity burroughs throughout history.  The need to feel valued is part of our basic human nature. When there is injustice in a country that promises that “WE THE PEOPLE” (Not the Government) will “promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” we fall short of that ideal.  

Jesus summed it up when he said, “Love your Neighbor as you love yourself.”  In New Zealand an old Maori saying proclaims; “If you don’t love yourself, God help your neighbor!”  Human dignity needs to be restored in our nation. Micah 4:8 says, “He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you;  But to do justice, to show mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” When others are devalued, disenfranchised, and not given a place at the table - as the Body Of Christ we are called to do the work of Justice.  Human Dignity requires reciprocal liberty. That is why Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King took up the struggle for human rights as a minister of the Gospel. King built his ideas about  human dignity on four ideas: (1) All persons are children of God and have equal value and dignity.  (2)This equal worth becomes the basis of “just and fair treatment.” (3) This dignity, brings with it a moral capacity that gives people the ability to make socially good choices.  (4) This shared image of God provides the “existential common ground” for genuine community building across races, cultures, and ethnicities, making the “beloved community . . . a distinct historical possibility.” These ideas led me as a spirit-filled evangelical pastor to do what I could to heal the racial divide. 

Pastor Mike Berry asking forgiveness and washing the feet of Dr. Bernice King
and Dr. Alveda King with others on April 9, 2016

On November 27, 2015, I had a dream I was on the steps of The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on the spot where Dr. King stood and gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech.  As I looked down at the granite stone marking the spot he stood, I realized I was on my knees. I then saw the feet of Dr. King’s family members standing there also. I began to wonder why I was seeing this and I heard the Lord speak to me that I was to “wash the feet” of Dr. King’s children and ask their forgiveness for the Body of Christ’s lack of support in their grieving time after his assassination.  Also I was to ask forgiveness for not obeying the prophetic word He had given us on that hot August Day in 1963.” I responded to The Lord and asked, “Lord, are you calling me to actually do this? I don’t even know Dr. King’s family. How can I do this when I have no connection to them?” I asked God to confirm that if this is what He really wanted me to do, to open up the door for this to happen. Later that morning, God opened the door for me to introduce myself to the family and the rest became history.  On April 9, 2016 I stood on the steps of The Lincoln Memorial with four other “white” clergymen and washed Dr. Benice King’s feet. Joining us at my request, Bobby Schuller, TV Pastor of “Hour of Power”, washed Dr. Alveda King’s feet. Pastor Greg Carr, descendant of Maryland’s First Governor, from Annapolis, Maryland washed Lynne Jackson’s feet (Great-great granddaughter of Dred Scott. South African Minister Andre’ Van Zyl washed Bill Haley, Jr’s feet (Grandson of author of “Roots” Alex Haley and direct descendant of Kunta Kinte). And Matt Lockett washed the feet of his dear co-minister friend, Will Ford III, whose family was once owned by Matt’s family - each supporting our call together to “Heal The Racial Divide.”  

Dr. Martin Luther King's Church
Atlanta, Georgia

Some have asked why do you do this?  My simple answer has been, Jesus said, “The greatest among you must become servants to all.”  Just before he went to the cross for us, “He took a towel, got down on his knees and washed his disciples feet.”  For me, getting down on my knees, with the whole world watching via television, and humbling myself at the Lincoln Memorial to wash Dr. King’s family’s feet and repenting for my own “cultural sins and bias” and that of the American Church. This moment empowered me to step up my own work as a minister in our ongoing struggle to restore “human dignity” in our nation.  It also was my own personal statement to the King family, that “You Matter” especially in light of all they have suffered and sacrificed as a family to bring an end to racism and their work of calling for human dignity to all. This King family’s story continues to serve as an incredible witness to the entire world. I believe that God is calling the church in America to get up and get on the right side of history.  That’s why I believe as a pastor that I had to lead the way and be an example as a descendant of a family who once owned slaves but, repented, and became America’s first abolitionists family. For me, repentance, asking forgiveness, and washing feet is one way to say I am sorry for my own and the church’s complicity in not working for healing our racial divide. I am very thankful that Dr. Bernice King and Evangelist Alveda King gave me the opportunity to humble myself and offered me the gift of forgiveness.  But, was this apology enough? My answer is “No” but it was a beginning. 

Recently, I was reading about St. Peter struggling with his own racism and personal bias.  As an orthodox Jewish man, he was taught to stay away from Gentiles. However, God took this old racist and called him to present the Gospel to the Gentile world.  His response was “no!” even after God challenged him three times. But God kept working with him and changed him In Acts 10:28 Peter confessed, “  He said to them: '' you are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.”  If God can change St. Peter he can change any of us.   

Racism and personal bias is not a matter of the color. It’s all a matter of culture.  All human beings are cultural beings whether Asian, Hispanic, European, middle-eastern, African, or Native.  However, We are all “one blood.” (See Acts 17:26) We all have a cultural community to which we belong. We have all been socialized in it and grown accustomed to its way and prefer it until we have been challenged and exposed to go to the world beyond us.  Cultural wars didn’t begin in America and will not end in America. Racism has taken place throughout all history. Germans killed Jews, Serbs killed Croatians, Sunni Muslims killed Shia Muslims, Spain massacred Native Americans, Dutch fought English and so on.  The unfortunate thing is that the Church has been complicit in it. Devaluing human life has been the result of a little unknown 15th Century Church teaching known as The Doctrine of Discovery. The church has no place in calling our government to repentance until it addresses its own history of dehumanization, slavery and racism.  

Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney Statue Removal
From Annapolis, Maryland State House 

An apology is not enough because until the Euro-centric American community, whether, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch, make a fearless searching moral inventory of their history and then “Admit to God, to themselves, and to the disenfranchised communities that have been dehumanized the exact nature of their wrongs.”  Repentance requires honesty.  It has been said, “You can’t change the things you don’t acknowledge.  An apology is not repentance. Psalm 32:5 says, “I acknowledged my sin to you and did not conceal my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD.”  The scriptures are clear that true Repentance is demonstrated in not only acknowledging our sin but making amends.  Luke 19:8 explains to us that Zacchaeus, after encountering the Lord, stated, “if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." 

America was built on dispossessing Native Americans, Slavery, and stealing land.  The unfortunate thing is that many Christians think all we have to do is invoke II Chronicles 7:14 to “Heal Our National Divide.” Unfortunately, God did not make a promise to give them the land. They may have made a covenant but God didn’t agree. They came under charters based on the Doctrine Of Discovery which said, “Go to heathen, pagan, and unchristian lands, dispossess the inhabitants and bring them into perpetual slavery.”  400 years ago, after Gov. Berkeley of Virginia was frustrated with the non-conforming Native Americans, said ‘forget them, bring in the African.’ This is how it all began. Anyone who is familiar with our true history knows that the vestiges of slavery are a continuum that began with the kidnapping of people from their native lands to the bondage and brutality of American chattel slavery. When the descendants of those who were enslaved were no longer needed, a national dilemma was created…  what to do with the dehumanized remnant. The only solutions America embraced was the compulsion of sending the Africans back to Africa, Jim Crow, questioning their citizenship, offering 40 acres and a mule, segregated education, housing and perhaps a good seat in the back of the church. All these ideas revolved the concept ‘We The People.’ Does this mean ALL the people?”  We still have a lot of work to do to “make our nation a more perfect union.”

A few years ago, community leaders in Richmond, Virginia began a journey to address their city’s past.  Along the way, they were contacted by the President of Nigeria and the city of Liverpool England. The President Of Nigeria wanted to repent on behalf of his tribe for selling other tribes into slavery and the City Of Liverpool, who built the slave ships that were engaged in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, wanted to reconcile with Richmond over their national sins.  As a result, powerful conversation, work and healing has been transpiriing. However, I learned that in Liverpool there six powerful wealthy families whose family wealth was built and is retained on the history of their families having built those ships. When they were approached by the city of Liverpool to participate they felt no obligation to participate or even make amends with the wealth their families made through slavery.   In my view, any family, corporation, bank, church, institution or government who engaged and benefitted through this history needs to do something to reconcile their history, make amends, and lead by example in the fight to dismantle racism.   

Frederick Douglass
"Let's Tell All The History!"

In April 2017, Georgetown University made an apology its role in the 1838 sale of 272 enslaved individuals for the university’s benefit took place in the presence of more than 100 descendants. “Slavery remains the original evil of our Republic – an evil that our university was complicit in – a sin that tore apart families,” said Georgetown President John J. DeGioia.  He went on to state “We lay this truth bare – in sorrowful apology and communal reckoning.” The university’s leadership didn’t stop there. Between apologies, affirmative action policies and renamed buildings, Georgetown University and its students decided together to set up a scholarship fund for those descendants who wanted to get an education. This action provides us another example for engagement and may afford all of us ways to develop long-term frameworks for dialogue, repentance, apologies and making amends in our communities.  Burying our history is one thing, but to continue to bury our hearts and minds will only pass the problem to the next generation.