Facing Your Blitz
Jeff Kemp
The election happened. It looks like we’re changing presidents. Can we find reconciliation and unity in a president? Likely not. That is up to you and me, people who follow the only One who brings ultimate reconciliation and peace.
What does it look like to do the ministry of reconciliation, to be an ambassador of Jesus Christ, particularly around the issue of race? I found out in August of 1992, when I was at training camp with the Philadelphia Eagles. My teammate and brother in Christ Reggie White had invited me to assist him in leading a players’ Bible study and prayer time about reconciliation. Reggie suggested that we look at Isaiah and Nehemiah and both share a bit from those scriptures. I had no problem letting Reggie do most of the teaching. Hey, he was the Minister of Defense...an actual ordained minister.
I’d been cut from the Seahawks after quarterbacking in an October overtime loss the year before and showed up in the Eagles’ locker room at Veterans Stadium two days later. Reggie went out of his way to befriend me and welcome me into the team, so I felt honored to be tapped as his co-leader. I appreciated and respected him so much. We all did.
I’ll never forget what he did that day as twenty-five of our Eagles teammates were gathered in a cramped dorm room at West Chester University.
When we neared the end of the sharing and discussion, Reggie said, “Guys, I’m going to go first to apologize, and I’m going to go first to forgive.” Then he apologized for attitudes, bitterness and stereotypes or biases he had held toward whites during his life. And, without bringing attention to the comparatively imbalanced pains of generational racism and mountainous injustices African-Americans have faced, he told us he forgave us for our attitudes, biases and prejudices.
Then, with the credibility of the Bible passages we'd walked through, the model of Jesus and his 315-pound stature, he coached and prompted us all to apologize and forgive every one of the other guys of various races. We took his coaching. Every single guy went around the room, looked each teammate in the eyes and apologized from the heart. It was humility and vulnerability...holy ground.
One rookie, running back Siran Stacy from Alabama, tearfully told us it was the first time in his life he'd ever had a white guy apologize to him. Spontaneously, every guy then bear-hugged every other guy. That was a beautiful picture of reconciliation, but it took a humble man who looked at the log in his own eye to go first. Then, he credibly urged the rest of us to take the logs out of our own eyes so that we could heal our blindness which prevents us coming together to be one, the way God intended. It’s not easy, but it’s beautiful. Like Reggie demonstrated that day, humble leadership is unafraid to be vulnerable, to love and be true...unafraid to apologize and forgive. That is what I need to do, and what we need to do, together. Keep persevering and keep pressing into relationships where differences exist and hurts may be ignored.
Despite progress we have made over the course of our nation’s history, we humans still have a deep heart disease (sin) and long way to go. A nation, its politicians and its policies cannot do nearly enough to heal this. Each of us must do this...in the power of God and style of Jesus. Racism experienced by our brothers and sisters and neighbors--fellow citizens of black and other minority backgrounds--is still intensely real. Racist attitudes and behaviors are damaging, dangerous, debilitating, dishonoring, disintegrating, dividing and discouraging. I learn as I study more of history and through each listening conversation I have with black friends who are emotionally torn-up, weary and tearful.
Please continue your own conversations with your friends and persons of other ethnic background. Let's examine where we personally hold on to US versus THEM attitudes. Let’s drop the labels. Humans are individual souls first, not types and groups. Let's dismantle that “us versus them, with us or against us” mindset and behavior. We are WE! Let's See Every Soul.
Our nation is like humans - magnificent because of God’s creation, and deeply flawed with a heart disease of sin. We have made great progress in 240 years. When my dad played for the Chargers and Bills in the 1960’s there stadiums where the Black player’s parents had to sit in a separate section of the stadium and as captain at an All-Star game, dad followed the leadership of African-American players who forced the game to switch cities because most hotels, restaurants and taxis wouldn’t accept them. Electing a black president proves significant progress, but we are still flawed.
It’s true that race is sometimes used in inaccurate, inflammatory and politically manipulative ways by “them”... and by “us”. Sometimes race gets used in ways that don’t lead to progress or empowerment, like continual victim-mentality and group-vs-group grievance ideology. But those problems would be less if most of us were proactive - curious, dialoging, apologizing and forgiving. We need to look for the 99.5% we have in common, instead of the .5% difference of our skin color. We heal and progress by acknowledging that the history and background of African Americans has been fundamentally shaped by the raw evil of slavery and that racism is not yet vanquished.
Dr. Martin Luther King vehemently worked to prevent violence and looting during an era of injustice far more brutal than in 2020. We have made much progress, but we’ve still seen innocent deaths. King’s body of work and spiritual convictions would deeply oppose the anarchists of our era, yet he recognized that hope for progress is crucial: “…it is not enough for me to...condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society….And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?…It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.” (“The Other America,” 1968)
Doing life better comes down to this for any person who knows God and aims to follow Jesus - "loving our neighbor". As neighbors, we want to experience and offer humility, hospitality, initiative, kindness, concern, friendship, courage, generosity and sacrifice. We want to address matters personally, but also systematically - safe streets, working street lights, dependable garbage and recycling service, decent schools.
Any American who wants a "more perfect union dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights" from God (not man-made governments) should follow conscience, not convenience, and work for justice. We need justice-seeking action by all of us. It starts with personal relationships of learning, apology and forgiveness. It progresses to rejecting the judgemental and polarizing demonization of people who espouse positions we dislike. Only with more grace will we be able to awaken more people to more truth.
My heart breaks over unjust death, murder and lifelong oppression. Following that is my sorrow that our society is eroding respect for civil law, authority, police service and private property, free enterprise and our self-correcting constitutionally anchored democratic republic. Loss of life matters most. Thus we need police training, accountability and safeguards against the small minority of police offenders. Systemic solutions are surely needed, but without personal solutions, the rise of anarchy strategies will hurt all people, the poor and powerless the most.
Protests for justice can be far more legitimate and necessary than polite discussions and slow deliberations by those with power. I don't want to paint all protestors (or even law-breaking looters) with the same brush, when we know that agenda-funded people and outsider groups who espouse violence and anarchy are organized and poisoning some rallies and protests with violence and destruction.
Only God is a perfect judge, so I will be careful and lean toward empathy, compassion and learning...not labels. If I were in the NFL today, I would be working with teammates of every color for a manner of kneeling and protest that unite 100 percent of the players, with the goal of spurring even more of us to action in the community and culture.
In the 1960s, Dr. King had to lead.
That day in 1992, Reggie White had to lead.
In 2020, it shouldn’t be the oppressed community that needs to take the leadership. All of us should lead for reconciliation, and to be an ambassador for Jesus, who brings peace, equality, justice, and love.
In that spirit, I apologize to blacks, whites, minorities, liberal democrats and conservative republicans, media broadcasters and presidential candidates who I’ve labeled or treated wrongly with an “us versus them” judgmental manner. I aspire to the courage and love demonstrated by a reconciling man named Bob on the streets of Chicago during the presidential campaign. Bob noticed a situation getting ugly as a group supporting one presidential candidate surrounded and yelled intimidating threats at a group with signs for the other candidate. Bob stepped up and asked this essential question that disarmed the conflict and brought peace:
“Hey folks, what’s the loving thing to do here?”
I want to be like Bob...and Reggie. Join me. Let’s do the ministry of reconciliation.