gently with him and reminding him of three things: First, that he and the fa- ther are still and always will be inseparable. Second, that he and the younger son are still and will always be brothers. And third, that now is the time for celebration, because this is fundamentally a story about someone going from lostness to found-ness, from death to life, from rupture to restoration. That’s where Jesus ends the story, leaving us hanging and faced with a massive heart check. The question for the older brother was, “How will you respond to the return of your prodigal younger brother?” After all, his response, at some level, requires a large measure of forgiveness. And forgiveness, as theologian Lewis Smedes reminds us, is “love’s toughest work and love’s biggest risk.” Jesus’ story leaves us with the same question. How will we respond when we hear the Father talking and pleading with us to welcome home our prodigal brothers and sisters who are coming back from the far country and show- ing up at the doors of “our” congregations—which are, after all, our Father’s house? Are we ready to follow our Father’s lead, celebrate our brother’s home- coming, and then roll up our sleeves to do love’s toughest work and help re- store what’s been broken? Want to go deeper? Here are some helpful resources on reentry and desis- tance. Benson, Michael L. Crime and the Life Course: An Introduction. Second Edi- tion. New York: Routledge, 2013. Leverentz, Andrea, Elsa Y. Chen, and Johnna Christian. Beyond Recidivism: New Approaches to Research on Prisoner Reentry and Reintegration. New York: New York University Press, 2020. Maruna, Shadd. Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild their Lives. Washington: American Psychological Association, 2001. Maruna, Shadd and Russ Immarigeon. After Crime and Punishment: Path- ways to Offender Reintegration. Portland: Willan Publishing, 2004. Travis, Jeremy. But They All Come Back: Facing the Challenges of Prisoner Re- entry. Washington: Urban Institute Press, 2005. Veysey, Bonita M., Johnna Christian and Damian J. Martinez. How Offenders Transform Their Lives. New York: Routledge, 2011. Prison Fellowship has a helpful 4-page Biblical Basis for Reentry Ministry. Thinking Differently: Paradigms Old And New The Current Paradigm With this biblical foundation fresh in our minds, let’s stop to re-examine our
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