Desiree's devotional led me to consider which of these three characters in the sculpture best represents the church. To many of our neighbors, the church is the elder brother, powerful yet merciless and judgmental. Many of us like to think we are the father - dispensing grace to the penitent, while trying to bring reconciliation to the world. These are functions to which we are called in scripture (Col. 3:13; 2Cor 5:18), but we must admit that there is no little arrogance in identifying ourselves with the father in the parable. Do we rush to welcome and restore the sinner who brought shame upon us? Do we enjoy such privilege and power that we can dispense mercy from a posture of superiority? We might be God's ambassadors, but we are not God.

Viewing this sculpture, it became clear to me that there is only one subject in the tableau in whom the church must be found - the penitent prodigal clinging to his father's frame as one who is drowning clings to a life saver. He is the powerless one, the one who adopts a posture of humility - literally, of the humus, that is, the dirt. He has no pride, only contrition for his many sins and gratitude for his father's mercy. Before the church can share God's grace, we must acknowledge that we can only live by God's grace. Before we can stand on our feet, we must fall to our knees. Before we can reconcile others, we must first seek to be reconciled to those whom we have wronged.

That is hard for us to do because we have adopted the posture of the elder brother for so long, while imagining ourselves to be the merciful father. And we have perpetuated our privilege by silencing the voices of our victims - be they survivors of sexual harassment and abuse, indigenous peoples we have robbed and enslaved by our alliance with colonial power, or the faithful persons whose gifts we have denied and whose fellowship we have rejected due to their gender, race, or sexual orientation.