We don’t celebrate changes of heart enough. We all know why: It’s hard to know the difference between a person being truly sorry for the harms they have done and a person who’s merely sorry they got caught. Being in the center of a repentance and redemption story is catnip for the narcissistic; it’s just another way to make sure “it’s all about me.”
But cynicism, suspicion and resentment should not be our default when someone who has abused the resources, opportunities and position they have, and crashed as a result, returns to us humbled and wanting a second chance.
In the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15), I can see myself in the faithful elder son who stayed home, took care of his responsibilities and didn’t receive anything extra for doing what he thought he was supposed to do. Meanwhile, here’s this younger sibling who takes his inheritance, spends it on partying and prostitutes, and then when he finds himself worse off than the pigs he took a job to feed in a final act of desperation, expects to be able to come home.
There was a clue, though, that the younger brother wasn’t just scamming the family. It was his recognizing that he was not worthy of being restored to his former place in the family. He was willing to be in the place of a worker rather than a family member. The father’s response to that was no, your willingness to come home with humility and penitence is enough. You are still my son, his outstretched arms signaled, and I will rejoice in your being restored to the family.
In the embrace of the wayward son and the heartsick father was profound healing. The moment required vulnerability and trust—by the father that his prodigal son wasn’t simply being a prodigious manipulator, by the son that he wouldn’t be turned away and even up even more broken than he already was.
Jesus doesn’t tell us where the story went from here. Did the elder son get over his resentment of how his father welcomed home his younger brother? Did the younger brother avoid lapsing back into his old ways? Perhaps if we knew the answers to questions like those, we would miss the point of how Jesus wanted us to respond to contrition—with a forgiveness and grace that sets the foundation for a second chance.
Think of the times in your life that divine mercy has given you second, third, fourth chances—even when it seemed likely that you’d blow this chance like you blew the last one. Then, somehow, something clicks into place finally and all of those chances paid off. For those of us who have been broken, abused and marginalized, we need to receive, and give, those chances in order for all of us to get life right. Both sides of this can be really, really hard. But it is the only way forward to a life of healing and happiness.