Reparations

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:1-32), I always ask my students which son is lost? After all, you have two sons in the story. The young son we meet in the beginning of the parable is reckless, greedy, and unthinking. Scandalous, really. And he is clearly lost. Eventually, after he loses everything, he becomes deeply repentant. He returns to the fold, and the father celebrates because what was lost is now found.

It’s the older brother who is harder to sort out. On one hand, we can understand his thinking. He’s a rule-follower, so for his brother to blow up all the rules but then be welcomed back and forgiven, well, that’s just not fair. And he’s not just forgiven: he is (amazingly) restored as a family member. The father pleads with the older son to come into the celebration, but then the story abruptly ends. We are left with an older brother still standing on the porch; we don’t know if he celebrates or holds onto his anger.

Part of his problem is practical. As the older son, his inheritance was a double portion. The younger son took his inheritance early and blew it all. When he returns, hoping to be hired as a servant, the father restores him as a son instead. That essentially means that things reset. The estate is worth ⅓ less than what it was, so now when the father dies, the older son will get ⅔ of an estate that’s worth less than the original. Because the younger son has been restored to the family, he will receive ⅓ again. And if you do the math (like I would have), it would mean that the younger son actually got more than the older one.

We cry unfair. The older son is still out on the porch because now he has to decide. If he forgives his younger brother, it will be at a personal cost to him. And why should he absorb the cost? At the end of the day, restoration and healing usually comes at a price.

I thought about that when I read about the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (FSPA), who recently completed a land transfer to a tribal nation in the name of reparations. Yeah, I know. We don’t like to talk about reparations for wrongs done in the past. After all, we’ll reason, we didn’t have anything to do with it, so why should we be responsible? The short answer might be that those decisions of the past had long-term repercussions that still affect the Native Americans and the Black community today.

The problem is what do we do about it today?

For their part, “The sisters have also been in a process of reckoning with the history of St. Mary’s Catholic Indian Boarding School, which they administered from 1883 to 1969. As the community listened to more Tribal voices, they uncovered how Indian Boarding Schools were designed to break cultural continuity—separating children from their families, suppressing Native identity and paving the way for the large-scale seizure of Native homelands.” (FSPA 31 Oct. 2025)

In 1966, the FSPA community purchased the land for $30,000 and established Marywood, a place for spiritual renewal, contemplation and holistic living. They decided to sell this land back to the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians at the original price that they bought it. That’s about 1% of what they could have sold it for today. Why would they do such a thing?

“The move is an attempt to repair and reckon with the painful legacy of colonialism and federal Indian boarding schools, where many Native American children were forcibly removed from their homes and forced to assimilate. Nearly 1,000 tribal youth died at those schools, including children from Lac du Flambeau and other tribes in Wisconsin.” (SuperiorTelegram 1 Nov. 2025)

Though these sisters weren’t around during that time, they still recognized the results of that legacy. They decided that this land should be returned to its original caretakers, at a cost to themselves. What did they gain?

According to Lac du Flambeau Tribal leader John D. Johnson, Sr., “This return represents more than the restoration of land — it is the restoration of balance, dignity, and our sacred connection to the places our ancestors once walked. The Franciscan Sisters’ act of generosity and courage stands as an example of what true healing and partnership can look like.” (SuperiorTelegram 1 Nov. 2025)

But someone had to pay the cost. I think that parable ended abruptly because we still have to decide today if we’re going to join the party that our Father is throwing. I think the Sisters just showed us what that looks like.

If we’re honest about our history’s past, we have a lot of repair work to do. The Franciscan Sisters are an example and a reminder to us that, if we want to move toward healing relationships, someone has to be willing to absorb the cost.

So, when others bring up the idea of reparations for the wrongs our own country has done, I suppose our response will tell us if we’re still standing out on the porch.

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