The days following his death were filled with the anguish that comes with mourning. I went to his wake and his burial. I held his death like a plague in my bones until I could release my own suffering and grief to God.
Many people in my neighborhood rejoiced at Caligallo’s death. He got what he deserved, they said. The people carried out God’s justice. If you’ve committed harsh crimes, you must pay for them with harsh punishment.
Yet is that the whole story? Is this how God sees the story? God is just, to be sure. Nevertheless, his mercy goes beyond his justice so that we can affirm with the apostle Paul, “Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.”
As you can imagine, street violence became a burning issue for the team and me [John]. We didn’t have answers. We weren’t even sure of the right questions. Yet we knew that something had changed, something inside us, and that God would use this something to also work through us in the slums where he had called us.
1. Moreno, Y Salimos a Matar, 52.
2 / Family Dynamics
When a young life gets snuffed out in bloody vengeance, life feels fragile and precious, somehow sacred. Emotions hit hard and wide, from anger to sadness and every shade between. The sadness I felt was not only for the loss of Caligallo. I grieved for what I can best describe as veiled hearts and minds. It was as if on the stage of life our vision was blocked by a thick, heavy curtain. Try as I might to look beyond the curtain, I couldn’t. My vision was impaired. I, like my vengeful neighbors, didn’t see Caligallo the person. If it weren’t for Ryan’s determination to break the ice socially, my fear would have kept me away from my offender. My belief in the neighbors’ condemning judgments of the feared malandro would have gone unchallenged. Nor did I see God clearly. After Caligallo was gone, I longed to see the bigger picture of what God was up to.
My prayer became, “Lord, pull back the curtain! Grace me with eyes to see your unfolding drama.” The following reflections come from this prayer—to see with unveiled hearts and minds, to see the story behind the story.
My use of the parable of the prodigal son leans heavily on the work of Kenneth Bailey, a New Testament scholar who lived and worked in the Middle East.1 The parable provides glimpses “beyond the curtain” that reveal God’s hopeful story in this season of pain and sorrow. Bailey’s unique contribution to biblical scholarship is his cultural knowledge of traditional Middle Eastern peasantry, which has remained remarkably similar from the time of Jesus to the present. The dynamic interfacing of the parable with barrio experiences opens up inspiring and compelling theological vistas.
There was a man with two sons. The younger one cursed his father by asking for his portion of the estate. With money in hand, the son went to a faraway land where he squandered his wealth in reckless living. The older son stayed home and worked hard on the land. After a time, the younger son’s money ran out. To feed himself, he worked the most disgraceful jobs imaginable. Then he came to his senses: “I don’t need to suffer like this. Even if my father makes me a hired hand until I recover the money I wasted, it’ll be better than this.” And he set out for home.
Meanwhile, the father had been waiting for his son’s return, watching each day from his front porch. One day, while the lost son was still far off, his dad saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran and threw his arms around him and kissed him. No one could believe their eyes when the father came running down the road like a bloody fool.
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” “I will hear none of it. Quick,” he called to the servants, “bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. We must celebrate! For this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.” And the party began.
The older son was in the fields. When he came near the house, he heard the music and dancing. A servant informed him, “your brother is back and your father is throwing a party for him.” The older son went ballistic and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. The son answered, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your riches with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” “My dear son,” the father replied, “you’re always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:11–32, my paraphrase)
The Prodigal
Ryan appropriately calls Caligallo a “prodigal.” Like the younger brother in Jesus’ parable, Caligallo wandered away from home and squandered his life and his God-given inheritance in reckless living.
As important as the younger son is to Jesus’ story, and Caligallo to ours, have you ever asked yourself why the parable is named after the prodigal? We all but ignore the older son while marginalizing the father’s importance. The story contains three main characters: the father and his two sons. Solid arguments could be made to cast the older son into the protagonist role. Doesn’t the suspenseful ending ride on his moment of reckoning to enter the party or not? The father too demands special attention. As head of the family and the one who tries to restore things, he is indisputably the representation of Christ, dramatizing Jesus’ mission in simple yet stirring hues.
As we’ll discuss later, the evangelical church has obsessed over the prodigal, making him the heart and soul of the parable. This has led to a lopsided, reductionistic vision of the gospel, something we will look at soon enough.
The Other Son in the Mirror
Perhaps less obvious than Caligallo’s role in our barrio parable is the similarity between my neighbors’ attitude and that of the older brother. Yet my neighbors’ judgment against Caligallo finds good company in the prodigal’s older brother, who judges him unworthy of the father’s acceptance and embrace. The offense I encountered in conversations with neighbors while (self-righteously?) trying to help them see God’s mercy and forgiveness for Caligallo is not unlike the offense the father faces in his conversation with the elder son.
Our ‘peace’ corner where Caligallo died
Before we get too comfortable with likening my neighbors to the obstinate older son, let’s be honest. Haven’t we all reacted like the hardworking, “deserving” older brother at one time or another? If we’re honest about human nature, we’re more like him than we wish to admit. Under ordinary circumstances we, no doubt like the elder sibling, manage to conform to the expected norms of moral conduct. Most of the time we control our anger and do what’s right.
We can also concede that it isn’t every day that our little brother returns under such extraordinary circumstances or that our father displays such extravagant compassion to an undeserving rat. Yet for the older son, his brother’s return precipitates an unparalleled crisis that puts the normally well-behaved brother over the edge.
When we lift our eyes beyond the narrow, exclusive preoccupation with the reckless younger son, previously unseen family dynamic come into view.
Two Heartbreakers
“I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders . . .” From listening to the older son you’d think the father is a taskmaster. The older son has been living with his father, conceivably his