Belonging to the River: The Winding Way from Servant to Son
The difference, perhaps, is the difference between a man standing at the edge of a river in the feral silver dawn and a boy whistling along its bank, certain, in the marrow of himself, that the river is his, though he did not make it and could never own it and does not altogether understand it. The river runs its own way, roiling and cold, indifferent to men with fishing poles and burdens and books filled with names of saints and scholars. Yet, still, in its running, there is something extravagant and oddly personal, a gift so intimate you might miss it for being ordinary. This is the heart of the matter: servanthood is about duty and necessary work, sonship is about belonging and trust.
Christian history is thick with stories of servants, faithful, stoic, careful men and women who gird their loins and do what needs doing. The mystics, prophets, and mothers and fathers of the Church have sung the song of obedience; the refrain runs through the Psalms, the pages of Augustine, and in every parish bulletin pressed into the hands of exhausted deacons. There is honor in service, surely. Yet the Lord, who is wild and tender, wants more. “I no longer call you servants,” says Jesus. “I call you friends.” It is perplexing. It upends the ledger. Suddenly, our posture before God is not merely one of knees and folded hands, but of open arms and invitation.
Henri Nouwen tells us, with his gentle Dutch accent curling through his sentences, that the journey from servant to son is a journey from striving to intimacy. In The Return of the Prodigal Son, he stands before Rembrandt’s painting and sees not just the ragged younger son, but the elder brother, and the father whose love cannot be exhausted by ingratitude or absence. The servant lives in the shadow of fear, fear of failure, of insignificance, but the son lives in the sunlit country of belonging, drenched in grace. “Everything I have is yours,” says the father in the story.
Rolheiser, too, in The Holy Longing, unfolds the mystery with hands rough enough to split wood and tender enough to bless a child. He writes of the spiritual life as “moving from living under the law to living under grace, from living in fear to living in trust.” It is a movement, really, a migration of soul, much like the geese crossing the sky at the turning of the season. We grow from obligation and anxiety into assurance and peace, not immediately, not all at once, but in the daily conversion of breakfast, disappointment, and prayer. This is spiritual maturity: not just knowing we are loved, but risking ourselves on that love.
Holiness, then, becomes less about the perfection of our serving and more about the honesty of our receiving. Mission is not a project squeezed from our effort, but a song rising from our friendship with Christ, with each other. Human dignity is not earned with tally marks, but unfolded, gift upon gift, as we find ourselves named and claimed. To serve as a beloved child is to discover, with the reckless joy of children, that grace is not mere pardon but welcome. It is not a contract. It is a feast.
And here is the confession, slipped between the lines as reluctantly as a child stepping into cold water. Too often, still, prayer is a kind of ledger, petition, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, an almost industrious series of spiritual chores. The servant side of myself is careful, anxious, ever aware of judgment. But then there are mornings, quiet, inexplicable, when prayer is presence, and God is father, and the incline of my soul is gentle and bold; I am not earning anything, but savored, loved for being alive. Some days, I suspect, we linger between servant and son, between effort and gift. The invitation is always before us, fresh as new bread, to step into belonging.
This journey, this tilting from servant to son, is the story. It is the gospel written not just in ink, but in laughter, tears, hesitation and refusal, hope and awe. To live as a beloved child is to let oneself be surprised by mercy. It is to belong to the river, and to the Father, and finally, to the whole shimmering, wounded, holy world.
Bibliography:
Nouwen, Henri J.M. The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
Rolheiser, Ronald. The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality. New York: Doubleday, 1999.
Holy Bible, John 15:15, Romans 1:1.
Augustine of Hippo. Confessions.
