Estrangement

I have been a long time estranged from posting in this blog. And in parallel, I have a long time felt estranged in my relationship with my Father. That is to say, not only have I not been to church for several weeks, but I have not taken the time to pray, to read, to serve, to worship, to the point of relative estrangement.

I know that I have often said, because it is true, that you don't need to perform any purifying rites or jump through hoops or meet prerequisites to draw close to God. You don't need to become clean, pure, and good in order to approach Jesus because the point is Jesus's redemptive grace, not the worthiness of our offerings. So is it right that I feel estranged from God when I haven't been paid attention to Him in a while? It's not as if I have to wash myself in some river or sacrifice a spotless lamb or subsidize an orphanage in Darfur, and then I can go to church on a buzz of righteousness. In a very syllogistic sense, sin means separation from God, Jesus's death saves us from our sin, therefore our estrangement from God is stripped away wholly by Jesus's sacrifice. But in a relational sense, if you've wandered away from your lover for a while, there's a very personal process of reconciliation that needs to be worked through by both parties.

I'm reminded by the culmination of the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. Surely, the son knew that his father was good and merciful. But after squandering his wealth in wild living and falling to the abject position of feeding pigs for a living, the son returned home with humility, yes, and meekness, yes, but also a sense of estrangement. The son said to himself, I will go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.

The son returns with no sense of entitlement. He knows who his father is. But does he see himself as a beloved heir because of his father's extravagant love? Or does he see himself as a son estranged from his father, beginning the road to restitution? Dramatic irony prevails; we know how the story ends. The prodigal son is embraced joyously by his father, who sets aside his judgment, wrath, and sorrow, and runs to welcome his lost child home. And in a certain sense, I guess it's less important to figure out whether the prodigal son was right or wrong to feel such abject undeserving because this story is a true and human story, and whether or not we should feel that way, when I have estranged myself from God, I do feel like the prodigal son and I do feel that God runs to me with welcoming and encircling arms.

I used to identify more with the older brother: the one who was patient and diligent for years and never got the recognition he deserved. I used to be troubled by that the idea that I was siding with the wrong perspective, and thought it would be a sign of wisdom and a realization of truth when I finally came around to identifying with the younger brother, the prodigal son.

I prefer suspended chords to tonal resolution in music, but I think I prefer reconciliations to estrangements in real life.