I have been walking with the Pilgrim again in The Pilgrim Continues His Way, and this time I found myself feeling sorry for him.
After leaving the young shepherd he met in the woods, the Pilgrim finally made his way to Kyiv. He wanted to confess his sins and receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ—the Eucharist.
He stayed near the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and spent an entire week preparing for confession. He searched his memory all the way back to his youth and wrote down every sin he could remember.
It became quite a list.
Then he heard about a wise ascetic father living at the Kitayev Hermitage, several miles away. The Pilgrim eagerly went to see him and handed him his carefully prepared confession.
The father read it and said something that must have surprised him:
“You, kind brother, have written many empty words.”
That certainly got my attention.
No Fishing
Some of the father’s first advice made considerable sense to me.
He told the Pilgrim not to confess again sins that had already been confessed, forgiven, and not repeated. To keep confessing them, he said, demonstrated a lack of trust in forgiveness.
I didn’t grow up in a church that practiced sacramental confession. The Episcopal Church values confession and reconciliation, although Baptism and Eucharist occupy a distinctive place as the two great sacraments of the Gospel.
Still, I understood the father’s point.
Corrie ten Boom used a wonderful image. When God forgives our sins, God casts them into the deepest ocean and puts up a sign:
NO FISHING.
I like that.
Why do we keep taking our fishing poles back to the water?
If I’ve confessed something, repented of it, received God’s forgiveness, and haven’t returned to it, perhaps it’s time to leave it in the ocean.
The father also told the Pilgrim not to spend confession talking about everybody else who was involved in his sins.
That makes sense too.
It is easy to say:
“I know I shouldn’t have said that, but you should have heard what he said to me.”
Before long, I’m no longer confessing my sin. I’m explaining somebody else’s.
The publican in Jesus’ parable didn’t do that.
He simply prayed:
“God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
The father also warned against unnecessary details. Confession isn’t supposed to become an elaborate replay of everything that happened.
Tell the truth.
Take responsibility for what belongs to you.
Receive mercy.
Keep walking.
So far, I was walking right alongside this ascetic father.
Then things became more difficult.
“You Do Not Love God”
The father told the Pilgrim that his long list contained trivial things while overlooking the great sins underneath them.
He identified four roots:
He did not love God.
He despised his neighbor.
He did not truly believe the words of God in Scripture.
He was filled with pride and ambition.
The Pilgrim was stunned.
Frankly, so was I.
He protested.
How could he not love God, his Creator and Benefactor?
Of course he believed Scripture.
He wished good for everybody.
And what could a poor, disabled pilgrim possibly have to be proud of?
Then the ascetic father handed him the examination of conscience that he himself used.
That made me respect the father more. He wasn’t simply pointing his finger at the Pilgrim. He applied these teachings to himself as well.
Still, as I continued reading, something bothered me.
The father said that if he truly loved God, he would think about God continually and every thought of God would bring great delight. Prayer would constantly nourish him. Instead, he found prayer difficult and spent most of his time occupied with earthly things.
And that’s where I stopped.
Are you sure about that, Father?
Is There Only One Way to Love God?
This man was an ascetic.
His life was built around prayer, discipline, renunciation, Scripture, and spiritual reflection.
There is nothing wrong with that.
It may have been exactly the path God gave him.
But does that mean everybody who loves God must experience God the same way?
I don’t think so.
We cannot all spend every minute of every day praying and studying Scripture.
People work.
People raise children.
People prepare meals.
People care for aging parents.
People write.
People study.
People laugh.
People rest.
People sit beside someone who is grieving.
People walk through the woods and marvel at creation.
Are those hours stolen from God?
I don’t believe they have to be.
Maybe the question isn’t:
How many hours today did I think explicitly about God?
Maybe the question is:
How did God’s love move through my life today?
Jesus gave us the Greatest Commandment: love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves.
I have come to see our lives as relationships—with God, with others, with ourselves, and with the creation through which we travel.
Those relationships aren’t competitors.
They can become places where God’s love is experienced and expressed.
Fruit, Not a Formula
The father had some things to say about loving our neighbor that challenged me.
Would I sacrifice some of my comfort, reputation, happiness, or peace for the good of another person?
That’s a good question.
The Good Samaritan did.
Jesus did.
And merely attending church doesn’t answer it.
I have increasingly distinguished between being a church attender and being a follower of Jesus.
Church attendance, Scripture reading, prayer, Eucharist, tradition, and study can nourish our relationship with God.
But Jesus said we would recognize a tree by its fruit.
Paul describes that fruit:
Love.
Joy.
Peace.
Patience.
Kindness.
Generosity.
Faithfulness.
Gentleness.
Self-control.
Maybe spiritual maturity is better recognized by fruit than by formula.
What About Heaven?
The father also argued that failure to think sufficiently about eternity demonstrated a lack of faith in spiritual realities.
Again, I understand his point.
I believe in eternity.
I believe God’s promises.
I believe there is more beyond this life.
But escaping hell isn’t what motivates me to follow Jesus.
Neither is earning Heaven.
An old Greyhound commercial used to say:
“Leave the driving to us.”
Maybe that’s how I feel about eternity.
God promised it.
I’ll leave the driving to God.
My calling is to live here and now as a follower of Jesus.
I want the breath of God within me to fill me with God’s love.
I want the Holy Spirit to produce fruit in my life.
I want to become more loving, more merciful, more peaceful, more generous, more patient, and more like Jesus.
Heaven is God’s promise.
Today is where I’m called to follow.
Growing in Grace
This is where my Methodist heritage comes back into the conversation.
Scripture.
Tradition.
Experience.
Reason.
I don’t have to throw away what this Orthodox ascetic father teaches me.
Tradition deserves a seat at the table.
But it isn’t the only voice at the table.
I can listen to tradition and ask what Scripture says.
I can compare it with experience.
I can use the reason God gave me.
And I can listen for the Spirit.
Most importantly, I believe in grace.
Prevenient grace.
Sanctifying grace.
Final grace.
Grace is already reaching toward us before we understand what is happening.
Sanctifying grace continues forming us throughout our lives.
And one day God’s final grace will complete what God has begun.
Peter tells us:
“Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Grow.
That’s the word that keeps coming back to me.
I haven’t arrived.
Neither had the Pilgrim.
Neither had the ascetic father.
Neither has anyone sitting in a church pew.
We are growing.
Lord, You Know That I Love You
At one point while reading this, I became angry with the ascetic father.
Then I thought about religious people I have known. I thought about churches and traditions that have sometimes imposed formulas upon people.
And suddenly I heard myself judging them.
That’s when the Jesus Prayer came back to me.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
I can become the Pharisee while criticizing the Pharisee.
I can stand there saying:
“Thank God I’m not like those judgmental religious people.”
And suddenly I’m the one standing on the street corner.
So I don’t want to condemn this ascetic father.
I think his advice contains considerable wisdom.
I simply think it is incomplete.
Something is missing.
Grace.
And that brought me to Peter.
After Peter denied Jesus three times, Jesus asked him:
“Do you love me?”
Finally Peter answered:
“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
There it is.
God knows my heart.
God knows I love Him.
God also knows that my love is incomplete.
God sees where I still need to grow.
And Jesus’ response to Peter wasn’t:
“Then prove how terrible you are.”
It was:
“Feed my sheep.”
Get up.
Love.
Serve.
Keep going.
Keep growing.
Keep walking.
I am not a pilgrim trying to convince God to love me.
I am a pilgrim awakened by prevenient grace, growing through sanctifying grace, and walking toward the final grace God has promised.
I was saved by grace.
I walk by grace.
And I look toward the grace of Heaven.
So I will listen to the ascetic father.
I will listen to the Episcopal Church.
I will listen to my Methodist heritage.
I will listen to the Sacred Writings.
I will listen to my experience.
I will use reason.
And through all of them, I will keep listening for the Spirit.
Because no tradition owns God.
No spiritual discipline contains God.
No formula can manufacture love.
Grace allows us to be human.
And grace keeps inviting us to grow.
Still walking.
Still learning.
Still growing in grace.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a pilgrim.
Amen.
The Curious Pilgrim 
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