Sermon March 9 2025 – Luke 4:1-13 Rev. Betsy Hogan
You know that thing, where there’s something that you always find ridiculously funny, and you’re not really sure why, but you still absolutely do?
With that in mind, I just wanted to mention at the beginning of this sermon that NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Not the legions who suffered it, not the generations of fans of Monty Python – and especially, I suspect, not anyone who decides to relax by reading a great fat BRICK of a classic of nineteenth century Russian literature.
Namely The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky.
Because there it is, The Brothers Karamazov, just minding its own business, trying to “entertain” those lucky enough to wade through its hundreds of pages of existential angst – when suddenly, out of nowhere, it’s the Spanish Inquisition.
Like, it’s chief weapon clearly IS surprise.
What it is, in fact, is a parable that Dostoevsky just drops into the middle of the book. About the Spanish Inquisition. About specifically, and provocatively, JESUS being asked, by the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, what things might have been like if he’d actually given in to those temptations in the wilderness?
What if he’d turned the stones into bread? What if he’d jumped from the pinnacle of the temple knowing angels would swoop down and save him? What if he’d accepted the gift of power over all the kingdoms of the earth?
“Wouldn’t that have been better for us?” he’s challenged by the Inquisitor. “Wouldn’t the world have been changed, and changed for the better,” if he’d assumed in that moment the influence and authority of being Lord of all creation? – if he’d recognized the potential of breathtaking miracles of life-saving protection? – and possibly best of all, if he’d ended forever, and for all his people, the despair of starvation? the risk of ever not having enough to eat?
Wouldn’t that have been better? No one hungry, Jesus as Lord of all the world, and everyone his devoted and safe and protected people?
That’s the premise of Dostoevsky’s parable of the Grand Inquisitor. That in those forty days in the wilderness that the gospel of Luke describes for us in the reading we heard before, as Jesus prayed and struggled and fought with the Temptor, that in the end Jesus made the wrong decisions.
That in favour of allowing for human freedom of choice, he lost what would have been the perfect chance to secure eternal power, to ensure eternal influence, and to assure all people that they’d never be hungry again.
In short, that he lost the perfect chance for success. The ushering in of the Kindom of God, the worship and discipleship of all humanity, PLUS full tummies all around.
And he makes a good case, the Grand Inquisitor does, in Dostoevsky’s story, as he accuses Jesus in this way. I mean, Jesus doesn’t agree with what he’s saying, doesn’t accept his accusations or in any way concede that he’s correct, but from a purely human point of view, and even a faithful point of view, since his description of what might have been is pretty much what we always say is what we’d hope for, the Grand Inquisitor does make a pretty good case.
After all, didn’t Jesus want success? So why not go with it? Why instead perceive what’s on offer not as gift but as temptation? Why cast it all in such a negative light?
Because there HAS been a choice made to perceive these particular suggestions during the forty days in the wilderness negatively. I mean, obviously I realize that Jesus’ experience in this passage is of being tempted by “the devil” or “evil” or “wrongness”, but still –
When Jesus is sitting in the midst of 5000, he doesn’t “refuse to be tempted” to multiply the loaves and fish. When his friend Lazarus has been dead for three days, he doesn’t “refuse to be tempted” to raise him to life again. He doesn’t “refuse to be tempted” to walk on water or to enter Jerusalem on a donkey in the way the Messiah is expected to enter.
So there’s something different in what happens in the wilderness. The possibilities presented in the wilderness are specifically cast not as opportunities but as temptations delivered by “the devil”. They’re specifically understood as negative, not helpful.
And in the grand scheme of things, when we consider all the rest of what Jesus DID do in his time on earth, some of which seems an awful lot like the stuff he refused to do in the wilderness, that IS a little strange.
Which makes it hard not to wonder if the Grand Inquisitor’s question is in fact worth asking. Why didn’t Jesus make the opposite three choices, when he was in the wilderness. Why are we meant to perceive so negatively three things we might usually, quite frankly, associate with success?
And I don’t mean the worldly success that we KNOW Jesus’d not be interested in, but in fact the success of his own mission, the ushering in of the Kindom of God?
God’s eternal power, God’s eternal protection, God’s eternal justice, and no one goes hungry?
It really is odd. And with a tip of the hat to Dostoevsky, kind of fascinating to think about.
But I don’t think, if Dostoevsky will pardon me, that what it speaks to has anything to do with Jesus’ insistence on human freedom of choice. I mean, obviously Jesus refuses what’s presented because he experiences it as an offering of “the devil”, the Temptor –
But I don’t think the essential “evil” or “wrongness” he’s recoiling from here is about his insistence on human freedom of choice – about his needing so fully for the Kindom of God to be something that humanity has to be allowed to freely choose.
I think it’s more like, without wanting to be too flip about it, for Jesus “the real Kindom of God is the friends we make along the way”.
Because I think what Jesus is trying to convey to his Temptor, and to us, is that the Kindom of God – the reign of justice and peace and full tummies for all – it doesn’t just manifest, it’s not just real, as an overarching GOAL.
It’s just as real in its embodying. In its being played out, learned, practiced, experienced as transformative, in how we are on the way.
In fact, it’s as much the Way as it is the goal. It has to be embodied. It has to play out, it has to be learned, it has to be practiced – because the point isn’t just a transformed world, it’s a transformed US.
It’s US, trying to be more kind. It’s US, trying to chip away at our biases and prejudices. It’s US, talking down our inclinations to lash out, trying to be more patient, taking more deep breaths.
It’s not just about a transformed world for Jesus. It’s about a transformed US. It’s about every incremental step we take, inspired by all the interactions that Jesus is going to have after this wilderness bit is finished, to being different, to being better.
More concerned about each other. About people we’ve never even met. About fairness. About helping. About being protective of each other when harm is threatened.
What “the devil” presents Jesus with is the possibility of a fait accompli. No work, just bow down, and it all unfolds. And neither the devil nor Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor can fathom why he doesn’t jump. Metaphorically or literally.
But Jesus doesn’t jump because for Jesus the Kindom of God is within US. There’s no goal without the Way, they can’t be divided.
It’s not just about a transformed world. It’s about a transforming US. Bit by bit. Trying to be better… just because it’s better. Just because what we want our contribution to the world to be is our kindness, our passion for justice, our sense of responsibility for others, our protectiveness, our care.
What we’re reminded of in this story is that ALL of that matters. All our tiny little incremental bits of whatever we’re getting up to in trying to be better – ALL of it matters.
Because if it didn’t, Jesus would just have ushered in the Kindom of God and not construed that temptation to do so to be something thunk up by "the devil” at all.
Instead he says no. Three times, because apparently his chief weapon is ALSO surprise. And “the devil” can’t really believe it.
But Jesus means it. There’s no goal without the way. They can’t be divided. But every bit of our effort, God being our helper, matters. Thanks be to God. Amen.