The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

In his baptism Jesus hears God declaring him to be the beloved Son, but the next voice he hears is the voice of Satan. Jesus, the Son of God, must work in a fallen world. This story of his temptation by the devil in the wilderness isn’t a simple matter of good versus evil. In Scripture temptation is not primarily the choice of whether to take the bribe, seduction or sticky cake held out to you; scriptural temptation as this story makes clear is the testing of your faithfulness to God in a fallen world. And what it means to be faithful is not always clear; as the devil demonstrates ‘what Scripture says’ is not always the obvious guide. Texts from scripture can be used for the wrong purpose. So we as readers are required to think hard about the decisions Jesus makes – his resistance to temptation, his way of remaining faithful to God. This story represents Jesus refusing the miraculous as a permanent response to human need; refusing authority over the nations of the world, refusing to test God’s providential love. Why was he right to refuse? And what are the implications for the church of such refusals?
The most powerful and searching reading of this story, was made by the Russian novelist Dostoevsky. We shall be considering it in the Lent course this week. Dostoevsky presents us with a further story by way of commentary – the Tale of the Grand Inquisitor. Christ has returned to earth and has been locked up by the Spanish inquisition. The Grand Inquisitor condemns Jesus for having set before our human conscience an impossible ideal of freedom. As human beings our freedom is our greatest burden; our deepest wish is for guidance, authority; leadership which will make that freedom easier to bear. When confronted by hard choices and crucial decisions we want to be told what to do, shown how to do it, and be lead by those who know best. And at the same time we want to preserve our own dignity and security by being able to maintain the belief that we are free.
According to the Grand Inquisitor Jesus respected our humanity too much and so failed to be properly compassionate, by allowing us too much freedom. ‘Had you respected him less you would have demanded of him less, and that would have been closer to love.’ The gospel of Jesus can make sense only to a tiny minority of spiritual athletes. Effective compassion for the majority would have provided mankind with ‘miracle, mystery and authority.’ The Inquisitor’s church can only successfully manage the social and material environment if it provides a benevolent power that takes away the burden of freedom through the use of the ‘miracle, mystery and authority’ which Jesus rejected in the wilderness. The Inquisitor’s church benevolently manages our freedom through a system of rewards, punishments, and grand gestures. When the Grand Inquisitor has finished this passionate critique of the path Jesus chose there is silence. And then Jesus’ only response is to kiss his interrogator on his ‘bloodless, ninety year old lips.’ The cell door is opened and the Inquisitor banishes the stranger he hopes never to see again.
So what are we to make of this story? Is freedom such a problem for us? Take for example the way in which the general election seems likely to be run. The hunt seems to be on for those who know best in education or economics or the mending of a broken society. Are we to put more trust in the expertise and knowledge of local or national government? Is more people power the answer to our problems? Are we to trust the political leader who seems most human, most like us? As yet it does not seem to be the case that any political party is prepared to say to the electorate, ‘These are the issues as best we understand them – now you choose.’ And what would our most likely reaction be? To want an independent expert to advise us because we mistrust the way in which the issues had been set out? To believe that we can make an informed choice but to suspect that the majority of the electorate can’t possibly understand? And what will be the implications for our freedom if the proportion of the people voting drops yet again?
Or if we turn from the political to the personal – what price freedom there? Perhaps the hardest element of parenting may be the nurturing of a confident independence balanced by an openness to guidance and support. And insofar as that balance isn’t achieved all of us can be left fearful of seeking help while longing for someone to take care of us. We become leaders who can’t be lead or else we want to hand all our decisions to others.
And what finally of spiritual freedom? For all these issues are equally present in the church and in our struggle to pray. Our attitude to Vicars and Bishops can involve both the desire not to have to take responsibility and leave everything to them, and the belief that we know better than they do. And sometimes perhaps our faith is crippled by a longing for God to intervene, to make himself clearer, to give us a stronger and infallible sense of his presence; just as our faith can also be crippled by a deep seated anxiety which prevents us from being more open to God and to the risks of faith and the awful belief that we are unconditionally loved.
And before all these questions and doubts Christ seems simply to stand there in silence as he stands before the Grand Inquisitor. He will not feed our need, he will not demonstrate his authority, he will not allow us to make bargains with God. And as Christ heroically refuses to become part of a struggle for power, so he may appear powerless to make a difference in the real world. In Dostoevky’s story all Christ leaves behind is that one enigmatic kiss. But in the novel of which this story is a part that kiss has consequences. The story of the Inquisitor is told by Ivan to his young brother Alyosha. Alyosha is a monk, Ivan is a religious rebel, questioning everything and morally and spiritual agonised by his questions. Ivan is convinced that his arguments will put him beyond Alyosha’s understanding and love. And yet at the height of his attack on the young monk’s faith Alyosha suddenly kisses him as Christ in the story kisses the Inquisitor. And that kiss is meant to be seen as an act of gratuitous compassion; it is an unexpected and freely chosen act which breaks into the intellectual predicament so cogently argued by the Inquisitor and by Ivan. The gesture tears up the script. Within the systems of the world there is still a place for Christ to change the scope of what is possible through seemingly insignificant acts of unexpected love or patience or kindness which open up new possibilities of reconciliation. What Doestevsky seems to be saying is that Christ’s power lies not in the authority of his answers or his commands but in gestures and actions which inspire us to act differently by transforming our moral imagination. His kiss makes other kisses possible. The extent to which we are enabled by his example to treat the mundane requirements of life together with loving attention and unexpected acts of unconditional love freely given, proves the wisdom of Jesus in the wilderness. The risk he takes in allowing us to shoulder the burden of our freedom, makes possible the flow of grace in our lives.
And that becomes more and more important in a World of Grand Inquisitors who seem increasingly to believe that rational thought and scientific expertise will create a society in which we will come to see and accept what is good for us. It is that kind of truth claim Dostoevsky had in mind, when he famously said ‘If someone were to prove to me that Christ was outside the truth, and it was really the case that the truth lay outside Christ, then I should choose to stay with Christ rather than the truth.’ For that indeed is the kind of manipulative truth Christ rejected in the wilderness.
For a more detailed analysis of the Brothers Karamzov see Rowan Williams book on Dostoevsky.