SCRIPTURES  

• Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7. Adam and Eve are tempted by a serpent to distrust God and eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

• Psalm Response: Psalm 32  A voice of wisdom from one who has sinned, confessed, and known God's forgiveness. See performance suggestions below in "Embodying the Word."

• Romans 5:12-19. Jesus Christ as the New Adam who frees us from the power of sin and death.

• Matthew 4:1-11. Matthew's story of Jesus tempted by the devil in the wilderness

- Turning stones into bread = material temptation

  Throw self off cliff = security temptation

   Have dominion  =  power temptation 

-IN MANY CHURCHES, Lent begins with a sooty forehead, as believers kneel for the Ash Wednesday reminder that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. it is not meant to depress or frighten us, but simply to remind us who we are: human beings, mortals, not God. B.B.Taylor

-At His temptation, Jesus forfeited the three greatest powers at his disposal, miracle, mystery, and authority."

-But Adam and Eve are not our only ancestors. There is someone else who has claimed us

-The Garden of Eden and the Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness: two stories central to our faith because they answer the question, "Who am I?" Through metaphor and poetic image, they remind us where we come from and who we are.

-The source of our temptations is almost always our own legitimate, normal, natural desires. The desire for food, sexual intimacy, approval of others is not from the devil. These are wholesome, normal, legitimate desires. How do they become sinful?

-The devil may not be a cartoon character sitting in a red suit with a pitchfork on your shoulder. Maybe could replace the word "devil" with the word "temptation," a word which, presumably, is grounded for most of us in tangible experience.

- Temptation,  a "flirtatious reality"

- Is this a New Testament recording of proof texting where Jesus simply found the appropriate scriptural grenades to hurl at the devil?  Bill Stroop

-the heart of Jesus’ temptations was to misuse the power that he had

--Lent is a great and graced time to face our temptations and deface them gracefully. Larry Gillick

-In essence, the devil says to him, "Be both in this world and of this world.  de Jong

-Jesus could play God or he could remain human

- These scriptures are about the temptation not to be a good human being. I think they are about the temptation not to be a human being at all. As far as I can tell, what Adam and Jesus are both tempted by is the chance to play God  Barbara Brown Taylor

-Wherever it comes, the tempter/tester does not have the power to make someone do something. Temptation is not coercion.  Tempters can't make someone do something bad, but try to make the temptee want to do something bad. They don't take away the will. Rather, they try to change one's will.

-This duration of forty days (which symbolically represents the forty weeks a child remains in its mother's womb in preparation for a new birth)

-At the root of all temptation lies the so-called capital sins: pride, greed, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and laziness

- The greatest work of the devil is that he has made us believe there is no  devil  Gomes

-Our vices we recognize, it is our virtues we do not see.  Most vulnerable when we massage our virtues Gomes

-TEMPTATIONS   (Peter Gomes spin on this scripture)

1. Jesus is tempted towards compassion.  to feed the needy, etc.  compassionate people sometimes  need to feel good about themselves more than  how the needy feels.

2. Appeals to the virtue of trusting in God.

3. Offers the ultimate gift,  power.

-Our walk through life is not a MapQuest™ journey of the shortest and easiest route between two places. It is indeed a life that will be marked by potholes, roads without bridges, and incomplete information. We will suffer. And we will have to endure much. Like Jesus, We can live without fear, because God is with us no matter where we find ourselves. Stroop

- Lent is a good time to go into your own personal desert and undergo your own form of rehab  Stroop

QUOTES

-The temptation is not to become human, but to become a dysfunctional human.  Temptation is anything that makes us less human.

-In his autobiography entitled Confessions, a young Augustine was in the wilderness struggling with life's carnal temptations. St. Augustine wrote, "Give me chastity and continence, but not just now."

-The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason. T.S. Eliot
- I can resist everything except temptation.  Oscar Wilde

-"Where Humanity Fails, Jesus Prevails!"   Rev. Alex Stevenson

-  "A triumphant cry: It is accomplished!  and it was as though he had said:  Everything has begun."  Nikos Kazantzakis

--From the beginning in the Garden, to Jesus' temptations, and ours; the Liar entices us with things that appear to be good. Stoffregen

-To err is truly human

- We have more temptations to be good than to be bad.   Fulton Sheen

-"To err is human; to forgive is divine." "The devil made me do it." "I'm only human." “I couldn’t help myself.” These phrases suggest that when temptation comes along we are merely the victims

- I made the mistake of telling my father, "But Dad, I'm only human.!  He wisely answered, "No, the problem is you are not human enough."  Lindy  (Jesus was human enough

-- Compare Jesus struggle with 'survival' in the desert with The CBS program "Survival".  Do the ends justify the means?  Apparently on T.V.,  they do.  Rev. Beth Quick

- I wonder what Jesus would have been tempted by in the 21st century? Power?  Materials? Security?

-Vocation  is not a voice "out there" calling me to become  but it is a voice "in here" calling me to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.

-The temptations are like a table of contents to all the decisions that he would make, the miracles that he would work, and the teachings he would utter. 

-It is in times of testing or trial we are called upon to prove our true identity and character, who we are and whose we are.

-Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell

HUMOR

-He had finally got his chance to make the Really Big Sale.   As he was ushered into the office of the executive buyer, an assistant brought her coffee and left. The atmosphere was cordial, and he knew he was giving his best presentation ever. Then the assistant tapped on the door, re-entered the office and spoke briefly with the executive.  She stood and said, "I apologize, but I have to tend to a matter.  I'll just be a minute or two." And she followed her assistant out of the room.

The sales representative saw her family pictures on her desk.  Then he noticed a contract on her desk.  She had evidently been studying a bid from a competitor.  Leaning forward, he could see the column of figures, but it was obscured by a diet soda can. He was tempted to move the can and see the bottom line of his competitor's bid.   After wrestling with himself a while, he finally decided to take a peek. As he lifted the soda can, he discovered that the can wasn't filled with soda at all.  Instead it was a bottomless can filled with 1,000 BBs which gushed out, and ran all over the desk and cascaded onto the carpet.  His attempt to short cut the competition was exposed.

-I generally avoid temptation, unless I can't resist it. Mae West My Little Chickadee

-“Eve was framed

-"How come opportunity knocks only once, but temptation beats down the door every day?"

-A brilliant magician was performing on an ocean liner. But every time he did a trick, the Captain's parrot would yell, "It's a trick. He's a phony. That's not magic." Then one evening during a storm, the ship sank while the magician was performing. The parrot and the magician ended up in the same lifeboat. For several days they just glared at each other, neither saying a word to the other. Finally the parrot said, "OK, I give up. What did you do with the ship?"  (The parrot couldn't comprehend what was happening and neither could Peter.)

ILLUSTRATIONS

-The point is, God drew a line in the garden of Eden and said, "Human beings on this side, God on this side. Tree of life on your side, tree of the knowledge of good and evil on my side. Stay on your own side of the line if you know what's good for you." Barbara Brown Taylor

-In viewing a painting, we find that the frame’s importance is that it highlights the painting and leads the eye to greater appreciation. Lent helps the believer to refocus a bit. If the frame diminishes the artist’s work by its own beauty, then the frame is actually the art-object and the painting is reduced to highlighting the frame. Gillick

-After her husband's business suffered from an economic downturn, Maria hit the streets looking for a job. Finally, out of desperation, she went to a local chapel and prayed to St. Expeditus, [the patron saint of urgent causes.]   In no time at all she got a call from an import shop. They needed a salesperson, and she could start right away.   Word got around, and soon the chapel was full to overflowing with people praying to St. Expeditus. There are three prayers we all know. “Now I lay me…”   The Lord’s prayer  and “O God if you’ll get me out of this,  I’ll…  Homiletics

CHILDREN

- Bring in a remote controlled car and have some fun with it and then tell how we are not like the car....we have choice WE make.  Adam and Eve had choices.  End with the fact that even if we make a wrong choice,  God forgives and helps us start over. 

- Play the game, Simon Says and then replace "Simon Says" with the Bible Says.  Elaborate on this.

-  Think of Lent as "Training days"   In a sense, we move into the wilderness with Jesus (during lent) .  The trials we face in training for what God wants us to accomplish with our lives.

PRAYER PHRASES

-- In our weakness, come to us in your strength.  In our waywardness, you move toward us with forgiveness. Be with us during these 40 days of Lent and teach us that, having repented and confessed our sin, we might eagerly receive your forgiveness. 

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