Then he heard his mother's voice replaying in his head. She had warned him just she before she left for the store. "Stay away from the old pine in the backyard. The branches are brittle." "I don't want you to get hurt," she had explained. He had listened without argument. But once his mother was out of sight he became convinced of his own invulnerability and certain that his skills were sufficient to carry him where others might fail.

He let the memory of his mother's voice float away like milkweed seeds on the wind. He walked across the yard and placed one palm on the rough bark of the tree. It was a simple thing, then, to reach up hand over hand, place his feet on the stubs sticking out of the trunk, and climb. The needles on the lower branches brushed his neck as he moved through them. Resin stuck to his hands and the pleasing scent of the tree filled his lungs.

Ten feet up, the limb beneath his left foot cracked and broke away from the trunk.

The boy fell from the cool green pine needle clouds and crashed to the earth. He landed on his back and the air slammed out of him. Bright points of light floated before his eyes. Sharp needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He could feel his heart thumping wildly in the vacuum of his chest. His ears were filled with a roaring sound that wasn't quite loud enough to cover the echoes: "Stay away from the old pine. I don't want you to get hurt…get hurt…get hurt." Then everything circled around itself and closed tight into darkness and silence. When he woke up he was no longer in the backyard but in a hospital bed. He spent most of the rest of that summer in a cast that seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. He had sought freedom in the tree but found himself weighted down and injured by the consequences of his choice.

We were made with the freedom to choose. We have a wide range of possible actions but we still operate within limits. Some situations cannot hold the weight of our will and if we insist on going out on a limb we will fall. Lent is a time to come down out of the trees we gotten ourselves into and stand, with Christ, on holy ground.

On Wednesday over four hundred people gathered at Saint James to hear the invitation to a holy Lent and to receive ashes on their forehead as a sign of their mortal nature. To remember that we are mortal is to begin to survey the boundaries of our understanding and control.

We make hundreds of decision every week. Some of the choices build up our relationship with God and other people. Some choices lead to isolation and alienation. Lent is a time to meditate on Scripture and to reflect on the shape of our lives in light of the wisdom we find there. Forty days are set aside to practice making different choices so that we might experience different consequences. The Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting and self-denial are not an end in themselves, they are simply a means to turn our attention from ourselves and refocus it on God. By so doing we move toward a right relationship with our creator.

We have two stories before us this morning. Both are about trust and right relationship. In Genesis it is clear that God is the one who made everything - the garden, the people in it, and the tree at the center of it all. There is no ambiguity in God's command. "You may eat from every tree in the garden," God says, "but not this one."

You can see it coming right there. It is like telling a little child not to touch the cake on the counter. There will be fingers in the icing as soon as you leave the kitchen. There is just something in us that suddenly wants to do whatever it is that we have been told not to do. It is a way of asserting, "I'm in charge here. Your rules don't apply to me." This is of course a misapprehension as any child discovers when his mother comes back into the kitchen and find him with icing all over his hands. Likewise, the story in Genesis makes clear that God remains sovereign even if we imagine otherwise.

God made this world in which we live, and you and I are his. He knows our innermost nature. God is not being capricious when God gives commandments. The purpose of all those "Thou shalt nots" is to keep us from falling and getting hurt. Whether we can see the reasons for it or not, God knows that some actions have consequences that are as inevitable and powerful as the effects of gravity. God wants life and health for us. Whether the commandment is "stay away from that tree" or "do not covet your neighbor's wife", the stated prohibition is for our own good. If we do things that strain our relationships with God or others we will be injured in the process. Is there no other option in this life other than to fall out of one tree after another until it kills us?

This brings us to the second story. Jesus left the water of the river for the dust of the desert. For forty days he was alone with his own thoughts and without sustenance. Into this emptiness temptation came. Lent takes its cue from this time in the desert because the temptations that Jesus faced are the same ones that face us. When the devil suggested that Jesus change stones into bread it was just another way of saying, "Change the rules, take the place of God." This temptation is as old as the Garden of Eden. It is as close as the next time we are tempted to use our own power inappropriately.

When the devil stood Jesus on the edge of the temple roof and whispered "jump" it was just another way of saying "Test God by taking your life into your own hands." The temptation was all the more pernicious in that it was wrapped in broken bits of Holy Scripture to pretty it up: "He will command his angels concerning you" and "On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone." But the two verses the devil quoted were pulled out of their proper context and pasted together. Scripture is not a collection of magic catch phrases we pull out of a hat, it is an extended story of salvation history. The sense is in the whole story, the sweep of relationship through time. Jesus was not fooled by the snippets because he knew the greater whole. Are we similarly equipped or are we ripe to take a fall if the words of temptation include a few lines of a psalm? Perhaps the temptation is to twist scripture in our ignorance to justify our own missteps. The fact remains that some branches will not support our weight. A Lenten discipline of meditating on scripture may help us see the forest and the trees, knowing those that are good to approach and those that are better left alone.

The final temptation in the desert could be restated as "Turn away from God and I will give you power and possessions." This temptation is ageless. There is an Hassidic proverb that states "a man who thinks money can do everything will do anything for it." If we let power and possessions assume the place of reverence and trust in our lives that should be reserved for God we will find our relationships slipping away. That which we worship and serve has dominion over us and shapes who we will become.

The desert and the garden are both places of temptation. In each the temptation to seize control and to usurp God is offered. We can see the result of capitulation in the story from Genesis. But we can see the possibility of perseverance in the choices Jesus made.

Lent is a time to walk with Christ, to watch what faithful obedience looks like and to attempt to imitate his example. Christ put God above all things.

This is not an easy road. But in the end, our attempts will be counted as righteous even if we fall from brittle pines for Christ will climb upon the tree of life and death on our behalf, an offering and a sacrifice. In his rising will be our salvation. AMEN.