SermonStudio

Not long ago I heard about one more study done with rats. This particular study seemed to indicate that the amount of stress experienced by baby rats in their first ten days set their bodies for the rest of their lives as to how the rats would react to stressful situations. As I recall, there are at least two factors at work. First of all, in a stressful situation a chemical is produced that triggers the stress response throughout the body. Secondly, there are receptors throughout the body which sense that chemical and alert the appropriate glands and organs to get ready for "fight or flight."

If during those first ten days of life the baby rat experienced a lot of stress, especially from the mother, then the brain is programmed permanently to produce a lot of the stress chemical and a higher than average number of receptors are produced throughout the rat's body. In other words, not only is there more chemical screaming stress, but the rat is more sensitive to and responsive to that stress chemical.

On the other hand, if the baby rat experiences a low level of stress during that same period of time, the brain is permanently programmed to produce lower levels of that chemical when stressed, plus fewer receptors for that chemical appear throughout the body. In this case, the rat would be less reactive and more calm in a stressful situation because less chemical is poured into the body and fewer receptors are there to respond. Whether this plays out the same way in the early days of a human baby is not known, but it gives us pause.

I find this a fascinating study. It reminds me a bit of that song from South Pacific. Remember the words? "You have to be taught before it's too late, before you are six or seven or eight, to hate all the people your relatives hate; you have to be carefully taught; you have to be carefully taught."

There are very basic things that are learned psychologically and built in physically and emotionally at an early age. And such learning, or "programming," if you will, has profound implications for the rest of a person's life.

The Bible is full of references to one's heart, which is often referred to metaphorically as the seat of one's intellect, will, and conscience. In the scripture for this morning, the author of First John speaks a very important word about the place that the heart has in a person's relationship with God and others.

But long before this writer took quill pen to parchment, the Psalmist had been writing about the heart. Given our rat story and the recognition of the importance of early training to program us for good or evil, for emotional well-being or fragility, Psalm 139 stands out as a very significant word for all time.

Remember some of the verses in that Psalm? Verse 13: "It was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb." And then those powerful final verses: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (vv. 23, 24 RSV).

The heart. The formation of the heart, which responds to God and others, is vital in a person's life. How important then to see to it that our children and our youth have opportunities to enable their hearts to be trained aright. How grateful we can be when a little one has the blessing of a mother who is not so inwardly wounded that she is unable to train the heart of her child in a way that will bring joy and balance to that life, before God and the world!

How vital it is that the church be consciously about the process of training the hearts of its people, that they might be permanently receptive to God and open to the way of life seen in and through Jesus Christ, relative to our neighbors, near and far.

Psalm 51 has a wonderful message to it which should be our daily prayer. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me" (v. 10 RSV).

All of us can think of a person whose heart was not formed well, a person whose heart is filthy and bitter, a heart that is unable to respond to another's pain with compassion.

Or, and this is the insightful gem in our scripture reading for today from 1 John, there are those who have been brought up to feel guilty about everything, who never know peace. There are those whose hearts constantly condemn them, as the writer of John puts it.

Rather we need to pray this prayer: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."

How hard it is for us to have balance in our lives when it comes to deciding when enough is enough, when we have cared enough, when we have sacrificed enough. Of course, you and I know that we don't sacrifice very well or very much. But I am also convinced that God does not call us to a life of constant guilt, which keeps us from the abundant life to which Jesus specifically calls us (John 10:10) or keeps us from knowing when guilt should be listened to, as a word from God. One can be so caught up in little compulsive guilt trips that, like the boy who hollered, "Wolf!" too often, we are emotionally unable to respond to those times when guilt is real and appropriate and should be listened to.

I think I have told you before about the preacher who caught a fly ball at a baseball game and felt so guilty that he hadn't paid for it that he wrote a letter to the commissioner of baseball offering to pay for the ball! The commissioner responded: "Shame on you for worrying over such petty, silly things. I would hope that a leader of the church would have better judgment and would be spending time and energy on truly important matters." This preacher's heart was not properly formed in its early stages. One wonders what parent or teacher or preacher taught him such unhealthy, compulsive responses.

The writer of this first letter of John says that we should love not just in word but in deed, yes, but that there are also those times when we should reassure our heart when it unjustly condemns us, for God is greater than our early programming. God is greater than the guilt trips which tend to be passed on as the Christian gospel.

Rather we should pray this prayer: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."

It's not easy to develop a clean heart and a right spirit. Martin Luther, the German reformer who tried early in the sixteenth century to reform the Roman Catholic Church, spoke to this issue. He wrote, "The conscience is one drop; the reconciled God is a sea of comfort."

In a commentary on 1 John, the writer says this as he quotes these words of Luther: "Our supreme court is not the human heart, whose feelings are fickle and manipulable by fear to self-condemnation. Our court of final appeal is God...." The author of this commentary goes on to say that these verses in 1 John "amount to a repudiation of any attempt by any Christian to lay a cheap guilt trip on anyone."1

I would challenge us all today to examine our hearts this coming week. When we feel the pangs of guilt, is it truly something that comes from the heart of God that needs to be responded to, or is it unhealthy guilt, thrown up by our subconscious or an old tape recording of compulsive guilt recorded in our formative years by wounded or misguided or misinformed mentors, falsely condemning our heart?

Or is it the word of God, calling us to take loving, courageous action, to repent, change directions, and walk more faithfully in the footsteps of Jesus?

In order to listen attentively and rightly, we will need to train our hearts. The good news is that by the power of God, through Jesus Christ, experienced through worship and small group study and fellowship with caring members of the Body of Christ, the Church, malformed hearts can be healed and renewed!

Let us say once again our prayer for ourselves and all those whose task is to form young hearts in the likeness of Jesus Christ: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."

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1. The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. XII, p. 424.