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Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent – February 28, 2010
No larger than an almond, from which it derives its name, the amygdala lies buried deep within the temporal lobes of our brains; a part of our anatomy that’s been with us a long, long time; one that, despite its small size, holds huge sway over our lives; one that we share not only with other mammals but with reptiles and birds as well. One that, biologists say, has helped us to survive as a species for lo these thousands and thousands of years. And what is the key to that survival? Fear.
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what the Center for Neural Science at New York University says: “It is possible to map out in great detail just how the fear system of the brain works…Learning and responding to stimuli that warn of danger involves neural pathways that send information about the outside world to the amygdala, which determines the significance of the stimulus and triggers emotional responses, like freezing or fleeing, as well as changes in the inner workings of the body’s organs and glands.”
In essence, if this tiny part of our brain detects any threat to our survival, it sounds the alarm and triggers all sorts of emotional and physical changes: rapid heart beat, sweaty palms, shallow breathing; you know, what some people experience when they see a snake or when they have to speak in public.
Early on, say the scientists at NYU, “evolution hit upon a way of wiring the brain to produce results that are likely to keep the organism alive in dangerous situations.” Indeed, they say, “Evolution seems to have gone with an ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it rule’ when it comes to the fear system of the brain. The things that make rats and people afraid,” they say, “are very different, but the way the brain deals with danger appear to be similar.”
But there is a crucial distinction between human beings and rats and reptiles and raptors: as thinking, reasoning, problem solving imaginative creatures, we are capable, in fearful situations, of both assessing what is going on and then figuring out what to do about it. As the NYU scientists say, “In order to be consciously fearful you have to have a sufficiently complex kind of brain, one that can be aware of its own activities.”
In other words, the fact that we know we are afraid opens us to a host of possible actions in response to our fear. We do more than react instinctively; we analyze a situation, we weigh options and risks, and then we act.
Mrs. Anne Shooter of Hertfordshire, England, north of London, got a lesson in primordial fear and demonstrated some sophisticated problem solving when her three hens were threatened by a fox.
As she began her story in the Daily Mail newspaper recently, “The shrieks were bloodcurdling and had me leaping from my bed in a huge panic. Was there an intruder in the house? Were the children ok?” That little almond shaped part of her brain was working overtime.
“I ran downstairs,” she continues. “The noise…was coming from outside…Looking out the window…I saw him a fox standing on top of the chicken run, staring down at them, and I’m certain I saw him licking his chops. Our three poor chickens were hysterical, making their unholy racket, desperately trying to get out of their run – which, in fact, was keeping them perfectly safe (but chickens are a bit stupid about things like that.)”
So, here’s where the smart human being and the stupid chicken begin to diverge, despite their initial similar primitive reaction to the threat. After scaring the fox off, she was faced with the problem of how to protect her hens. “Like all true villains,” she said of the animal, “I knew he’d be back.” In Britain, urban foxes are an ever increasing problem; as Mrs. Shooter puts it, “jumping into dustbins and leaving all sorts of unsavory debris over gardens.” Don’t mess with an Englishwoman and her garden, or her hens.
Protecting her small flock, however, proved to be a more daunting task than she imagined. First she called an electrical firm that specializes in stopping fox attacks. They told her to install an electric fence around her yard. “Touch it once and he’ll never touch it again,” the man told her. “That’ll be him scared away for good.”
Great idea, she thought, but her children are aged two and four; “I can hardly have them running into an electrical fence when their in the garden.” “Same as with the foxes, love,” the man reassured her. “Touch it once and they’ll never touch it again. Don’t worry, it won’t kill them – well not unless they’re wearing a pacemaker and it’s raining.”
Mrs. Shooter decided against that option. Her other options proved less than effective or appealing; she bought some ultrasonic machines that emit a high pitched noise that only animals can hear, nothing. Her personal trainer, an ex-Army sniper, offered to shoot the creature. Again, the idea was nixed; aside from the legal issues, there is no point in killing an urban fox, another one would just move in and take over the territory.
Then, while she was at a party, someone came up with the most original suggestion she’d heard so far: Lion dung. Apparently it smells really scary to foxes and keeps them away. She called the local zoo who told her they couldn’t give out carnivore dung; it might have dangerous bacteria in it. They suggested she try rhino dung; they’re vegetarian. Will that get rid of foxes, she asked. “I have no idea,” she was told, “But it’s great on flower beds and vegetable patches.”
She decided to skip the rhino dung. Eventually Mrs. Shooter found a way to gather her hens under her wings and protect them from the fox’s threat. And it all began with fear, primordial, primitive fear; fear she was able to set aside and control in order to triumph over it.
Our brains often allow us to put our emotions on hold and act; like that young woman from Canada did in the Olympics, skating to a bronze medal just days after her mother’s unexpected death. The tears came after she finished doing what she had to do. We can do that. Not only can we postpone our reaction until a needed task is accomplished, we can also convert our fear into focus, our anxiety into energy; we have the ability to allow a sense of purpose and mission to trump our self-preserving responses. A different call is answered; a different call is answered, a different path is followed.
“I have decided to follow Jesus,” says the old camp song. “No turning back.”
There’s been no turning back for Jesus ever since, as Luke says, “the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” The cross is looming before him now, its shadow stretching on the horizon. The glory of the Resurrection waits, yes, but there is much to do in the meantime. Fear cannot, and it will not, deter or detour him from what God has sent him to set his face to do.
“Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’” Fleeing in the face of danger is not one of Jesus’ responses. Neither is fighting or freezing wide eyed in his tracks: “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work’”
There is much work to do, you see, and only a short time in which to do it; there is a mission to be accomplished. Danger is present, of course, but there are hungry and thirsty people everywhere, longing for a supply of hope, there are wounded people everywhere, longing for rescue.
Jesus, while understanding the danger perfectly well – he calls Herod a “fox” and likens himself to a “hen”– he also understands who he is and what he has been sent to do. Above all he knows and he trusts the One who sent him.
He will not flee and he does not fight. Instead, he pays attention to the task at hand and continues on his way with a single minded devotion, knowing where he is going and knowing all that awaits him. Despite the lurking fox, like a mother hen he continues to draw people under his protective wings; no turning back; no turning back.
While he falters in the garden and he stumbles up the hill, he does not veer from the path that leads through the darkness of the crucifixion to the dawn of the resurrection. He knows who goes with him.
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear?” says the first verse of our Psalm for today. “The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”
There are over 300 references to fear in the Old and New Testament, ranging from a sense of reverence to heart palpitating panic. Fear is indeed part of our make up; without it we would not have survived as a species. Yet the kind of fear most of us are faced with is less specific than a threat from a predator or a threat from a battle. It is, nonetheless, very real and can be debilitating.
In fact, many of the most common psychiatric disorders that afflict humans are related to the brain’s fear system. According to the Public Health Service, about 50% of mental problems reported in the U.S. (other than those related to substance abuse) are accounted for by the anxiety disorders, including phobias, panic attacks and so on.
Not a psychiatrist but a theologian, Paul Tillich, said that human beings face three types of anxiety: the anxiety of nonbeing – death; the anxiety of meaninglessness; and the anxiety of fate – unpredictability, uncertainty.
Each day we encounter these anxieties; each day we decide how we will face these perceived threats to our well-being. Our coping options are almost endless: we can deny the threats; we can drown them in busyness or in assorted substances; we can alter our diets or our addresses, all in an effort to keep one step ahead of that nagging sense that while we are in no apparent danger, something just isn’t right.
Or, we can do what needs to be done; we can do what we are called to do; we can attend to the assorted tasks that befall us, attend to the assorted people that cross our paths, people who likely are anxiously looking to another for a sense of healing, a sense of peace; looking for the will and spirit to continue. “Be kind,” said the Jewish thinker Philo about two thousand years ago, “for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”
Make no mistake, while there are no medals awarded for behaving as a decent human being, sometimes even to live, as the sages knew, is an act of courage. We decide to live, then, more than survive, not always without anxiety, but following in the way of Jesus, equipped with a love that refuses to allow fear to disable our faith or detour us from our path.
If we do that, I don’t see how the foxes can ever prevail.