I remember reading a few years ago that the fear that ranks number one in the minds of the majority far above the fear of death and the fear of cancer or snakes is the fear of public speaking.

We all want to be a star. But we're all afraid of the spotlight.

I have a thesis why this is so.

Who doesn't know the meaning of public humiliation? And when was our first public humiliation? Everyone of us has a painful childhood memory of the first time we had to recite something by heart in front of an audience. And some of us can probably still dredge up from our brain cells at least a part of whatever it was we had to recite.

(Here is a time for an interactive with the congregation. Ask them to remember their first public recitation and what it was. My first public recitation in elementary school was the 12 lines of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha": "By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea Waters, Stood the wigwam of Nokomis . . ." I only made it through the first eight lines before needing a prompter.)

Whether it was a Bible verse, a poem, or a song, those words learned so long ago remain imbedded in our minds, even if in a garbled, jumbled form.

Anyone know where Gitche Gumee is?

For good or ill the first lessons learned are the ones that stay with us the longest.

That's why you can remember your first bicycle-lock combination, but you can't remember where you put the Christmas lights last year. That's why you can still sing all the words to the camp-fire songs sung at your first sleep-away camp, but you can't remember the name of your boss' spouse. That's why you can remember the first time you went off the high dive, but you can't remember the date of your anniversary. It's during infancy and early childhood that we learn the most. Our new brain cells soak up information like a thirsty sponge.

Want to be multi-lingual? Better start those language lessons around the time language skills are blossoming, between ages 2-4.

Want a musically gifted child? If you don't start those music lessons before age seven, the window for the greatest learning and absorption of musical ability has already closed.

Want a kid that can do their own math homework? Ditto what I just said about music. Music and math skills are closely connected.

On top of learning everything necessary in order just to survive in this world talking, walking, feeding yourself, crossing the street, riding a bike children are capable of simultaneously memorizing astonishing amounts of information. While some analytical and spatial skills develop slightly later in childhood, the ability to memorize words, images, facts and figures is unmatched in small children.

How many of you were involved in sword drills as children in Sunday School? Remember the words "Draw swords," which is when you lifted your Bible like you were throwing a spear? After a Bible verse was announced, you waited for the word "charge," and then competed to see who could locate the verse, stand and read it flawlessly.

Or how many of your earned gold stars, or jewels for your "crown," or Awana bucks for reciting from memory a new list of Bible texts every week? Bible memorization used to be the cornerstone of Sunday School curriculum. Little children who spent Monday through Friday struggling to master "see Spot run" were expected to read and memorize the difficult words, syntax, and ideas of the King James Version on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings.

And so we did. And the words stuck with us.

This kind of rote learning has become less popular in the last couple decades. Educators and early childhood development experts critiqued memorization because often the children understood very little of what they had committed to memory. The words were simply swallowed down and spat back when directed. Was this really learning? Can anyone tell me who Hiawatha was, or what Gitche Gumee means?

But kids will memorize something. The only question is what they will memorize. You don't think these kids are memorizing words today? Ever listen to them lip-sync the words to the music they're listening to?

Or here's another little exercise you can do.

Ask someone to recite the Lord's Prayer or Apostle's Creed.

Now ask them to recite the ingredients of a Big Mac. Can you say it together, church?

Two all-beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun.

Even people who've never eaten a Big Mac can rattle off the ingredients of a Big Mac. We ALL memorize. The only question is WHAT we memorize.

Maybe the seven-year-old whiz kid who commits ten verses a week to memory doesn't comprehend all the theological significance of the startling message in John 3:16; or the depth of the love that's extolled in 1 Corinthians 13; or the miraculous salvation spelled out in Romans 3.

But once committed to memory they have those words, those promises, those astonishing revelations in their mouths and in their hearts for the rest of their lives. I think it's time we brought back Bible memorization, but instead of memorizing Bible verses, we ought to memorize Bible stories. The Bible wasn't written in chapters and verses. The Bible was written in stories.

Let's see how well some of you know, not just the verses of the Bible but the stories of the Bible. Here's a little test. See how many of these songs you can identity as theme songs for Bible characters. I'll name the song. You tell me the Bible character/story.

1. "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"
2. "Strangers in Paradise"
3. "The Second Time Around"
4. "I Feel Pretty"
5. "I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues"
6. "The Wanderer"
7. "The Lady is a Tramp"
8. "Hair"
9. "I Could Have Danced All Night"
10. "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
11. "Good Vibrations"
12. "I'm Sorry"
13. "Born to be Wild" 
14. "Take This Job and Shove It" 
15. "Great Balls of Fire" 
16. "When You Wish Upon a Star" 
17. "Got a Whale of a Tale" 
18. "Up, Up and Away" 
19. "Stayin' Alive" 
20. "Crazy"

Answers: 1) Noah; 2) Adam and Eve; 3) Lazarus; 4) Esther; 5) Job; 6) Moses; 7) Jezebel; 8) Samson; 9) Salome; 10) Daniel; 11) Joshua; 12) Peter; 13) Esau; 14) Jeremiah; 15) Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego; 16) The Three Kings; 17) Jonah; 18) Elijah and/or Enoch; 19) Methuselah; 20) Nebuchandnezzar.

Today's Old Testament text from Deuteronomy insists that the Torah, the words God gave to the people of Israel, aren't too hard to live by, not too wonderful to be applied to their daily lives. God had intentionally put these divine directives at the fingertips and tongue-tips of all men, women, and children.

The Torah may have come down from heaven, but it could only come to life on earth, among the people.

Early Israel, like all pre-literate cultures, was a "by heart" community. Information about watering holes, agricultural practices, weaving cloth, making food, all were learned by heart by young children at the feet of their parents and leaders. The Torah was also to become part of these by heart lessons passed on from one generation to another, not only because the vast majority of the people didn't read or write, but because, as today's text insists, the heart is where the Torah must live.

The eager, impressionable memory of a young child makes memorization of Scripture a relatively easy task. But learning to take and keep God's word in our heart takes a lifetime. Torah that isn't taken to heart can never be kept, never be truly observed.

That's why, as great a gift the Torah was to Israel; that's why, as great a gift as the words of both Old and New Testament are to people of faith today, that those words are only half the story. God graciously prepares the hearts of those who return (in the language of Deuteronomy), or repent (as Paul might be more apt to put it), so that we can open our hearts and souls to the words God has given us. Only our own heartbeat can bring God's words to life in the world.

2 Timothy 3:15 reads: "As from a child you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus." The gift of a childhood which is spent knowing the Holy Scriptures is that the wisdom of God becomes part of the warp and woof of life. But the critiques of those early childhood educators is also right when they cry memorization isn't learning. It isn't the words themselves, not the text on the page, that God delights in revealing to men and women. It's watching those words come to life in the world that brings God pleasure.

The Bible is still regarded as the Tables of the Law by a sizeable element of the Christian community, forgetting that Jesus turned the tables on the Tables and drove out the money changers. "The love of God has been poured into their hearts," Paul wrote (Romans 5:5.). In the new covenant, anticipated by the prophet Jeremiah, the covenant is written on the heart, not on tablets, with the promise that "they shall all know me" (Jeremiah 31:31-34.).

It was against those who had learned the words of Torah by heart, but had never taken the life of the Torah to heart that Jesus uttered his sharpest remarks. It was from among the Pharisees, those most educated, most conspicuously observant, most diligently Torah-directed, that Jesus called the hollow-hearted snakes, the viper's brood, the hypocrites.

I have a pastor-friend from Arkansas named John Dill. Some time ago his pick-up became enamored of a small oak tree which left a very perceptible crunch in the right rear fender. After some time the thought dawned on him, "I bet I could pop that sucker out"! He went to a body shop and asked the owner if his dent just be popped out.

"No!" he said. Then he explained why. The sheet metal with which today's cars are made is so thin that it has no memory. Many of us can remember when metal or tin cans had memory. It could be brought back to it's original shape without too much trouble if it sustained a dent of some sort.

Could it be that as a people of faith, our metal (faith) has become so thin that we're in danger of losing our memory? Our metal is tempered by Bible study, participation in worship, prayer, etc. But we're much too busy these days, much too sophisticated to do something like memorize the Scriptures.

And so the storms of life come along and all of a sudden we have a big dent in our lives.

Does your faith have enough memory to be of help when you crash?

Do your children have the memory they need to survive life's clashes and collisions?

Do you have the word of God this morning in your heart?

The heart is hollow. You decide what to fill it with. Will you fill it with the word of God?