Artificial sweetener

I was having breakfast with several area pastors this week and was about to put artificial sweetener into my coffee.

Keith Moore, the senior pastor at Peachtree City’s Dogwood Church, said, “Are you going to put all of that in your coffee?”

I did, indeed, have quite a pile of yellow packets in front of me. I explained that I really couldn’t stand the taste of coffee. I drink a cup in the morning for the caffeine boost, I shared, and copious amounts of Splenda made the whole thing tolerable, even enjoyable.

“Well, that explains why you are so sweet,” he grinned.

“If that’s true,” I replied, “it’s all artificial!”

As I’ve thought about that, I have come to realize that many of us, especially in the Church, do not need much help in being artificial. One waitress shared with me that the crowd she most dreaded was the “Sunday dress-up crew,” otherwise known as the “after church crowd.” She said they were the “most demanding, the least kind, and the worst tippers.” In her view, their Christianity was artificial.

My oldest son recently pulled into a Kentucky Fried Chicken drive-thru lane to get a couple of buckets of original and crispy after church one Sunday morning. A lady pulled up behind him in the line and, as there was a slight delay in his obtaining his chicken, she became more and more frustrated.

My son is a police officer and tends to observe people when they act strangely. He said that this woman went into a “total melt-down” right there in the drive-thru. She first became agitated, then angry, then began to cry, and finally became outraged and shouted obscenities at him through her open window.

“Dad,” he said, “I know she came straight from church. She was there right after noon and was all dressed up. I guess church didn’t help her much that day.” Indeed.

While, in the Gospels, Jesus seemed not to be too hard on genuine sinners, urging them to repent and dispensing forgiveness when they did, it was another matter with the religious crowd.

With the broken, he was gentle but direct. With the artificial believers, he was one who wielded a whip, kicked over tables in the Temple, called religious leaders “hypocrites,” and pronounced “woe” on those who were less than authentic.

The apostles, too, were hard on those who were gossips, back-biters, frauds, pretenders, fomenters of strife, power hungry, and selfish. They also had choice words for those who thought they were better than others, those who disrespected the elder citizens, and those who were culturally or racially biased.

Saint Paul went as far to say, “... if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself” (Galatians 6:3 NASB).

In describing authentic Christianity, Paul uses the words, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control ...” (Galatians 5:22-23 NASB). Nothing artificial there.

No amount of Splenda will sweeten a sour person, whatever it may do to the coffee. Once again, Paul has a word for those who do not wish to be artificial: “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 5:13-14 NASB).

I will still use Splenda when the occasion arises but I hope that those little yellow packets will serve as a reminder to me that artificial is not always good — especially when people are earnestly looking for and hoping to see the real thing.

[Father David Epps is the founding pastor of Christ the King Church, 4881 Hwy. 34 E., Sharpsburg, GA 30277, between Peachtree City and Newnan, and serves as a bishop to Georgia and Tennessee. Services are held Sundays at 8 and 10 a.m. Fr. Epps is also the vicar of Christ the King Church in Champaign, IL. He may be contacted at frepps@ctkcec.org. The church has a website at www.ctkcec.org.]