A Reasonable Service: St. Pauli Girl

“Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler. Anyone who is intoxicated by it is not wise.”

Proverbs 20:1

 What’s wrong with St. Pauli Girl? A smiling, cute, cleavage-burdened blond toting mugs ladened with golden lager symbolizes my cultures devotion to consumption. Please don’t think I have an attitude toward the St. Pauli Girl brand or its importer. It was actually my beverage of choice in my free-thinking past. This label is simply emblazoned in my mind as alcohol’s friendly face. In the past few weeks I’ve reason to think through the whole drinking business again. After all, I live in a free-thinking society. Free-thinkers don’t have to think deeply, just skim the surface. In reality, someone has already done the thinking for my free-thinking culture. Marketing married to fleshly passion creates results. St. Pauli Girl, for example, is the second best-selling German beer in America. The Crown Imports LLC website says, “The ‘St. Pauli’ name originates from the ancient St. Paul’s Monastery on which the original St. Pauli Brewery was founded and built in the 17th century. St. Pauli Girl is brewed according to the German Purity Law of 1516, still in force throughout Germany today. The decree states: ‘In particular we wish that from now on, in all towns, markets and villages, nothing more is used for beer than barley malt, hops and water alone.”‘

Wow…brewed according to the German Purity Law. Not only that but God sanctioned it through His own special monks devoted to the ancient branch of AA: asceticism and advancement of the Christian Church. So how could one not imbibe St. Pauli Girl? Of course, there’s always Budweiser but is Bud brewed pure by law and sanctioned by God or just America’s self-appointed king?

I’m amazed at the number of my friends who entertain themselves with alcoholic drink. I have known 20-something year old men who get the shakes in the morning and brag about it. A friend of mine in the delivery industry recently buried his 40-year-old nephew due to alcoholic liver disease. Another acquaintance, a family man, wears a T-shirt “FBI: Federal Bureau of Intoxication.”

My niece was killed 20 years ago by a free-thinker driving erratically May 14, 1988. Dwailla, 14, along with 66 others, were returning from Kings Island Amusement Park on a church bus. I have no idea what kind of liquor Larry was drinking that night but he was absolutely intoxicated.

Larry Mahoney, driving a Toyota pickup on the wrong side of I-71, collided with the bus full of kids from Radcliff First Assembly of God Church. The bus was old and its fuel tank unprotected. Fire broke out in the front, blocking the main exit, and spread quickly. Children piled up in the aisles, trying to get out. In the end, 24 youngsters and three adults died, including Dwailla. Like many others, dental records identified her. Forty people escaped, most out the back door. One adult managed to squeeze out a window.

The affected families got settlements from Ford Motor Co., which had made the bus chassis.  The amount, never made public, reportedly totaled more than $35 million.

Hearts broken, a few couples divorced. Others moved from Kentucky.

Karolyn Nunnallee, who lost her 10-year-old daughter, served as national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Larry Mahoney served 4.88 months in prison for each of the 27 who perished that fiery night. Was there not one person who had the guts to take Larry’s keys away from him after that night of drinking? I went to Dwailla’s funeral with her mom, my sister. Several coffins were lined up for this particular funeral service. May I admit: it was not easy to bear such a tremendous burden. This is just one story. So, don’t think about it! Someone has thought about your alcohol consumption already. They reap the profits and let others stumble and rumble down pubic highways. When you lay your swimming head down perhaps God will bring this thought to your mind: The end of drinking: it bites and stings like a poisonous serpent.  Other families will never be the same. Broken hearts, maimed bodies, and the mouth of the grave ever widens to swallow those killed with alcohol’s giddy influence. Perhaps Dwailla’s bus should grace the buxom bottles of lager for a couple of years. For that matter, prominently display it on bottles of the King of Beers with a Bud crown on the bus’ roof. Make sure to add a friendly disclaimer: Drink Sensibly. We are not responsible for DUI convictions, burnt buses or faces; we definitely claim no culpability for amputated feet or fatalities associated with alcohol consumption.

So, who’s to blame? Everyone! Ultimately, America wants its brews, wines and distilled liquors. In the 1987 Untouchables Al Capone says, “People are gonna drink. You know that, I know that, we all know that, and all I do is act on that.” America is all of us; me, you, importers, distributors, breweries, bars, nightclubs, immature high schoolers, rebellious sons and daughters, etc. It’s time to think soberly and deeply about alcohol. Consumption might be terribly entertaining but it can and does hurt others and the hurt and pain is immeasurable. 

For those of you who call yourselves Christian (in Texas that means just-about-everybody), God calls HIS people to master their lives through the power of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Don’t be mastered by marketers and fleshly passions. If you call Jesus Lord…treat alcohol with respect and treat those who suffer at the hands of alcohol with respect.  Party life leads to lack of restraint and respect.  What if Larry Mahoney had believed in these values? 

Second, if one of you recognizes the need to be forgiven and finds your consumption is keeping you from the Lord, the time is now to turn away from the party life and place your faith in the living Lord Jesus Christ who took your sins upon Himself. The next fiery bus crash is near and you’re on it. “Oh, yea, I know this bus is gonna burn, but I’ll worry about that later.” Hey, Dwailla never saw the pickup truck coming! At least God has given you sufficient warning that the crash is coming. Do you believe what God says about Jesus Christ; that He died in your place to save you from God’s fiery wrath? He took your place and died instead of you. Then God raised His perfect Son out of the dead because death had no grasp on Him. So, get off that bus careening toward destruction. You can be saved from the penalty and power of your sins. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. All this because of  his great love for you.

Stop getting drunk with wine, which leads to wild living, but keep on being mastered by the Spirit.

Ephesians 5:18