I’ve never been too much of an environmentalist, but Whale Wars is my new TV addiction. It’s about a group of enviro-revolutionaries who left Greenpeace because Greenpeace was a bunch of panty-waists, and formed their own organization: The Sea Shepherds. I think I’m ready to enlist.
Here’s the average episode plotline:
- Prepare intensely putrid Molotov Cocktail stink bombs.
- Cruise through pounding 20-foot Antarctic swells, hunting for whaling ships.
- Break through monster icebergs in a boat that has an ice rating of ZERO.
- Launch zodiac boats to swarm around enemy whaling ship.
- Brave 35-degree water being shot at them through fire-hoses by cowardly whalers.
- Throw dozens of stink-bombs at the ship to stop its harpooning and whale-meat processing operations.
They had me at Molotov.
In the latest episode, they’re considering whether or not to attack a whaling ship that’s searching for the body of a man who’s fallen overboard. Against the opinions of his crew, the captain decides to attack. “I don’t care what people think,” he growls, “my clients are the whales.”
Radically insensitive and extreme? Yeah. But it got me thinking.
What if we didn’t care what people thought because our only client was God? How would that change the course of our daily lives? My thoughts drifted to the passage in Ephesians I preached on last Sunday, where we’re called to be imitators of God:
- Would we give up our self-gratifying desires (Eph 5:3) rather than going along with what people tell us we deserve?
- Would we go beyond our silliness and foolish talk (Eph 5:4) rather than talking about politics and sports and celebrity gossip and all the other superficial stuff people expect us to talk about?
- Would we refuse to be partners in evil (Eph 5:6-7) rather than going along with the number-fudging and underhanded tactics people engage in at work?
- Would we find loving ways to expose sin in ourselves and the people around us (Eph. 5:11-13) rather than silently giving it our implicit approval?
The fear of man lays a snare,
but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.
– Proverbs 29:25