Butterflies & Whales

How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:12 TNIV)

When it comes to valuing life, I'm afraid our culture gets this verse backward. For our day it should literally read, "How much more valuable is a sheep than a human being?"

When Mid-America Seminary was looking to build a facility in New York State they were thwarted for a long time (and may still be to this day) because the land they acquired housed a very rare butterfly. They were not allowed to disturb the natural habitat of one of nature's vanishing species.

All of that for a butterfly.

Now, I don't hate butterflies. I don't hate animals (with the exception of snakes & spiders- don't judge me). I'm not with the people who think that PETA stands for "People Eating Tasty Animals." I believe that God made us stewards of this planet, of what crawls, flies, slithers, & lives on it (see Genesis 1-2).

But I do find great contradiction in our rhetoric when we will bend over backward for butterflies but make it way too simple to end the life of a child in the womb. Something is wrong with this picture.

A while ago I watched the movie, "Big Miracle" starring Jim from the office & Drew Barrymore.

Spoiler alert!!

It's a story about how some whales got stuck in the ice near a small Alaskan town & the whole country becomes enamored with their freedom. "We can't just let them die," cries Drew Barrymore's character, a Greenpeace worker. Government officials, military personnel, & even a Russian boat are called in to save the day. Two of the three whales make it out alive & it is a great triumph for these beloved creatures of the sea!

It's a good movie & a true story but I also see tragedy in it. We are willing to move heaven & earth, at great personal & collective cost to save whales but we do not value human life in this way.

Abortion in our country has to be the most glaring inconsistency but there are many more especially around the world.

And Jesus here sets our hearts straight. Just like the religious leaders value the life of a sheep over this man with a deformed hand so we have valued the life of whales & butterflies over human beings.

The only response is repentance & taking up the cause of the voiceless all around us. We must go beyond blogs & statuses to actual action & activism. We must give of ourselves to defend the defenseless so that we have a country where the rights of the oppressed are more valued than the life of a butterfly.