Our friends at St. John United Lutheran Church (an Earth Ministry Greening Congregation) are undertaking a plastic fast for Lent 2020. We invite you to follow along or join them!

Why fast from single-use plastic?

Plastic has made many things possible. It’s saved life in the health sector, facilitated the growth of clean energy (wind turbines and solar panels) and revolutionized safe food storage. “But what makes plastic so convenient in our day-to-day lives – it’s cheap – also makes it ubiquitous, resulting in one of our planet’s greatest environmental challenges.”^[1]

While plastic is easy to use, it is not easily disposable. It can take thousands of years to decompose, especially when it sits in landfills. Oceans have also become a primary dumping ground, resulting in marine life becoming entangled or mistaking small plastic for food. The majority of seabirds have plastic in their stomachs. Plastic can also clog drains fostering the spread of disease and causing flooding. We also produce and toss a lot of it! It’s estimated that nearly half of global waste is single-use plastic. Plastic has it’s value, but it is an overused resource.

It may seem impossible to live without single-use plastic. The truth is that we can choose to do differently. It may be difficult, but it is not impossible, and creation itself, cries out for us to change our behavior. The season of Lent is an opportune time to practice a change of behavior. The journey from Ash Wednesday to Holy Week and Easter, is full of time to reflect, reset and repent. The season invites us to take up a spiritual practice, often called a fast. The Hebrew origins of the word indicate a“public observance” in which one “abstains from food”, but the deeper intention behind fasting is to “loose the chains of injustice…and set the oppressed free”^[2]. By treating our fast as a spiritual practice, we seek to be drawn into closer dependence on God. We actually practice God’s reign of justice and mercy.

You’re invited to take up a Fast From Single-Use Plastic, both individually and communally. By committing yourself to such a practice, but also being public and collaborative, we embrace the hope that God can work powerfully through us for change. By engaging together, we stave off isolation and reject obscuring our sin. Rather than becoming overwhelmed by the problem of climate change, or hiding in the shame of our participation, we are invited to turn from sin and mindless consumption, and reorient ourselves towards our living God, the sacredness of creation and the hope of New Life made possible in Christ Jesus.