My Story

When I was growing up on a small 3 acre farm in Tacoma, Washington with my two parents and three siblings, I HATED going outside and doing yard work. It was the last thing I wanted to do.

I would rather have been inside the house watching movies on our VHS player. On top of the mandatory all-family yard work on the farm, we lived frugally getting everything second-hand, including my school outfits which did not fit my fashion standards. At all.

Skip to college where I studied pre-med and needed to declare a major, realizing the only realistic option was Environmental Studies, an open major. Taking classes in this program, I finally found something that fit my educational needs. Learning what the environment was ecologically, socially, and locally gave me a new lens to understand and see the world in a deeper way.

My Learning

I learned how my actions could affect my local community, and communities internationally who I had never even considered. I learned how my desire for brand new material goods affected what I now know and fear as Global Climate Change, and that it is occurring at a pace that exceeds what humans have ever experienced before. I learned how this global change is hurting the natural environment, the plants and animals that live in it, and people who are marginalized because of their socioeconomic status, race, location and more. I found my passion. And it’s a shared passion with anyone who wants to self-reflect on who they are and what they do and how they affect their neighbors, communities, and the world in ways that may not be so obvious. It’s a shared passion with anyone willing to be more intentional with their actions towards the environment.

After graduating with a degree in Environmental Studies, I volunteered in Palestine for a year with Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM), an international service program through the ELCA. It was my first time over the Atlantic and my first time witnessing the joys and hardships of another culture for such a long period of time. I volunteered at the Environmental Education Center in the West Bank. It was the perfect accompaniment to my undergrad studies. Suddenly, I was observing one of the international communities I learned about – one that suffers the impact of my environmental actions at the hands of an unjust and oppressive system. Environmental Sustainability quickly shifted to Environmental Justice. I saw how product consumption in America driven by capitalism, materialism, and greed coupled with living under occupation can devastate countries like Palestine who are trying to keep up in a high-consumption world. Reflecting during my year I thought “I can do better than this”.

Word

2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10

20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

6 As we work together with him,[a] we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says,

“At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”

See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! 3 We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, 7 truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Ashes to ashes

We are called to be ambassadors of Christ, stewards of the Earth here and now! Now is the acceptable time. We are asked to care for creation as well as our neighbors around us. We can practice being more mindful and intentional with our efforts to preserve our environment and lessen negative impacts on plants, animals, and marginalized communities that are merely trying to survive.

Ash Wednesday is near and it reminds us that like the earth that clings to our feet each day, we are dirt. We are ashes. We are dust. We are creation, we are earth itself.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent and of a tradition in the Lutheran Church where we take time to self-reflect, repent, and remember what Jesus did for us before he laid down is life for us.

Ash Wednesday reminds us that we are called by Christ to prayer for, lament for, and care for the earth to which we all will return.

Reflection Questions

1. How can we hold ourselves and the people around us accountable in treating the environment with care, love, and respect? What does it mean to be Christ’s ambassador in this context?

2. What are your consumption habits? How often are you purchasing things with plastic? Where do you put your old electronics?

3. How do you mark Ash Wednesday? What do the words “ashes to ashes” mean to you?

Bio

Hannah Wright Osborn (She/Her/Hers) is a living Lutheran currently residing in the DC Metro Synod where faith and politics are ever present. Her studies in college helped her to understand the value of the farm she grew up on and the recycling of second-hand products. Her year in Palestine further fueled her passion for social justice work. She came back and was invited to lead a trip back to Palestine for other Young Adults of Color near and within the church and to give them space to lead in a white and marginalized society. She has returned back after a successful trip in January 2020 and continues social justice work in her local community through Luther Place Memorial Church.

The Season

I didn’t fully appreciate (or understand) liturgical seasons growing up. As a kid, Lent was a baffling time of year that somehow started with a fun pancake party on Shrove Tuesday and took a seriously somber turn PRETTY quickly, culminating in the highly scary Bible slamming during my church’s Good Friday Tenebrae service. Growing up in the deep South, a lot of my Christian friends from non-liturgical traditions didn’t observe these seasons or days. It wasn’t fair – they didn’t give up soda or chocolate or meat for 40 days.

Lent changed for me in middle school when my dad, probably half-serious, half-desperate, suggested that I give up being rude to my sister for Lent.

It didn’t make any sense to me.

What about chocolate?

I was just starting to worry about my waistline anyway, and Lent would be a great time to make a change.

The Word

Isaiah 58: 4 – 9

You fast only to fight.

Is this the kind of fast that I’ve chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves?

Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?

Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?

But this is the fast that I choose:

To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,

To set the oppressed free and break every yoke.

To share your food with the hungry,

To provide the poor wanderer with shelter

When you see the naked, to clothe them,

And to not turn away from your own flesh and blood.

Then shall your light break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear.

Then you will call and the Lord will answer;

You will cry for help and God will say:

Here am I.

The Fast

I heard a (very awesome young adult) pastor, Rev. Erin Coleman Branchaud preach on this text a few weeks ago and explain that this part of Isaiah is about the people of God asking to be recognized for their good fast. God helps them understand what REAL fasting that is pleasing to the Lord looks like.

It looks like fasting from the injustice we participate in every day – knowingly and unknowingly.

Fasting from leaving our neighbors without food and shelter.

Fasting from shame.

Fasting from building walls between us and our loved ones.

Fasting from destroying the earth.

Fasting from fighting with our little sisters.

THIS is part of what Lent is about for us. And maybe sometimes fasting from a specific item or food can be part of this fast. But, as Rev. Coleman Branchaud noted, Lent is not “a baptism of our self-improvement goals”.

Lent, a season during which we remember Jesus’s 40 days of walking in the wilderness, invites us to reflection, to lament, and to THIS fast – one of justice and peace. Lent welcomes our pain and sorrow and frustration and asks us to lay down the things that keep ourselves and our neighbor in chains. Lent invites us to be intentional, to notice our own habits, and to walk in the liberating steps of our Savior.

The Movement

So why plastics?

This year at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly the body gathered – including a huge number of young adult voting members – called on the ELCA to get serious about its commitment to care for creation.

The #NoplasticsforLent initiative, led by young adults across the church, calls us to prayer for creation, to lament the ways we have been complicit in the degradation of the earth, and to action to care for our neighbor in fasting from the things that are hurting our planet.

Our suggestion is that individuals, families, and communities fast for 40 days from single-use plastics.

We want this initiative to be accessible to all, and if this is not possible for you in your context or community, we invite you to sustainability practices that make sense for you.

The Details

We will publish a sign-up next week where individuals, families, and communities can share whatever it is that they’ve pledged to do to fast from degradation of creation this Lenten season!

Over the course of the next two weeks we will publish videos with how-to tips and easy switches to make, and we encourage you to share your ideas for fasting from plastics with each other on social media with the hashtag #NoplasticsforLent .

We will have weekly devotionals, like this one, published each Monday of Lent. These devotionals will be by young adult writers who are passionate about their spirituality and about care for creation.

We know that it will take more than giving up plastic cups at communion to heal the earth, but we hope that walking together as the Body of Christ in this initiative during this Lenten season will help us both individually and communally be better neighbors to plants, animals, the earth, and each other in our day-to-day lives. We also hope that it will move us toward more long term justice-seeking for the creation in our care.

We invite you to this Lenten practice of prayer, lament, and fasting as we walk for these 40 days with Christ.

The Promise

We invite you to this fast from the ways we harm our neighbor, creation.

And this is what Isaiah tells us:

That when we seek justice, love God, and serve others in this way

“light will break forth like the DAWN.“

As we pray and mourn for creation,

“Healing will quickly appear.”

Even when we feel overwhelmed by the challenges of environmental degradation,

“You will call and the Lord will answer;

You will cry for help and God will say:

Here am I.”

Reflection Questions:

1. How do you understand Lent? Has your understanding changed at all over time?
2. Have you ever participated in a Lenten practice? If so, which have been the most meaningful and why? If not, what other spiritual habits or practices have you engaged in?
3. Why is care for the earth important for you as a person of faith?
4. What sustainability practices or creation care practices might you commit to this Lent as an individual? With your family / friends? With your congregation / community? How will you hold one another accountable?

 

Savanna Sullivan (she/her/hers) serves as the Program Director for ELCA Young Adult Ministries at the ELCA Churchwide Office in Chicago, IL. She was a main stage speaker at the 2018 ELCA Youth Gathering in Houston, TX and gives presentations around the country to ELCA and ecumenical groups about Young Adult culture and empowerment in the church. She is passionate about helping young people seek the Divine in themselves and pushing the church to equip, amplify, and respect the voices of young leaders. She loves banana pudding, the Clemson tigers, and memorizing poems.