Much of the research on microplastics has focused on rivers, lakes and oceans. But plastics are a major problem on land, too. From water and soft drink plastic bottles, and single use plastics such as grocery bags, discarded plastics pollute soils and ecosystems of the planet. Tiny microparticles of plastic have been found everywhere — from the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, to the top of Mount Everest, to our waterways, and even in the food we eat. The plastic pandemic has permeated nearly everywhere. In the last year, researchers have documented microplastics in the human body, in lungs, maternal and placental tissues, human breast milk and blood.

At Annual Gathering of the Florida Conference, we celebrated all the 2023 Synod Resolutions passed, including the Plastic Free Resolution to attempt to mitigate plastic usage. I am not pointing any fingers at anyone, for I am as complicit in buying food wrapped in plastics from the grocery market, and I eat peanut sandwiches from bread wrapped in plastic. We have reduced plastic bottles in our household and even recycle them when I know the municipal waste management does not really recycle but burn plastics when 30% remain in the ashes and slag and cancer-causing dioxins and furans are released into the atmosphere. In the last two years, plastics research has escalated how it ecologically hurts the environment and human and other life.

At the meeting luncheon, several people looked to me to monitor and speak about the plastics used in plastic luncheon containers since I participated in the drafting of the plastics resolution. I finally said to a person, “It is also your responsibility as well.”

At the closing worship, we included a communion service. Pitchers of grape juice and gluten-free wafers wrapped individually in plastic wrappers were on the table. It was significantly different for me than the luncheon plastic containers. My body became anxious, and I found myself decentered. I have a peanut butter sandwich once or twice a week and take bread wrapped in a plastic bag.

I had been writing on baptism and water for Earth Justice Lectionary project. I reflected on te headwaters of the Jordan River that are relatively pure and safe, but the lower Jordan River where Jesus was baptized, the waters are polluted with untreated sewage, agricultural chemicals, industrial waste, and brackish water. The polluted waters of the Jordan are no longer sanctified or even safe for human baptisms.

The Christian writing of the Didache at the first century CE emphasized the use of “living water” over stagnant water in administering baptism. Stagnant water was determined to be detrimental to the symbol of the gift of the Spirit and new life, and even more contaminated water destroys the symbol of God’s providence in the sacrament. How can water that endangers health and safety of the baptized be used for sacrament that represent God’s Spirit, who cares for all and is prayed to a the sustainer of life> and new life? Water’s physicality as clean and safe matters for the administration of baptism. Would you baptize a child or adult from local waters, many of which are contaminated waters with agrochemical fertilizers and pesticides or other dangerous toxins? This is true of Florida’s waterways and the reason for a public ballot initiative for the right for clean and safe water. Water symbolized as new life and the living God is distorted by polluted chemicals, industrial waste, and dangerous toxins.

Now the eucharistic meal that Jesus performed in his open commensality and last supper has been a central feature of my spiritual growth and praxis of compassion and justice since young. As pastor, we celebrated a communion rite each Sunday. (There are a few UCC churches and Disciples/UCC churches also do so). It is central symbol practice of Jesus’ radical inclusive love, hospitality and compassion, and connection to a Jewish creation spirituality. Some scholars have argued that Jn. 6;51 was the part of the bread prayer and Jn 15:5 may have included as the prayer for the cup. No matter what I have perceived that in both discourses in John’s Gospel indicate that God becomes part of the food cycle. Food is a perquisite for nourishment and life. It intimately links us to creation. Eating mattered to Jesus, “give is this day our daily bread” and his practice an open table. New Zealand theologian Neil Darraugh observes, “God’s gift of Earth resources for human survival (and other life as well) and delight (ask my dogs about treats) is not detached from God by being given. God remains immanent to those resources and to human (and other life) users.” (At Home in the Earth: Seeking an Earth-centered Spirituality)

The risen incarnate Christ is particularly present for me in bread and juice at the eucharist. When confronted with the celebrant’s prayer of consecration over the bread, I remembered what I wrote about polluted waters as incompatible with the symbol of living water and the Spirit symbolized in the rite of baptism. I looked at the wafer wrapped in plastics and remembered my peanut sandwich with bread wrapped in plastic my awareness of the plastics pandemic and harm to life, and the UCC Synod Resolution. My reverence for eucharist was so offended by the symbol of plastics covering the wafer. I remembered all the times, as pastor unwrapping communion wafers made by Catholic nuns for weekly Sunday communion rites, but I could not receive the wafer with plastic pollution around what I considered the consecrated body of Christ. I chose not to receive the wafer, and during the music.

I walked up to altar and took a piece of consecrated bread into my body, felt interconnected to Christ incarnated in earthen and ecological life. (Jn. 6:51).
We are in a plastics pandemic that threatens life, and we need to take a stance to limit our exposure to plastics and mitigate and eliminate the microplastics that spread virally in our ecosystems and the ecosystem of our bodies. I quoted Thich Nhat Hanh,

When a priest performs the Eucharistic rite, his role is to bring life to the community. The miracle happens not because he says the word correctly, but because we eat and drink mindfulness. Holy communion is a strong bell of mindfulness. We drink and eat all the time, but we usually ingest only our ideas, projects, worries, and anxieties. We do not drink our beverage. If we allow ourselves to touch our bread deeply, we become reborn, because our bread is life itself. Eating deeply, we touch the sun, the earth, and everything in the cosmos. We touch life, as we touch the kin-dom (my edit) of God. (Living Buddha, Living Christ)