Rev. Laura Martin, Associate Pastor and Rock Spring United Church of Christ, delivered a sermon for the UCC’s Faith and Democracy: Get Out the Vote initiative. She spoke of the connection between voting and racial and environmental justice, and of the moral imperative to advance policies that prioritize these issues. Rev Martin advocated for devoting funds from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which Virginia joined in 2020, to energy efficiency improvements in low-income housing. Read her full remarks below.
Scripture text: Micah 6:6-8
Hello. I am Rev. Laura Martin, Associate Pastor at Rock Spring UCC in Arlington, VA.
Poet Mary Oliver asks the question, “Tell me, what is it I should do with my one wild and precious life?”
Scripture asks the question too. The question is asked, and answered, in various places in our sacred text.
In the Hebrew Bible, the prophet Micah raises and answers the question of what is required for the Lord. Is it burnt offerings? Sacrifices?
No—it is the commandment to do justice.
To love kindness.
To walk humbly with your God.
And this is what I think about as I prepare to vote this November.
I think about how I am voting for issues of justice.
How I am voting because everything that I love, is at stake with climate change and environmental issues.
How climate change threatens the people I love, the mountains I love, the animals I love.
How I am voting because black lives, LatinX lives, lives of people living in poverty, are always closest to the edge and feel these impacts most acutely.
How I am voting because I believe the divine image I see is in the face of a black man who has COPD and poor air quality is literally taking away his breath…. and it is a LatinX woman who cannot afford to pay her utility bills.
The state of Virginia recently joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. I believe we have a moral directive to ensure that these funds go to energy efficiency improvements in low-income housing.
In this state, our residential building energy efficiency standards are ten years behind international standards.
These standards lead to energy poverty and increased greenhouse gases.
And that needs to change.
I want to see Virginia bring up these energy efficiency standards, which would cut the poverty energy burden by 35%. (https://www.aceee.org/sites/default/files/publications/researchreports/u1602.pdf)
These improved conditions would reduce exposure to mold and pollution, to pests and allergens.
The improved conditions would also lead to more green jobs, and to a quantifiable reduction in stress in households.
The improved conditions would let more people breathe, and play, and live.
What is required of us?
That we see the image of the divine in one another.
That we reconcile ourselves to the environmental, racial, and social devastation that has ravaged this earth, and do the hard work of repair.
That we understand that we have the ability to make justice real, and close, and that we get there by praying, and marching, and working, and voting.
Join me.