Sermon Notes — February 1, 2026
Matthew 5:1-12
“Beloved: Hungry and Thirsty”
February 1, 2026
Rev. Terry Carty
I hope you have had the chance to watch Pastor Mary Beth’s sermon that she would have preached if we had not been frozen out last Sunday. Her message is crucial to our worship focus series on “Beloved Community.” If you haven’t seen it, you can find it in the media section of our website www.bethlehemumc.com. Please make a point of seeing it.
Mary Beth spoke of the importance of mercy in the Beloved Community in relation to justice. She referred to Micah 6:8 which says that true worship of God requires us to do justice and to love kindness (or mercy) and to walk humbly (or with care and thought) with your God.
In God’s creation, Justice and Mercy are linked just as breathing in and breathing out. Which is the most important? It’s the one you did not do last. But we Christians are often caught holding our breath because we understand and do acts of mercy, but we balk at doing acts of justice. It is far easier to show mercy than it is to demand justice. The result is that we are suffering a kind of spiritual asthma.
So this week, let’s catch our breath. I want us to look at the relationship of justice and righteousness. My key verse is from the Beatitudes: Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” When I began to understand righteousness, I began to hunger and thirst to be filled with it.
Prayer: Holy Spirit, come in sit with us today as we consider what it means to seek righteousness and yet to feel already fully beloved. Bless my words with truth and our ears with hearing as we bring ancient words to a new day. Amen.
Let’s get right into this righteousness. First, with the help of ChatGPT, I searched for scripture verses that included both the words justice and righteousness. I found one in Genesis about God having chosen Abraham to raise up generations to keep the way of YHWH by doing righteousness and justice.
I found 10 more instances that righteousness and justice together in same verses. But consistently the two concepts are tightly linked throughout the Hebrew Scriptures (our Old Testament) and then throughout the New Testament as well. A quick look at the Hebrew and also the Greek reveals that Justice and Righteousness both come from the same linguistic root. They are connected. But what does that mean to those of us who hunger and thirst for righteousness? Do we even know what ‘righteousness’ is?
Last week while you were hosting the ice storm, my wife and I were at St Simon’s Island in South Georgia participating in the Southern Lights Conference with several social theologians. One speaker was Dr. Jemar Tisby, an historian and author of “The Color of Compromise” which was our Lenten study last year.
Dr. Tisby spoke to us about the relationship between Justice and Righteousness. We anticipated an academic description, but what he said was this:
“Righteousness means living with the intention to do what is right (i.e. beloved community or common good)
Justice after doing wrong, is restoration of what is right.”
Simple as that. I finally got it. If I want to live a righteous life, I will do what is right. If I mess up, justice calls for the restoration of the right. The same holds true for communities. A righteous community intends to do right, and justice restores right.
Rabbi Rose followed up telling us that the Jewish community has a term for the restoration of what is right: Tikkun Olam means to repair or improve the world.
Jamar Tisby made it easier for me. Righteousness means living intentionally to do the right thing. And justice means repairing the wrong and making it right again. This is not just for me and you. This is also what makes for a Beloved Community.
I began writing this sermon on Martin Luther King Jr Day. I spent the whole day searching and reading sermons and accounts of MLK’s activities. I discovered a lot that I didn’t know. After all, I lived through most of his public life and took him for granted.
On MLK day I feel that I came to understand that his call for Beloved Community is one and the same as my own focus on the Common Good. You may remember his “I have a dream” speech in 1963 during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In that speech, he describes most clearly a snapshot of the Beloved Community - one of racial reconciliation in everyday, ordinary relationships, starting with children. He used similar imagery many times, and he also often spoke about the view of a Promised Land from the perspective of being on the mountains.
I discovered a little noticed quote from a sermon that he delivered at Temple Israel of Hollywood in June 1965. He said, ““We’ve been in the mountain of war. We’ve been in the mountain of violence. We’ve been in the mountain of hatred long enough. It is necessary to move on now, but only by moving out of this mountain can we move to the promised land of justice and brotherhood and the Kingdom of God. It all boils down to the fact that we must never allow ourselves to become satisfied with unattained goals. We must always maintain a kind of divine discontent.”
I believe that the call to justice means we should never allow ourselves to become content with unattained goals. I believe that the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr calls us to always maintain a kind of divine discontent - just as Jesus called us to hunger and thirst for righteous and justice.
Simply calling us to righteousness and justice does not satisfy our hunger and thirst. Simply answering ‘yes’ when asked if we will resist evil, injustice and oppression is not enough. We need more guidance. The Bible is great to tell us how to respond to the evils of antiquity, but our world has been both blessed and, at the same time, cursed by medical and technical advances. We have found ways to enhance human life, but unfortunately our advances have often been used to lift the economy for a few, but drive others into poverty and servanthood. We have sacrificed our ecology to satisfy human appetites. Our scriptures point us toward right intentions are not explicit to our times.
As United Methodists, we have an incredible tool to help facilitate conversations and dialogue surrounding various social justice issues in our world today.
As early as 1908, the Methodist Episcopal Church in America developed a Social Creed that made a statement of their theological position on the problems of their day. At the formation of the United Methodist Church, a detailed statement of position on many issues was voted to be our Social Principles. Over the ensuing years, some modifications were voted to try to keep the Social Principals current.
In 2024, General Conference adopted a completely new version of the Social Principals that reflects our worldwide realities.
Read or download full copy here: https://www.umcjustice.org/documents/124
Read or download FAQ’s here:: https://www.umcjustice.org/documents/225
The Social Principles go deep into matters that impact people in our day. They seek to help us discover the ways of right and to expose the potential wrongs that require restoration of that which is right. They seek Tikkun Olam, to repair the world.
As you read through the social principles, you will find that they are not “Church Law” and we are not locked into having to adhere to every principle. These are intended to encourage us to think through our own faithful responses to the world around us. And they are intended to guide us and our congregations in intentional dialogue between faith and the way we live.
As one of the short-term studies we will offer during Lent, I will lead a 6-part discussion series on our Social Principles. We will follow the same order that they occur in the publication. As a quick preview, I want you to see how comprehensive the topics are. These will move faster than you can read, but you will have ample opportunities to see these at other times.
The 2025-28 Social Principles are arranged into 4 groupings - or ‘Communities.’
• The Community of all Creation - addresses our creation which is in peril and our stewardship of protecting it.
• The Economic Community - addresses Economic challenges and justice.
• The Social Community - we will first address the nurturing community, and secondly, we will address a bunch of touchy topics.
• The Political Community deals with government responsibilities, and we will also address basic rights and freedoms.
At the very least, the United Methodist Church is transparent about where it officially stands. Whenever someone says to you, “well, the United Methodists believe anything is ok,” you can refer to our social principles and figure out what you believe.
As Christians in the United Methodist community, the Social Principles can help us reflect and act in a way that builds Beloved Community.
Imagine this: in this Lenten series of discussions, we are going to talk about many things, some of which we have been afraid to mention lately. In our Beloved Community, we are going to hold each other as beloved like God does. We are going to covenant to love each other through our differences. We are going to accept John Wesley’s words that we don’t need to think alike to love alike.
I know this message has not been inspiring. Talk of doing justice rarely is - because it is really hard work and we regret the necessity of doing it. However, it begins in recognizing and understanding the problems that cause and sustain injustices.
I want to close with a short piece of advice from Maya Angelo (Blessed memory) noted poet and one of the wisest quiet women I have ever met. She said, “Do the best you can, until you know better.”