Come to the Water

Elaine Wainwright of the School of Theology at Auckland University, looks at Lent through a new lens, the lens of our contemporary ecological imperative as a human community which must be in right relationship with all participants in the Earth community. "Everyone who thirsts, come, come to the water…. This is one of those many phrases of the poet that we call Second Isaiah that reverberates in our spirits. But in today’s reading from this poet and prophet there is not just this one imperative—come— but the reading is, we might say, riddled with imperatives, with exhortations coming from our God: come to the water, come buy wine and milk, listen carefully to me, incline your ear, come to me, listen, see, seek me, forsake evil ways, return….return: turn your life around. And while the gospel is not filled with imperatives as is the reading from the prophet, it reiterates the phrase unless you repent, unless you repent. Return….repent. There is a call to change, to change one’s mind or way of thinking, to change one’s heart, to change or to turn around one’s life—a most appropriate invitation to us at Week Three, almost midway along our Lenten journey. We are invited to pause on this Sabbath day to reflect whether or perhaps how we have turned our life around or how we might do so into the second half of our Lenten journey." Complete text and video links at http://www.stmatthews.org.nz/nav.php?sid=535&id=1034.