Lent 3A - 2026
Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent, Year A
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
The Rev. Andrew McLarty
In his memoir Night, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel recounts a conversation with his early spiritual mentor, Moshe, about the understanding of prayer. He once told the young Elie,
“This is true dialogue. Man questions God and God answers. But we do not understand his answers. We cannot understand them. You will find the true answers, Eliezer, only within yourself.” So Elie asked him, “Why do you pray?” Moshe replied, “I pray to the God within me that he will give me the strength to ask him the right questions.”
Prayer is not simply about getting the right answers. Prayer is about learning how to ask the right questions. It is about seeking God honestly and openly, trusting that God is present even when the answers remain mysterious.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well. Very quickly, the conversation turns toward religion and identity. She says, “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem” (Mt. Zion).
So, who is right? The Samaritans or the Jews? Which mountain? Which tradition?
As humans, we draw lines, we build tribes. We decide who is correct and who is not.
But Jesus refuses the premise of the argument.
He tells her the time is coming when people will worship God neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. The question itself is wrong. The temple is not the point. Mountains are not the point. And history does prove this true. The temple itself would be destroyed in 70 AD.
Instead, Jesus is pointing the Samaritan woman (and us) to a place beyond our tribes. God is seeking those who worship in spirit and truth. Put simply, God is not confined to our categories.
We often feel spiritually thirsty, as if we must keep running back to the well to prove ourselves again. But Jesus reminds us that the living water of God’s love is already there. It has always been there.
So perhaps Moshe the Beadle was right. The goal is not simply to have the right answers about God.
The goal is to ask the right questions.
Instead of asking, “Which group is right?” we might ask, “Where is God already at work?” Instead of asking, “Who belongs?” we might ask, “How can I see the image of God in this person before me?” Instead of asking, “How do I defend my tribe?” we might ask, “How do I love the child of God standing in front of me?”
As we heard last week, God so loved the world... Not one nation. Not one people. The world.
And as we move deeper into Lent, we remember where this teaching is leading. Jesus is already walking toward the cross. His sacrifice will reveal God’s love is not limited to a mountain, a temple, a tribe, or a culture.
So let us seek the strength to ask God the right questions. Let us look beyond perceptions and assumptions. And when we do, we may discover what Jesus already knows: standing before us is not a stranger, not an enemy, but a beautiful child of God.
Amen.
