St. John’s Episcopal Church
Wednesday Service – Feast of Moses the Ethiopian a.k.a Moses the Black, Abba Moses

2 Chronicles 28:8–15
Psalm 62
Luke 23:39–43

When Moses the Ethiopian—
also known as Moses the Black
and Abba Moses—
died in the late 4th century,
he had become a living contradiction: 
a man of deep peace who once lived by the sword.

Born in Ethiopia,
Moses had been a thief,
a gang leader, 
a bandit, 
marauder, 
and a man of violence
feared for his brute strength and hair-trigger rage.
He was said to have killed with his own hands.
He was not a good man.
Not even close.

But something happened.

Trying to escape his enemies,
Moses once took refuge at a desert monastery.
There, for reasons he likely did not understand,
he stayed.

The monks received him.
They did not turn him away.
They treated him not as a criminal
but as a man capable of becoming more.

He became a monk himself.
He gave himself over to prayer.
And slowly—so very slowly—
grace began to do what grace does best.

It did not erase his past.
It did not undo the harm.
But it did remake the man.

The thing about Moses the Ethiopian
is not that he went from bad to good
but that he came to know himself as beloved.

Like the thief on the cross beside Jesus,
Moses was a man who heard the unthinkable:
“Today, you will be with me in Paradise.”

It is not just that God forgives.
It is that God keeps company
with sinners, scoundrels, and saints alike . . .
and sometimes, they are all the same person.

* * *

In a world that divides people into good and bad,
deserving and undeserving,
today’s readings and today’s saint offer another way.

From Chronicles,
we heard of warriors who realized their prisoners
were not enemies to humiliate
but kin to clothe and heal and set free.

From the Psalm,
we heard the quiet insistence
that our hope is not in violence or riches,
but in God alone,
whose power is matched only by mercy.

And from the Gospel,
we heard that paradise is not earned.
It is given.
It is spoken.
It is shared.

That is good news.
Not just for Moses the Ethiopian.
But for you and me.

Because whatever your past,
however much you may still carry it,
God is not finished with you.

God knows your name.
God keeps company with the likes of you.
And paradise is still within reach.

Amen.