“In Him We Have Redemption” - January 3, 2016

Ephesians 1:3-14

            If you go into any supermarket in New England, you will find a counter where you can hand over your empty bottles or soda cans and receive a nickel in return.  When you walk into the store, just look around for a sign that says, “Redemption Center”.

The cans don’t even have to be in good shape.  In fact, an old can that you found lying along the curb, where cars have parked and rainwater has run along the gutter, may even be more welcome than your Dr. Pepper can from yesterday because the other has been flattened out and pre-washed and is readier for recycling.  The Redemption Center will accept the old and crushed cans and send them on their way to renewal and a second (or maybe third or fourth) life.

That’s also what should happen here in this building and at this counter, but with human lives rather than seltzer bottles.  Jesus takes people who have been through the mill and sets them – sets us – on the track to something far, far better.  And just like bottle and can labels present an incentive for their redemption where they will say,

“ME, VT, CT, NH, MA,

HI, OR, IA – 5¢, MI – 10¢”,

Jesus also actively puts out a call for the toss-aways and the empties of the world.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  [Matthew 11:28-30]

Who, at some point in life, does not hear that offer and want to say, “Yes!  Yes, I could use a hand about now.  I could use a rest sometime, or at least a chance to breathe”?  This place, every place where Jesus’ people gather, should be one where that offer is made and that invitation issued.

            In fact, there are times when somebody who has been through the redemption station in a conspicuous way is just the person that God can make the best use of.  I read two stories last week that illustrate that.  Here’s the first:

An older lady pushed her grocery cart to her car and opened her purse for her keys.  They weren’t in the usual spot, so she began to rummage through everything, with no luck.  She finally looked into the car and saw the keys on the driver’s seat.  That was when it started to rain and she started to cry.  “Lord, help me!” she muttered.  Just then a man she had never seen walked over and asked what was wrong, and she explained. 

“Don’t worry,” he said.  “Just give me thirty seconds.”  He walked around to the other side of the car and did something to the passenger door and it popped open.  He reached in, then walked around and gave her the keys.

She gave the stranger a big hug and said, “God is good, and so are you!”

“No, I’m not,” he said.  “I did ten years in jail for grand theft auto.”

“God really is good!” the woman insisted.  “He heard my prayer and he sent me a professional.”

            Then here’s the second story, and I don’t even know the details.  It goes back a few years to a time when a woman I knew was struggling very, very hard to help one of her sons, who had a severe drinking problem.  He had alienated everyone in his family but her, and with her it was only the grace of God that had made her so stubborn that the more stupid things he did, the more determined she became to hold on.  She was in the church office one day and there in front of about six or seven people she just spilled her guts about what it was doing not only to her son but also to her.  That was when two of the people there, who had their own struggles, looked at each other and nodded.  One of them said, “Is he out in the car?” and the mother said he was.  “Go get him and meet us in the parlor.”  They went into the church parlor and when the mother and son came in, they sent her out and closed the doors and the rest of us sat there in the office for about an hour and a half.  At the end of that time, one of the two emerged from the room and got the mother and said, “Come with us.”  Through the window the rest of us saw the mother, the son, and the others get into a car and drive off.  Later that afternoon came a call saying that he was in rehab.  It was a long process that followed, but right there was where things turned around.  I have no idea what they did or said, but only those two could have done and said it, and it was because they understood two things: what the man was going through, and the help that Jesus had given them when they were there.

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us.” [Ephesians 1:7-8]

And the rest of us marveled at the riches of grace that allowed two people to do the work of Christ, not because they had led great lives, but because they allowed him to redeem the lives they had lived and to renew them so that others could also be renewed.  Jesus works with what we bring to him, and turns it into hope.

            On an album called (appropriately enough) Graceland, Paul Simon sang:

“A man walks down the street
He says, ‘Why am I soft in the middle now?
Why am I soft in the middle?
The rest of my life is so hard
I need a photo opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard…’”[1]

Nobody has to end up that way.  We all have a shot at redemption.

“In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.” [Ephesians 1:11-12]

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[1] Paul Simon, “You Can Call Me Al” from Graceland (1986).