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Text: Luke 19:1-10

"Karma. You got to love it." That's a quote from my newest favorite television show, "My Name is Earl" on NBC. Earl readily confesses that he has done too many wrong things in life, but now he is on a mission to set things right. He feels he had to after his wake-up call.

Earl won a small lottery prize, and was so excited about his winning ticket that he joyously ran out into the street, where he was hit by a car. While he lay unconscious in the street, the lottery ticket blew away.

Then in the hospital, he watched a television show starring Carson Daly. Daly made the statement that success is a direct result of doing good things for other people. It was at that moment that Earl discovered Karma, the principle that says, "If you do good things, good things will happen to you. If you do bad things, bad things will happen to you."

In hope of a better life, he set out to correct every bad thing he'd ever done starting with a grade school geek, Kenny, who Earl used to pick on. First, Earl made a list of all the bad things he had ever done. Then each episode, we find him trying make up for one of his mistakes and cross that item off his list.

Each show begins with the following narration by Earl, "You know the kind of guy who does nothing but bad things and then wonders why his life sucks? Well, that was me. Every time something good happened to me, something bad was waiting right round the corner. Karma. That’s when I realized that I had to change. So I made a list of everything bad I’ve ever done, and one by one I’m gonna make up for all my mistakes. I’m just trying to be a better person. My Name is Earl."

Earl is a perfect fit for Step Eight of the Twelve Steps to Recovery. But first let me review the first seven steps:

1) We admitted we were powerless over the effects of our separation from God and that our lives had become unmanageable.

2) We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3) We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

4) We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5) We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6) We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7) We humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

And now I turn to Step Eight which says, "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all."

Step Eight has two parts:

1) Made a list of all persons we had harmed

2) Became willing to make amends to them all.

First let's consider the part about making a list of all persons we had harmed. And this is not the first time the Twelve Steps has advised that we make a list. In Step Four, we made a list when we completed our "searching and fearless moral inventory."

I love this emphasis on list-making because I believe it is one of the finer arts. How does anyone ever prioritize their tasks for the day unless they have made a list? How can we know which movie to rent unless we have made a list of the movies we want to see? How can we decide where to go on vacation unless we have made a list of the places we want to go? I think list-making is one of the most important secrets to success. So this idea of making a list is very appealing to me.

You see, making a list indicates that we are serious about change. When we write something down, we are far more likely to complete the task. Making a list is the only way to be comprehensive in our moral inventory or in remembering the people we have harmed. When it is written down, we won't conveniently forget.

Surely the best reason for writing anything down is to avoid forgetting. The longer I live the easier it seems to be to forget what are sometimes very important items or events. Just this week, I went to a meeting Thursday morning at 9 a.m. only to discover that no one else was there. After fifteen minutes of frustration at waiting, I left. I thought I was the only one to remember the meeting, until I got back to work and saw on my calendar that the meeting was at 9:30. See, I had written it down, but failed to look at my list!

But notice why Earl makes his list. He tackles Step Eight out of his understanding of Karma. That's not a very familiar term in Eastern Kentucky. If I understand it correctly, it originally came from some Eastern religion. But its meaning is one that we all understand - "If you do good things, good things will happen to you. If you do bad things, bad things will happen to you." That is a common sense principle. Every religion has some emphasis on behaving responsibly, and that is at the heart of Karma.

The Bible also affirms that virtue is rewarded and sin creates suffering. The Bible (and Karma) teaches that every action counts and even private actions will have public consequences. Ecclesiastes 11: 1 says, "Cast your bread upon the waters; for you shall find it after many days."

In Matthew 7:12, Jesus gave us the Golden Rule, "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets." Sounds like Karma, doesn't it?

But Earl states his main reason in the opening narrative: "I'm just trying to be a better person." You see, how we live makes a difference in this life and the next. Christians believe that God will reward us for good deeds in heaven. Let me be clear that most Christians do not believe that good deeds will get us to heaven, but they do believe good deeds will be rewarded in heaven.

In 2 Corinthians 5:10, Paul says, "For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil."

Making a list of those we have harmed is about reconciliation. In 2 Corinthians 5:18, Paul writes, "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us."

My former pastor, Dr. Don Harbuck, used to love to say, "The Kingdom of God is the kingdom of right relations." God sent Christ into the world so that we could have a right relationship with God, and Jesus taught us the Way so that we could have right relationships with other people.

Right relationships means being a peace with others. In Romans 5:1, Paul says, "Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…" Being at peace with God is the first part of this puzzle.

Then in Romans 12:18 he writes, "If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." Being at peace with others is the second part of the puzzle.

Living right means being at peace with God and at peace with others. The Kingdom of God really is the kingdom of right relationships. As Earl says, "If you want a better life, you need to be a better person."

What do we put on our list? We list all the persons we have harmed. In Step Eight we begin to grow up. We take responsibility for our actions without consideration for the wrongs done to us by others.

On the list, we put our material wrongs. This will include actions that have affected people in a tangible way. We may have borrowed something and not returned it. We may have been stingy. We may have attempted to buy friendship or love. We may have entered legal agreements with someone and then refused to abide by the terms. We may have simply cheated. We may have injured someone or damaged property.

On the list, we put our moral wrongs. This includes any inappropriate behavior in a moral or ethical sense. Here we deal with questions of rightness, fairness and equity. It may be something as simple as setting a bad example for children. It may be our selfish pursuits or times that we were unaware of the needs of others.

On the list, we put our spiritual wrongs. This may include our acts of omission where we have neglected our obligations to God, to ourselves, to our families or to our community.

Our list may include small wrongs and big wrongs. For some people, the list has people against whom one may have committed a crime. For others, it may contain rude comments from long ago.

I read on the Internet the story of a lady who still feels awful because of an insult to a classmate in junior high. Julie Higgins was a plain girl, and the cool kids at school insulted her by calling her "Higgins Piggins." And once, just once, this lady had succumbed to the desire to be popular and had called her classmate "Higgins Piggins" to her face. And she still lives with the pain of that insult. Put it on the list! Put everything on the list!

The second part of Step Eight is to become willing to make amends. Once again we find in the Twelve Steps this emphasis on becoming willing. In fact, many of the Twelve Steps are merely getting ourselves willing to do the next step. Step Two is a preparation for Step Three - We come to believe in a power greater than ourselves before we make the decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. Step Four is preparation for Step Five - We make a searching and fearless moral inventory before we admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Step Six is preparation for Step Seven - We have to be entirely ready to have God remove our defects of character before we humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings. And we can be sure that making this list of persons we have harmed will lead us to Step Nine where we make those amends.

How do we become willing? I addressed that question in an earlier sermon when I suggested that we have to get our gumption up before we can properly do anything. In this case, we become willing through prayer and meditation. We need to have supper with Jesus

In the Bible, Zacchaeus discovered the same thing. After Jesus called him down from his sycamore tree and joined him for dinner, Zacchaeus stood and announced, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much." Meeting Jesus made Zacchaeus want to become a better person, and he began by making up for his mistakes, just like Earl. Zacchaeus tells us that we work Step Eight with God's help.

Within the context of the Twelve-Step program, the idea of amends is broadly defined as "repairing the damage of the past." Amends can be as simple as an apology or as complex as restitution for physical or financial liability.

Earl talks about the kind of guy who does nothing but bad things and then wonders why his life sucks. Like barnacles on a ship's hull, our past wrongdoings can prevent us from sailing smoothly to a life filled with peace.

Earl has a rather simplistic view of this principle he calls "Karma," but he is right on target when he says, "If you want a better life, you need to be a better person."

Step Eight leads us to make a list of our wrongs, and become willing to make them right. Like Earl, we need to start by making a list. It's a good start at becoming a better person.