Step eight: Made a list of all persons we harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

I can see the scene now. They are meeting over a three-martini lunch to plan out the advertising strategy. They struggle with what hook they will use to lure people to their product. One of them says, "Think of this? What revives the soul, makes wise the simple, rejoices the heart, enlightens the eyes, is to be more desired than gold and is sweeter than honey?"

What could be the product? How about a vacation home in the Caribbean? Would it be winning the New York State lottery? Could it be a new miracle, feel-good medicine? Is it the ultimate labor-saving-housework-made-effortless machine? Instead they find out they are on Candid Camera and someone reads the totally unexpected:

The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
More to be desired are they than gold ...
sweeter also than honey.

You expect the Bible to be in favor of obeying the Law. But what is said about keeping the Law is not expected. What the first part of this psalm says about God is what is expected. It sings praises to the creator of nature. God's revelation in nature for most of us is probably the first dawning awareness of the reality and greatness of God.

But this hymn is also about God as the creator of the Law. The first part of the Psalm has to do with the creation of nature, the second with the Law that is redeeming God's creation. This is the on-going activity of God.

Normally, our first concern about breaking the Law is the possible consequences we might receive for violating civil or criminal laws. Weekdays when I drive to church, I drive through a school zone. There are flashing lights in the school zone, but they have not worked properly since school began. I am not sure what time the school zone speed limit is actually in effect.

In the line with the rest of traffic, speeding through the school zone, I wonder if non-working flashing lights are an adequate legal defense for speeding through a school zone. That is concern for civil law. "What if I am found guilty?" The Law of the Lord has to do with respect for the One whose creation includes the creation of law. It has to do with concern for the purpose of the law, which is the safety of the children who are traveling to the school.

In Genesis we are taught that God is creator. In the New Testament we are taught that God is love. But the concept that God is law seems strange to our ears. The image of a "legal God" makes God stern, relentless, unyielding, unmerciful. But God's creation and love are known through the keeping of the law.'

It means that the Law of God expressed in Scripture and to the degree embodied in society, is not a lifeless body of rules, but the living expression of God's will. God created a world where conduct counts. God created a world where the keeping of his Law revives the soul, makes wise the simple, rejoices the heart, enlightens the eyes, is to be more desired than gold and is sweeter than honey.

But that is not the common wisdom. Polls that give approval ratings of various professions generally rate attorneys about the same level as sellers of used cars. They defend guilty and innocent. But the polls do not reflect that. Police who are sworn to uphold the law can become objects of protest. Judges who manage the courts can bear the wrath of much anger.

Passion for the law is generally expressed when the law is broken, not when it is being kept. In Scripture the prophets passionately decry injustice when God's Law is broken. Keeping the law generally does not generate that kind of passion. But in this psalm there is passion for keeping the Law. The psalmist says that the reward for keeping the Law is to have the life which God's Law produces.

Common wisdom says that the best way to be refreshed is to go into God's creation. One Wednesday I was on a retreat way far out in the country. It was refreshing. I arrived early, drove around, saw a couple of deer running across the road. I got to walk through the path in the woods. That is one kind of refreshment. That is being in touch with one part of God's creation.

The psalmist says that keeping God's Law is another kind of refreshment of enormous value by itself. There is a joy in keeping God's commandments and ordinances regardless of what others do or what happens in the rest of the world.

One of my personal heroes is a television newscaster in Cleveland. When he was chosen the regular lead anchor on the weekday news, it was a promotion of note, since he was the first black to be a weekday news anchor in Cleveland. I always liked him. There was some quality about him, his manner, the way he treated others that I admired, but I didn't know what it was. Then one day, reading an interview with him, I discovered it.

When he talked about the advice that shaped his life, he said that his mother had told him no matter what anyone else did, he should always be a gentleman. He always followed that advice. Even if all around you are breaking the Laws of God and society, you know who you are and what you are to do.

That is the right kind of attitude: to do what is right regardless of anyone else's approval or disapproval, regardless of whether you are rewarded or punished at the time, regardless of what anyone else is doing, regardless of the popular behavior of the group you are with.

The last part of this psalm considers what happens when we do violate the Law of God. It asks a basic question: "... who can discern his errors?" How objective can we be about ourselves? How honest can we be with ourselves? How honest to God? How honest with others?

Out of our natural weakness the psalmist makes the petition, "Clear thou me from hidden faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me!" The presumptuous sins are those which we commit because of the self-certainty we have of our judgment. Any one of us can rationalize a reason for murdering someone at whom we are angry. We can easily become confident of our reasoning.

That brings us to the eighth step: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. It is God's will that we keep the Law, and in keeping it is the joy the psalmist describes. To keep from breaking it and to become willing to make amends, we need to call on God's power to defend us from ourselves. It is to this need to be reconciled with God and one another that Paul wrote to the church in Corinth.

Knowing about the glory of keeping God's Law, and being aware of the need for and promise of reconciliation is a start, but there are some things that can keep us from being reconciled to God and one another. Sometimes we are just enjoying the wrong we are doing too much to really want to change.

Perhaps your prayer is that of Augustine who, early in life, prayed, "Give me chastity and self-control, but not just yet." He explained why he prayed this: "For I was afraid that you would hear my prayer too soon, and too soon would heal me from the disease of lust which I wanted satisfied rather than extinguished (Confession, VIII, 7.2)."

Sometimes we enjoy our sins too much to want to change. Other times, we feel so badly that we cannot believe God would really forgive us. Here is the promise of the gospel. God is "not counting (our) trespasses against (us) ..." We are not locked in the prison of our misdeeds. We are free to go and be reconciled with those whom we have harmed.

This does not remove the consequences of our sins. If we poison the neighbor's dog, the dog is still dead. It does not remove the sin. It forgives the sinner.

The operative word in this section of Paul's letter is the word reconciliation. That is what this step is all about. "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all."

That is a huge chore. But it is approachable because of what God has already done in Jesus Christ. We do not have to create reconciliation. We just have to follow the script that Christ wrote.

This is a step we can take only when we believe God has completely forgiven us. If we do not really believe we are forgiven, then we will not try to do this. This is a good litmus test of how fully you understand your forgiveness: how willing you are to make amends for the past? Forgiveness requires our acceptance. Acceptance is demonstrated in this step.

Last century two men named Wilson and Porter were sentenced in a federal court to be hanged. Two days before the hanging, President Andrew Jackson pardoned them both. But Wilson refused the pardon. That posed a complicated legal problem that ultimately reached the Supreme Court. They ruled: "A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may be rejected by the person to whom it is tenured, and if rejected, we have no power in this court to force it upon him."

If you knew that someone was coming by this afternoon to repossess your car, you probably would not stop on the way home and pay for it to be washed. You are more likely to run it through mud puddles and drive it through potholes. If you do not feel you have been forgiven, then you will not try to clean up your act.

This is a secular way of saying that the old is passing away. This is a kind of programatic way of demonstrating to yourself the passing away of the old. If we make a decision to turn our will and way over to God, but we do not do anything differently, then the old ways still reign.

It also requires us to be ready to accept anyone and everyone whom we feel has wronged us. Paul talks about us being the "agents" of reconciliation. That is like being the manufacturer's representatives for God. A manufacturer's representative does not manufacture the product. He represents it. We do not manufacture reconciliation. God manufactures reconciliation. We let folks know about it. And that may well involve seeking reconciliation with someone you have harmed.

To the question, "Why do I forgive anyone?" Albert Schweitzer answered, "I must forgive the lies directed against myself because my own life has been so many times blotted by lies; I must forgive the lovelessness, the hatred, the slander, the fraud, the arrogance which I encounter since I myself have so often lacked love, hatred, slandered, defrauded and been arrogant (Civilization and Ethics, tr. John Naish, London: A&C Black, 1923, II, 260)."

No one said it was easy. That is why there are seven serious steps before it. It is the difficult and narrow way. But to be faithful to the gospel is to love the Law of God, the Law which Christ came not to remove but to fulfill. To be faithful to the gospel is not just to confess to God what is wrong in our life, but to get ready to let God use us as agents of reconciliation by making amends to any we have harmed.