How do you help a person who doesn't want help?

Maybe it's a man addicted to alcohol, or a woman hooked on drugs. Whatever their dependency, they simply don't believe they have a problem. For many of them, the only way to get them to accept reality and begin the process of recovery is to schedule a non-judgmental confrontation.

Professionals call it "an intervention."

A young man named Christopher experiences one on The Sopranos, HBO's hit series about a New Jersey mob family. Did you see this episode? Christopher is running around high, again, desperately trying to score some more heroin. He gets involved in a drug deal that goes awry, and ends up getting carjacked, robbed and beaten. The mobster Tony steps in and schedules an intervention.

Unfortunately, it doesn't remain non-judgmental. Well ... whaddya expect? We're talking The Sopranos, after all. Christopher gets hit in the head, and his skull fracture is cleverly blamed on an accident suffered while climbing around on a kitchen counter, spraying for ants. But there is a happy ending: After a heart-to-heart with Tony, in which he realizes that he barely avoided a bullet in the head, Christopher is checked into a clinic in Pennsylvania.

That's intervention, Sopranos-style.

King David was another person who didn't think he had a problem, and he certainly didn't want any help. He was deep into a sex addiction that began when he spotted the lovely Bathsheba taking a bath next door -- an addiction that spiraled out of control when David sent for her, made her pregnant, and then arranged the murder of her husband Uriah. After hearing about Uriah's death in battle, David sent a message to his commander, saying, "Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another" (2 Samuel 11:25).

In other words, "This is no big deal." Another day, another mistress, another murder. David didn't think he had a problem.

It fell to Nathan the prophet to schedule an intervention, a non-judgmental confrontation. So he tells a story to trap David in his sin and enable him to see things clearly. "There were two men in a certain city," says Nathan, " the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb" (12:1-2). Then one day a traveler comes to visit the rich man, and the rich man decides he needs to slaughter an animal to feed his guest. Does he take an animal from his own flocks and herds to fix a meal for the traveler? Oh ... noooo! He's got plenty of lambs to choose from, but instead he takes the poor man's lamb and kills it and cooks it for dinner.

King David is filled with righteous anger and jumps to his feet. "As the Lord lives," he shouts, "the man who has done this deserves to die" (vv. 5-6).

Nathan says to David, "You are the man!" (v. 7).

Busted. David is trapped in his sin, and able to see reality clearly for the very first time. Nathan's intervention, which used a story as a tool of non-judgmental confrontation, enables David to see the truth about himself and even pronounce judgment on himself. It is when he sees himself in the story that David realizes he has a problem, and begins the process of recovery. Just a few verses later, David honestly confesses, "I have sinned against the Lord" (v. 13).

Nathan doesn't even have to hit him over the head, Tony-Soprano-style.

We are in the middle of the season of Lent, that time each year when we engage in careful self-examination. But I would like to suggest that our self-examination should include our entire community of faith, and should not simply focus on our individual, personal sinfulness. There are going to be times when we have to be willing to confront sin in others, and intervene in the lives of people in the church community who are self-destructing and spiraling out of control.

These kinds of confrontations are never easy, and they require much prayer and preparation, but if they are performed by a group of people in a non-judgmental way, you'll be amazed at how powerful a simple conversation can be. A few honest words, carefully chosen, can actually put a person on a path to new life. And new life is, of course, the goal we all share -- in the programs we will be working on in meetings tonight, and in the worship we will be experiencing in the Easter season that begins later this month.

The time may come for each of us to take a stand against sin, as Nathan did. And when we make such a move, we'll find that the key to a successful intervention is being objective, nonjudgmental, and caring. Confrontation works best if you approach a person as a small group, and tell stories that help the person to see his or her life more clearly. The goal of intervention is never to punish, but is always to allow reality to shine through, so that a person can see it and accept it and begin the process of repentance and recovery.

Christians don't have to break skulls, Tony-Soprano-style. Instead, we can open people's minds with conversation, as Nathan did.

Our words can work wonders, when we speak the truth in love. Amen.

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