The Story of God: Confrontation
2 Samuel 12: 1-9, 13, NRSV
Matthew 4:17, NRSV
Reflections
Comprehensible, sensible sin is one of the unexpected gifts I’ve found in the monastic tradition. The fourth-century monks began to answer a question for me that the human potential movement of the late twentieth century never seemed to address: if I’m O.K. and you’re O.K., and our friends (nice people and, like us, markedly middle class, if a bit bohemian) are O.K., why is the world definitely not O.K.? Blaming others wouldn’t do. Only when I began to see the world’s ills mirrored in myself did I begin to find an answer; only as I began to address that uncomfortable word, sin, did I see that I was not being handed a load of needless guilt so much as a useful tool for confronting the negative side of human behavior.
— Kathleen Norris
Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
- Purpose is not to hurt, not to shame
- It is gracious healing of God, healing grace
- Confront with Truth
- Nathan confronts with truth, specific to you, not generic
- Confront with Grace
- Confrontation, not condemnation, with grace, with wisdom
- Do we have friends like Nathan to tell you your blind spots?
- Pardon
- Although forgiven, there is still consequences, still hurting people
- David’s response after math in Psalm 51:12 “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation…”
