Luke 15:1-10
Sept. 11, 2022
We’re going to jump right in this morning with an opportunity for active participation. 🙂 I’d like you to raise your hand, please, if you have ever heard of something called the ENNEAGRAM…?
It’s a word that comes from two Greek words: “ennea” which means NINE, and “grammos” which means A WRITTEN SYMBOL–because the Enneagram is a personality assessment system that’s based on nine personality types, and it’s represented by the written symbol you see below:
Like other personality assessment tools, like the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, for example, the Enneagram helps its users to know themselves better. What makes it different is that it helps people explore and understand what motivates them, on a deep level.
The Enneagram helps you pay attention to your patterns of thinking, and feeling, and acting, and then understand how those patterns have developed from a particular deep inner motivation–something that we are generally completely unaware of.
And once you have some understanding about that motivation, and how it developed in the early stages of your life, you can look at both how it has served you well over the course of your life and how it has limited you.
Now, for the most part, we don’t intentionally think and feel and behave in ways that effectively make us smaller, that decrease our ability to experience life, that limit our capacity to give and receive love. But we do it. We do it pretty consistently, in fact! And for the most part, we are completely unaware that we’re doing it! The Enneagram is one tool that can help us see the ways that we do that–so that we can begin to do things differently.
Because as you grow in your awareness of how you have been unconsciously, and unintentionally, limiting your thinking and feeling and acting, then you can begin to intentionally make choices that increase your capacity to experience life rather than limit it, choices that enlarge your capacity to give and receive love rather than diminish it.
I first heard of the Enneagram, actually, many years ago, but to be honest, it sounded a little new-age-y to me, so I didn’t do anything more with it at that point (although in actuality, it’s thousands of years old!).
I heard about it again a couple of years ago, from one of my colleagues in the Presbytery of Santa Fe. This fellow pastor has done quite a bit of work himself with the Enneagram, had found it really helpful in his own growth, and began talking with me about it.
I also had the chance to continue learning about it at the leadership retreat I recently attended [part of the Nollau Leadership Institute]. In fact, we spent a full day exploring it together, and I’ve continued to dig into it myself since then.
And this morning I’d like to share with you a little bit of my experience with the Enneagram.
First, according to the Enneagram system, we humans have three centers of intelligence–three brains, if you will: the head center, the heart center, and the body center. And each of those three centers is divided into three personality types. So, as I mentioned earlier, there are nine primary types, numbered, appropriately, 1-9.
Each of the nine types is characterized by, among other things, a primary motivation which reveals itself in amazingly consistent patterns of thinking, and feeling, and relating to ourselves and others. In fact, a common experience when someone first hears a basic description of what they recognize as their type, is for them to think, “Oh my gosh!! How did they get in my head?? How do they know exactly what I’ve been thinking and feeling my whole life???”
Because while each of us has parts of all nine types within us, we find our “home base” within one of the nine types in particular, resonating most deeply with the patterns associated with that specific type.
With all that as background, there’s a particular facet of the Enneagram system that I want to lift up to you this morning. And that is that capacity I mentioned a little bit ago–the capacity the Enneagram has to show us how we’ve been limited in our experience of life.
The Enneagram is particularly useful in helping us see what is sometimes called our shadow side. The parts of ourselves we don’t generally want to acknowledge–and in fact, are often unaware of, at least on a conscious level. For the most part, we humans tend to be much more conscious of our good intentions, our admirable traits, the positive aspects of our personalities. And while the Enneagram acknowledges those patterns and traits, it also helps us to see their underbellies. The shadow sides. We all have them. We don’t all acknowledge them. But the more freely we can see them and acknowledge them, with compassion, the more free we can be from them.
Let me give you an example…I have determined that of the nine basic types on the Enneagram, I am a type 2. Listen to some of the characteristic patterns of this personality type:
- “Twos excel at making connections and empathizing with the needs and feelings of others. Focused on relationships, they are good at supporting others.” (Narrative Enneagram)
- [Twos are] Caring, helpful, generous… and exuberant” (Narrative Enneagram)
- “Twos’ particular ‘superpower’ is that they can be excellent friends and will often go to great lengths to take care of and support loved ones.” (CP Enneagram – Type 2)
Delightful, right?? Who wouldn’t want to be a Two on the Enneagram? Who else can I tell that I am a Two on the Enneagram?? That all seems pretty wonderful, I think, and I’m pretty proud to claim it!…
But wait —there’s more. Listen to some of the other characteristic patterns of the Two:
- “[Twos] want to be accepted and liked by others, and will adapt or change to earn this approval.” (Narrative Enneagram)
- “Twos [repress] personal needs and feelings to avoid being needy and to maintain a helpful self-image.” (Narrative Enneagram)
- “In seeking approval, Twos can miss authentic connection in relationships due to their tendency to ‘shape-shift’ by being overly nice, superficially friendly and flattering.” (Narrative Enneagram)
- ‘Because it is so difficult for Twos to ask directly for what they need, they seduce others as a way of getting what they need through the indirect routes of charm and apparent generosity.” (CP Enneagram – Type 2)
Hmm. Not so delightful, right? (And there’s more, but I think that’s enough to give you a sense of some of the shadows that present with all of that other seemingly wonderful stuff!)
And those parts–the shadow parts–are the parts that we don’t tend to see, the parts that tend to be outside of our awareness. We can think of them as our blind spots.
When my colleague and I were first talking about the Enneagram and the possibility of my being a Type 2, he asked me, “Have you ever considered yourself to be controlling or manipulative?” I was horrified! “What?? Me?? Controlling?? Manipulative?? No! Never!” And I thought, I am kind, and loving, and supportive, and helpful, and encouraging! I am not controlling or manipulative!
I think he may have responded with something like, “Hmm…” 🙂
Eventually I began to see that at least some of my efforts to be kind and loving and supportive and helpful and encouraging, in fact, came from a need for people to like me…a deep need for people think well of me…and that at least some of my efforts, therefore, to be kind and loving and supportive and helpful and encouraging were, in fact, disguised attempts to influence how someone felt about me…disguised attempts to affect the outcome of a situation…and oh, how I was horrified to realize this–but some of my efforts were, in fact, disguised attempts to control and manipulate. Ugh. A pretty painful realization!
But a helpful one! Because once you see something like that in yourself, you can’t unsee it. And not only can you not unsee it, but you can choose to start doing something about it. You can learn where it comes from, and how it developed. You can acknowledge how it has worked for you in your life so far, how it has served to protect you from being hurt, in some ways. And, if you’re willing, with great kindness toward yourself, and patience, and support, you can learn healthier ways of thinking and feeling and interacting. With a growing understanding of yourself and an increasing awareness of your patterns and motivations, you can move toward transformation, becoming a fuller and more complete version of yourself, of the you God made you to be!
But first, you have to see. You have to see yourself with honesty and courage. And the Enneagram is one tool, one powerful tool–that can help you do that.
So–as I seem to find myself saying more and more at some point in my sermons–what does any of this have to do with today’s scriptures??? 🙂
I actually think there is a significant connection. Let me explain.
In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus told two stories–one about a lost sheep, and another about a lost coin. In each story, the owner of the lost item searched and searched until they found it. And finding it, they called their friends and neighbors together to celebrate.
Clearly, the shepherd and the woman represent God, who never gives up and who rejoices each time “a sinner repents,” as Jesus said. Each time someone who had been lost, is found. Each time someone turns away from sin and turns back to God. Each time someone is restored from their lost-ness, and comes home to God.
But here’s the thing–in both stories, the lost items didn’t know they were lost. The coin, obviously, had no awareness of being lost. 🙂 And the sheep–well, I’m going to suppose the sheep didn’t realize it was lost, either. If it had, I think it would have been bleating frantically, which the shepherd would have heard, which would have made for a less impactful story! So I think the sheep must not have realized it was lost. I’m going to imagine that it had just carelessly wandered off, grazing with its head down, following its own path…while the rest of the flock had gone off somewhere else. And that one sheep just kept doing what it was doing and going in the direction it was going, not scared, not worried, not concerned about whether it would be found…because it didn’t even know it was lost.
And yet, regardless of whether they knew it or not, the coin and the sheep were lost.
Okay, now, imagine how much more quickly they would have been found if they had known they were lost! If they somehow could have communicated to their owners, “Hey! I’m over here! I know I’m lost, but I don’t know how to get back to where I belong by myself! I need your help!” They would have been found, and restored to their owner, and brought back to where they belong, so much more easily and quickly…
And so here’s the connection, in my mind, to the Enneagram: we’re all lost. In some way. And what I mean by that is that none of us is experiencing life as fully as we are meant to. None of us is using our full capacity to give and receive love. None of us is living in full communion with God or with our true selves. All of us are limited in some way by the ways we think and feel and interact with ourselves and others. I think we do have some sense of that…but I don’t think, generally, we really know why. Other than the fact that we’re human! 🙂
But despite our best efforts and intentions, we continue to not experience life as fully and abundantly and expansively as God intends it to be experienced. Maybe some of us, once in a while, are fully aware that we are lost and have the awareness to shout out to God, “Hey! I’m over here! I know I’m lost, but I don’t know how to get back to where I belong by myself! I need your help!” But most of us, most of the time, are like the coin and the sheep and don’t even really know that we’re lost, or at least the degree to which we are lost…
And when we can’t see that we’re lost, it’s less likely that we’ll recognize that we need to be found. As long as we’re unable or unwilling to recognize our lost-ness, we’ll resist being brought back to where we belong, brought back to our true home, which is in the full presence of God. As our full selves.
And so yes, the Enneagram is one tool to help us see our lost-ness. One powerful tool. And there are others.
Regardless of which tool we choose, the real key is to be willing to see it.
And then, to be willing to be found.
Amen.
Rev. Deborah Beloved Church (aka "Pastor Deb") 