SERMON: Enneagram Type 9 The Peacemaker or Mediator

Nine on the Enneagram – The Peacemaker / Mediator
Ephesians 2:13-17; 2 Cor 5:16-19

Friends, today we come to the end of our journey through the Enneagram as a tool for self knowledge and self growth, but also as a tool to explore and examine the wholeness of the person of Jesus. 

Type 9 on the Enneagram is often called the Peacemaker or Mediator, and as we explore this personality, before looking at the person of Jesus, we listen to the story of a fictitious person we shall name John. 

John’s biggest aim in life is for peace, inner peace and  outer peace. And the way he tries to achieve that peace is mostly through avoidance, which unfortunately does not always prove to be the best strategy to achieve that goal.  

John’s seeking of peace and his need to avoid difficult situations were evident very early on in his life. The world into which John was born was one that felt like it was defined by conflict.  Motivated by a desire for this conflict and tension to go away, John began to do everything in his power to resolve the conflict and trouble, but mostly by avoidance. 

Growing up, in order to keep the peace, John would very easily give in to the desires and plans of others. It was easier that way. When you just go along with what others want, you avoid the pain of conflicting opinions.  John has proved so effective in giving up his own opinions, desires and wants, that he has never really developed a very strong sense of self. He no longer really knows what it is that he wants in life and as a result can often be very indecisive when he is put on the spot and has to make a decision for himself. It is just so much easier to defer to others, even when deep down he also feels a certain amount of repressed anger as a result of never feeling like his own voice is ever listened to or heard. And in a way it is his own fault, because expressing his own opinions when with others is something he tries to avoid in case it puts him in conflict with others. 

As a result, John has sometimes felt a little bit like a ghost in the presence of others. Because he can be a little bit of a chameleon, blending into the background of any situation, and blending into the crowd, he also has an amazing ability of reflecting aspects of each of the other 8 personality types. As a result John’s own personality is a little difficult to pinpoint and pin down. 

Being driven by a desire for peace and a desire to avoid conflict, John has an ability to see and understand different points of view more than most, especially when the conflict exists outside himself between other people.  And seeing the validity of arguments on both sides of a conflict, John will often try and play a mediating role between two conflicting sides.  Sometimes it has got him into quite a bit of trouble because he can very easily get caught in the middle, with both sides accusing him of taking the other person's side, when he has in fact sincerely sought to find a middle way between them. 

These mediating and peacemaking qualities in John have served him well as an adult. As a lecturer in History, he constantly challenges his students to move beyond their own narrow opinions and perspectives, and constantly challenges them to not only look deeply at differing perspectives on history, but to put themselves in the shoes of people on both sides of a historical debate and to learn to argue from the other person's perspective.  His students also find themselves being deeply listened to by John, because he is always interested to hear their opinions and their own fresh perspectives. 

In his religious life, he has been motivated to try and resolve and transcend the differences between differing religious perspectives, wishing to learn from the best of each religious tradition, whether than be between fundamentalist and liberals, Protestantism and Catholicism, Christianity and other religions like Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. He is convinced that each of these traditions has something we can all learn and benefit from and feels that if we all had to approach things in this way, much of the religious conflict in the world would be unnecessary. While they may appreciate and enjoy John’s gentle and peaceful manner and approach to life, others think he may be a little bit of a dreamer and a little naive but he has a deep sense that God is big enough to embrace us all. 

While at his best, John can be present an aura of peace and calm, being accommodating, unpretentious, reassuring, tolerant, non-judgemental, gentle, patient and outwardly imperturbable, like all of us John has his shadow side.  In his less mature moments, John can very easily become lazy, forgetful, indecisive, apathetic, oblivious, overly accommodating, passive-aggressive, obsessive, spaced-out and self-annihilating. Under stress, John begins to take on the negative characteristics of the 6 on the Enneagram, the Guardian or Protector coming across as quite anxious and defensive.  In his less mature moments, it take an enormous amount of energy to get motivated to do anything and can very easily get lost in the details of life as a form of avoidance of tackling the things that really matter, but which require effort and energy. 

As John has grown and matured, he has unconsciously begun to adopt the characteristics of his neighbouring personality types. With his 8 wing, the Leader or Challenger, it has helped him to become more engaged in life, and with his 1 Wing, the Reformer or perfectionist, it has helped him to stand up a little more strongly for the things he really believes are right. And as he has begun to do so, he has begun more and more to accomplish things of significance in life, taking on the positive characteristics of the Three, the achiever. 

John has his good days and his bad days, but he is in good company. Many famous and successful people have been 9s on the Enneagram. Probably the most famous of all would be Winnie the Pooh, who in his own nondescript way seems to get on with everyone.  Other famous 9s would include great names in psychology like Carl Jung and Carl Rogers, Abraham Lincoln, Ringo Star of the Beatles, Audrey Hepburn, The Dalai Lama, Lady Margot Fonteyn, and Queen Elizabeth II has also been described as a 9 on the Enneagram and it is certainly true that her official role requires that she play the role of a 9, a mediating and peacemaking role as she seeks to be the Monarch of a diverse Kingdom, which in her earlier reign would have been a diverse Empire. The Commonwealth is the type of organisation that expresses the values of a Nine, and so it wouldn't be surprising if the Commonwealth was the brainchild of the Queen herself. 

As we consider the person of Jesus, we see many of the best traits of a Nine in the person and teachings of Jesus. 

Jesus clearly valued peace highly. In the beatitudes, he describes the peacemakers of the world as children of God. Even his description of God as making his sun to shine on good and evil alike and sending rain on the righteous and unrighteous points to an understanding of God that transcends our normal human distinctions and divisions. 

Jesus is also constantly seen himself transcending the divisions of the society in which he lived.  Like a true Nine on the Enneagram, in many ways, Jesus lived as a friend of all and an enemy of none. As suggested in last week's sermon, even though he was bluntly direct with his opponents, the scribes and the Pharisees, it did not stop him from holding out a genuine hand of friendship to them as he ate at their tables and shared table fellowship with them. 

While some of his own disciples like Judas may have been from the radical political group called the sicarii who were politically engaged in wanting to overthrow their Roman oppressors by violent means, Jesus showed concern and compassion for a Roman centurion’s servant and even remarked how he had not seen such faith in Israel as he had in that Roman centurion. Like a 9, he was willing to see the best in people who were different from himself. 

We also see Jesus transcending the division between Jews and Samaritans and Jews and Gentiles.  Jesus has no qualms about travelling through Samaritan villages and engaging with them, even though it was not the done thing. He is willing to cross over the Sea of Galilee and engage with the Gentile population on the other side. He was even willing to make a hated and despised Samaritan the hero of one of his best known parables, the Good Samaritan.  Like a True Nine on the Enneagram, seeking and encouraging to bring peace between opponents, Jesus encourages his followers to pray for their enemies. For first century Jews, the thought of praying for Samaritans and their Roman Oppressors would have felt like an almost impossible task.

The apostle Paul reflects this reconciling, peacemaking dimension of Jesus when he says in 2 Cor 5 God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. And in Ephesians, in a cosmic view of Jesus' life and ministry, Paul asserts that in Jesus, God revealed his secret plan to being the whole universe to oneness and unity in him. 

But whereas the downfall of the Nine, is that in their less mature moments, they become avoiders of conflict rather than true peacemakers, Jesus greatest act of peacemaking according to scripture comes in the moment of his crucifixion. Jesus does the hard and painful work of making peace by bearing in his body the pain and conflict of the world, rather than simply sitting on a mountain-top lost in inward meditation.  Jesus engages with life and seeks to build a peace based on justice and fairness for the poor rather than in the words of Isaiah, crying peace peace when there is in truth no peace. 

In closing, a few helpful pointers for those of us who may identify as 9’s on the Enneagram: 
    • Every journey begins with the first step
    • Face the problems – the won’t go away
    • A stitch in time saves a Nine!
    • I  too am loved and worthwhile, and my opinion is valuable.
    • Every hair on your head is counted (Luke 12:7). 

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SHORT REFLECTION 

Dear Friends

Welcome to our Online Communion Service in which we invite you to join in at home with bread and grape-juice or wine, as we do this in remembrance of Christ and symbolically join with him in his life, death and resurrection through these ordinary gifts that come to us from God's creation.

The first song is especially for any children who may be joining us tonight and expresses in a beautiful way the life and love of Christ we remember in Communion.

The second song reminds us of the words of Jesus "As the Father sent me, so I am sending you." (John 20:21).

May God bless you as you share with us in this special way.

Brian

1 Corinthians 11:23-26. (ESV):
"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'
In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.'
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."

Enneagram Type 7 – The Enthusiast, The Adventurer

Over the past two weeks we have been exploring the Enneagram as a tool for personal and spiritual growth. It is personality tool that presents 9 basic personality types. Each week, we are invited to learn more about ourselves and those around us. And each week, we are invited to see the best qualities of each personality type reflected in the person of Jesus, as well as in Scripture.

As we explore Type 7 the Enthusiast, also called the Adventurer I begin with a fictional story about a person we shall call Rob.

Rob is a fun loving guy. If you want to have a good party, Rob is your man. He knows how to have a good time, and he can bring a lightness and a brightness to even the most dull situation. Part of that fun-loving, enthusiastic energy that Rob brings with him is also a certain restlessness, busyness and unpredictability, always looking for the next thing to keep himself busy with.

It has been like this since Rob was a little boy. Always restless, with a constant busy energy, Rob was always a bit of a handful, and his parents always had to be on high alert because they didn't quite know what was going to happen next. It was a bit of a relief for them at night when an exhausted Rob would finally drop off to sleep, thoroughly exhausted by his own compulsive busyness.

It is difficult to know exactly why Rob has always been such a bundle of excited and restless energy, but Rob experience of the world into which he was born, for whatever reason, left him feeling the pain of emptiness on the inside. Even in his earliest months and years, most of Rob’s energy was spent trying to fill the emptiness he felt on the inside and to avoid or dull the pain.

A lot of people looking on at him when he was younger tended to label Rob as naughty and disobedient because he would often get himself into all sorts of trouble even through his teenage years and beyond. But if truth be told, it was not often that Rob was deliberately trying to be naughty or rebellious. In fact there was often a degree of innocence about him, and often that he himself would be surprised by the results of his actions. A large part of the problem was that Rob tended to operate on the basis if “act now and think later”.

As suggested earlier, much of Rob’s joking nature and lightheartedness is ultimately a tactic to avoid the painfulness of life. At times this gets him into trouble because at moments that are deserving of more seriousness, Rob will tend to crack a joke because the pain might be a little too unbearable for him. This can unfortunately often give the impression of superficiality, although, below the surface he does carry a fair amount of pain that he struggles to acknowledge even to himself.

But Rob’s lighthearted nature has served him well as an adult. His infectious enthusiasm for life has helped to make him a really good teacher. He is able to inspire interest and enthusiasm in his students, and time in his class can be really quite exciting because you never quite know where Rob is going to go next as he makes regular adventures outside of the set syllabus into interesting and unchartered territory, even to himself.

While at his best, Rob can be described as optimistic, gregarious, fun-loving, creative, child-like, joyful, imaginative, resilient and adventurous, Rob also has his shadow side. In his less mature moments, Rob can be escapist, distracted, unreliable, undisciplined, hedonistic, impulsive and superficial, while at his worst he can become narcissistic, addictive and even manic.

As Rob has matured in his later life, he has become a bit more disciplined and reliable, and as he has done so, he has drawn on some of the strengths of his neighbouring personality types. His six wing, the Loyal Skeptic has helped to temper his wilder moments and make him a little more responsible and dutiful, helping him to better predict the potential negative consequences of his impulsive actions. With his Eight Wing, it has helped him become a little more direct and self-assertive and develop a greater tolerance for pain. Drawing on both of these strengths Rob in fact begins to display some of the strengths of the Five, looking at things in more depth rather than just the surface, being a little more contemplative and appreciating moments of silence and stillness.

Like all of us, Rob has his good days and his bad days. But he is in good company. A lot of famous and successful people have been Sevens, Adventurers, Enthusiasts. These include people like Robbin Williams, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins, Sir Elton John, Mick Jagger, John F. Kennedy, Gordon Ramsey, Princess Margaret, and some would put Sir Richard Branson in this category, and not in the 3 Category as I did a few weeks ago which is the achiever. The countries of Ireland and Brazil in different ways capture something of the energy and spirit of the Seven.

In considering the person and teachings of Jesus, we see that Jesus captures and expresses some of the best qualities of the Seven in his own life.

Robert Nogosek writes that like all Sevens, Jesus was a jovial person. He knew that the Creator intended that life should be enjoyed. Early in his ministry according to John’s Gospel, we see Jesus going to parties such as the wedding reception at Cana. In the story, as Jesus turns the water for ceremonial washing into wine, it is a powerful symbol of how Jesus sought to bring life and joy where the dominant forms of Jewish religion of his day were primarily concerned with rules that hindered rather than enhanced life. Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus would say that his purpose and mission was to bring people “life in abundance”. “I have come that you might have life and that you might have life in abundance,” (John 10:10).

Many of Jesus parables, also emphasize the fact that life in God’s Kingdom is meant to express a sense of joy, much as one would find at a wedding feast. Matthew 22:2 “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a King who threw a wedding feast for his son.”

Jesus also seemed to have a particularly soft spot for those who tended to give themselves over to the excesses of life. The prodigal son who goes off on an enthusiastic adventurer and then returns home after he has impulsively squandered his inheritance, might be called the patron saint of Sevens. Jesus’ keen knowledge of human nature meant that Jesus was deeply aware that beneath the excesses and addictions of most people was a deep pain and a woundedness that they were desperately trying to cover over and it was for this reason that they more often drew Jesus compassion rather than his judgement.

Jesus himself is accused of being a person of excess as seen in Matthew 11:19 where Jesus says: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at this glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’

As Nogosek writes: “ In Matthew 9, when Matthew the tax-collector throws a farewell party for his friends to celebrate becoming a follower of Jesus, some people challenge Jesus about all this eating and drinking. Jesus responds by saying that as long as he his around, people would celebrate, because he was alike a bride-groom. When the bride-groom was taken away, then the people would fast,” (Mt 9:15).

There was clearly something infectious and attractive about the spirit of Jesus because, like a Seven who is often the life of the party, people felt drawn to Jesus.

In the Gospels, we also see something of the adventurous spirit of Jesus. He is most often pictured out-doors in the great wide-open, walking with his friends from place to place, moving from town to town, engaging and meeting new people. He is also not too concerned about his disciples colouring out of the lines when they pick heads of wheat on the Sabbath, because in Jesus mind, the Sabbath was made in service for the benefit of humanity, and not that humans had to become slaves to the Sabbath. In addition, just as Sevens can also have an endearing child-like quality about them, Jesus highlights the importance of maintaining this child-like spirit, that finds joy and wonder in the world, when he places a child in front of this disciples and tells them, "It is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs" (Luke 18:16b)

But while immature Sevens have a tendency to avoid and run away from pain and unpleasantness, like a mature Seven, Jesus is willing to look danger in the face and even move towards it if necessary. In Luke 9:51, at a pivotal moment in Luke’s Gospel, we read that Jesus resolutely set his face to Jerusalem, and he began to teach his disciples about his impending suffering and death in Jerusalem. He suggests in John 12:24, that unless we embrace the difficulty and pain of life, we will never truly know abundant life, “Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
In closing, some helpful hints for those of us who may identify as Sevens on the Enneagram:

• A life worth living requires effort and discipline, for though we may sow in tears, we will reap with songs of joy.
• The Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21)... Happiness is an inside job and ultimately can’t be found in gluttony and excess.
• Less is more, for a persons life does not consist of an abundance of things or even experiences (Luke 12:15)
• When we stop trying to avoid our pain, we will discover that God’s grace is sufficient for us (2 Corinthians 12:9).
• And when we do these things, the promise of Jesus is that “Your sorrow will turn to joy” (John 16:20).