My stepdad Ron loved fast cars. Over the years, he had different sports cars, but when I was in middle school, he had a Corvette which I thought was very cool. There was a particular day I remember Ron took me to school in that car and I felt like the coolest kid just by arriving in style.

That middle school was in Bellevue, Washington where comparative wealth was a big deal. Even in middle school, the wealth of the family was a major factor in determining social hierarchies at school. Not completely, of course, but it was in the mix.

So, if Jesus would have been riding along with us when I was feeling all puffed up because of a Corvette, he might have suggested that it would be better for me to arrive at school in a car that was plain or maybe even a total clunker. And I would have thought Jesus clearly didn’t understand Tyee Middle School and just how that world actually worked. I would have had some things to explain to Jesus.

The ancient world was structured around honor and shame. So, where you were seated, in relationship to others, meant a lot. In various cultural settings, we find many ways of sorting ourselves into hierarchies of who’s better than others. We use all sorts of things; race, ethnicity, religion, gender, immigration status, wealth, health status, hair color, weight, clothing, neighborhoods. You name it. Whatever it is, we have a way of taking in information about folks and rating them (and us) into hierarchies of worthiness.

Richard Rohr, the Franciscan friar I refer to often, talks about this inclination of ours as being an expression of the false self. He writes, “The false self is all the things we pretend to be and think we are. It is the pride, arrogance, title, costume, role, and degree we take to be ourselves. … If we are living out of the false self, all we can do is measure, compare, evaluate, and label.”

Jesus, in our gospel, is telling us to not play this game. He’s guiding us to reject this by selecting the bottom rung of our hierarchical ladders. Now, we can read this text to mean that we should choose to be with the low status people as a way to be a blessing to them. But ask anyone who has actually spent time with folks on this “bottom rung” and they’ll tell you that they were far more blessed by the experience than they were a blessing to those they went to serve.

Why is that the case?

There are probably many ways to answer that question, but given the context of our gospel today, I wonder if it’s because when we are in relationship with those on these bottom rungs and see the light of Christ in them, that false self in us breaks down just a little bit more. The false self that tells us the story that we need to climb our very important ladders loses some credibility and we can let some of our own pretense go.

This shedding of pretenses is what Fr Rohr calls “undercutting the illusion” of our false self and “when we do that,” he writes, “we discover the True Self ‘hidden with Christ in God’. (Colossians 3:3) Our True Self in God becomes our touchstone and absolutely levels the playing field. It gives us a new set of eyes.”

And with that new set of eyes, we begin to see God everywhere – in ourselves, each other, Creation, and woven into every moment of every day regardless of how we measure up. The various ladders become irrelevant and melt into nothingness while the gift of God’s presence in all people comes forward.

That sounds good, doesn’t it? Sounds like sainthood. Sounds like Christ.

Not so easily done.

If it was easy, we’d have all done this by now. We struggle because we are often blind to our own pretenses. The ladders we are climbing are important and critical, just like mine at Tyee Middle School. We cling to our ladders because they feel so real, so important, and perhaps even good. We all have our blind spots where these sorts of shadows lie.

One of the tools that I have found to be most helpful in identifying my own ladders is the enneagram. On the surface, it’s yet another personality test that can be “fun” at parties. However, it comes from the ancient wisdom traditions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. It’s very old and is currently experiencing a resurgence of popularity in Christian churches across the US because it can be so effective for spiritual development and formation.

The enneagram basically describes multiple patterns of human pretense and pathways for laying these pretenses, or false selves, down so that we can more fully enter into our true self, which is alive in Christ.

Now, I tend to tell you stories about my dysfunctions in my sermons in the hope that they illustrate something of value for you. Some of you might identify with my kind of weirdness, but others of you may not because you have your own ways of being weird and dysfunctional in the world. Yet, it may be hard for you to see, because our dysfunctions also come with great gifts. Vice versa, our great gifts come with the shadows of dysfunction. So, when we lean into our gifts to do whatever it is we do in the world, our dysfunctions come along for the ride, hidden in the shadow of what we do that is good and real.  

The enneagram describes 9 basic personality patterns. I identify as a 3 on the enneagram. (And yes, it is all about personal identification. You can’t take a test and be told what you are.) Through various sermons, I’ve told you all about what it’s like being a “3”. But there are folks who are quite different.

For example, the 1 on the enneagram is good at knowing how things ought to be done and how things should be. This is a great personality trait for the prophets of the world who are unabashed at standing up and saying how we are doing life wrong. This is less great when this wonderful person in your life feels compelled to tell you how every step of every action should be done. And it’s less great when you feel such frustration at all the ways the world is wrong.

Now, 7’s are great at finding fun in every situation and are always planning the next adventure. They are the right person to plan the next vacation or decide what to do with bored kids. However, these fun-loving folks can avoid sadness, grief, or conflict which can be complicating for everyone involved.

The enneagram is a deep, wide, and complex tool for self-awareness and spiritual development. It’s not for everyone and it doesn’t have to be. However, I hope you ponder the ways you are both brilliantly gifted and flawed. These ways are likely linked. And they likely will point to the ladders of comparison you cling to, the ladders you want to climb that Jesus is suggesting you just go to the bottom of.

We don’t all cling to ladders of comparison in terms of social status or wealth. But we all have a false self we do cling to. And that is intricately related to who it is in the world we’ve decided we do not want to be like or to be grouped with.

Again to quote Richard Rohr, “I hope we’re all moving in the direction of knowing who we really are, letting go of our preoccupation with how we look or measure up. As we come to a deeper acceptance of our True Self, we know our identity comes from God’s love, not from what other people think or say about us. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to present our best face; in fact, my mother would be disappointed if she thought I were saying otherwise. We just can’t take any of it too seriously.”

The social bump that Ron’s Corvette gave me in middle school felt really important. My capacity to move through an epic to-do list can feel important. You will likely have your own “really important” aspects of who you are that are actually not central to your identity in Christ. Jesus gives us the guidance to go sit with the lowly, the ones who don’t measure up on the ladders we find to be so dear and important. And when you see the face of God in the one you are personally afraid to be, that will be a huge gift of Christ’s love for you.

So, I encourage you to ponder these questions. Who are you afraid to be lumped in with? How would you recoil at being identified? In those answers, there’s likely a gift for you. If you’re interested in the enneagram, I’d be happy to talk with you about it. But the questions can be useful and powerful in themselves, which I’m also happy to talk with you about. When you find your answers, perhaps you’ll realize the ones with whom you need to go sit with, be with, and in whom you are invited to see the face of God. And when you do, you may begin to see on a deeper, liberating level that you too are completely whole in Christ, not because of your ladder climbing because of who God is and who God made you to be. That is God’s saving grace for us all.

AMEN