Nicodemus said to him, 'How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?'
Nicodemus, a man after my own heart. How can anyone be born again? This goes right to my challenges with the Gospel of John. I’m glad there were people who encountered the human Jesus, even in John’s rendering of the story, that thought so very differently.
Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with some personality testing models, most recently, Meyers-Briggs. I think tools like that can tell us about ourselves, others we work and live with, and most importantly, it gives us a framework to think and talk about who we tend to be – about those personality differences that show up.
Here’s one of them, I suspect Nicodemus and I have much in common. There are two traits in Meyers Briggs – the middle two in the four pairs of letters. The first pair is S or N, sensing or intuitive. If you want to know what it officially means, go look it up. As I understand it (just like as I muse about scripture), it has to do with how you get information. Some get it through their senses- things you can see, feel, touch. Others get information from intuition, through their gut or unknowable sense. Me? I’m squarely an S. The next set I’m intrigued with this morning is either T or F. This has to do with how we process information – either primarily with our thinking or feeling, head or heart. I’m a T. I’m thinking that Nicodemus was an ST – got his information through his senses, and processed with his head.
Reading the Gospel of John or the other book written by the same author, Revelation, I suspect he was a NF. Intuitive feeler. He got his information from his gut, from a great sense of intuition. And processed with his heart, not head. Poets, I suspect like John.
And in my world, the vast majority of clergy are NFs. And because Meyers Briggs provide a framework to understand these nuanced personality differences, in a field full of personalities and serving, clergy frequently talk in terms of these initials. I am an anomaly in that world. The vast majority are NFs. I was discussing this at a clergy gal dinner last night, and one woman who travels a lot and knows a lot of clergy chimed in that yes, she knew of another ST. They lived in Indianapolis.
So here’s this morning’s thought. The NF clergy I know swoon over John; it’s how they think. I stumble. And many, many in the church who in the pews are STs. I offer my best muses about scripture, squarely from my ST perspective, and that’s why sometimes I stumble over the more woo-woo language, as beautiful and rich in images as it is.
I really cannot wrap my head around being “born again”, like Nicodemus. Over time, I’ve come to understand it’s figurative, not literal. But am I abdicating my brain? Checking it at the door? How am I, and all of the other STs in the world like Nicodemus, to wrestle with this? Thomas is another. I can’t believe unless I see the holes in his hands. Both these guys are treated by the NFs in the room – whether they’re disciples or the writers – as doubters, or people without faith. But I believe they just think differently. And the great news about that, is that Jesus was kind, understanding and patient of the way they thought. STs have a great gift to the church, especially when most on the other side of the altar rail are NFs. I need to keep asking my ST questions, and see things in my ST way. God can use that. Go team Nicodemus.
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