What is the opposite of femininity? What is the opposite of management? What is the opposite of clergy? What is the opposite of wife? What is the opposite of white? What is the opposite of democrat? How many of us are caught up in this kind of thinking, where we classify everything as an opposite of something else? What is the opposite of a teacher? What is the opposite of night?
In our world there appears to be an over whelming sense of everything being opposed to some thing else. It is integral to how we think. Things are changing. The way we think is changing. We no longer need to think about how things are opposite of each other, but how they complement each other. Are a wife and husband really opposed to each other? Is masculinity and femininity really opposed to each other? Are management and labor really opposite of each other? No! While they are different, they are not opposite.
In math, when two angels add up to ninety degrees, we say they complement each other. What one angel lacks to make ninety degrees, the other angel makes up for. The same idea is true in marriage. Husbands and wives are not opposite each other. Rather, what gifts the wife does not have, the husband has and what gifts the husband does not have the wife makes up for. In this sense they are not opposed to each other. The complement each other. They complete each other.
The same is true for labor and management. When they complement each other, they form a working relationship for the good of all. Being different does not always mean being opposed. For many of us this is a radically different way of thinking. When applied to church issues, how long have we thought that clergy was the opposite of laity? How long have we depended on the clergy to do all the important stuff at church, while we the laity just went along with them?
The time for us, all of us, me too, to re-examine our roles in the church community and ask a very important question, “What are my gifts, given to me by God, for the good of the community?” The priest’s role is changing rapidly and so is the role of each member. Some things will remain the same, but there is so much to be done that clergy cannot do it all. The time has come for each of us to step up and ask how we can be more active. Talk to your minister or priest with a simple question, “How can I help?” “How can I complement what others are doing in the Church?”
“May the Lord bless and keep you. May he let his face shine upon you, be gracious to you and give you his peace,”
