NOT NECESSARILY SO

The other day my wife was reading the nursing newsletter from West Virginia, which she still receives and in which state she was first licensed. I was reading Newsweek with the television as background noise. She looked up from her reading and said, “West Virginia is going to need over 2500 nurses by 2008.” I replied, “I remember the days when they said there was no nursing shortage, when they said there were too many nurses. That’s like saying there are too many priests.” To which she replied, “That’s not necessarily so.”

     I knew, as soon as my statement fell from my lips that I was in trouble. I wanted to quickly change the subject, but Arlena beat me to it with her not-necessarily-so right jab to the ribs. Sometimes we can compare one issue with a similar one and sometimes we cannot; sometimes what is true about one is not necessarily true about something that seems just like it. But we compare the two anyway, until someone jabs us in the ribs and tells us we misspeak.

     While two issues may be very similar, the circumstances around them are often so dissimilar as to make any comparisons irrelevant and often wrong. I will agree with my wife that there are never too many nurses – or doctors for that matter. Until everyone in this country and in this world has adequate and affordable health care, there will never be too many nurses. That day is neither on the horizon nor the radar screen.

     I will also have to agree with her about the fact that there can be too many priests. That is not the same as saying there already are too many. There are not. But there can be too many. Too many cooks not only can spoil the soup. Too many cooks may mean there is no one to eat the soup. And while it is true that in these times we do need more clergy, we need them where they are not. In some instances there are so many clergy in one place that the ministry of the laity is lost in translation.

     Ordained ministry is not glorified lay ministry, or as my old Latin professor once lamented while astutely observing, “A priest is not a glorified social worker.” He was bemoaning the fact that too many seminarians were leaving seminary to get involved in “real” ministry. That was forty years ago. Today, at least from my perspective, too many laity seem to feel that the only “real” ministry is ordained ministry. To which I would respond, there are never too many lay ministers.

     Take a look around Christ Church. The ordained clergy get all the praise. The Jubilee Commission and the parish as part of Clergy Appreciation month presented us with a plaque in recognition of the Matthew 25 ministries we do. We are thankful and grateful. But we could not do what we do without your lay ministries both inside and outside these buildings. And while we honor and pray for a specific lay ministry each week – health care workers, librarians, engineers, etc., do we celebrate Laity Appreciation Month?

     Barbara, Mark and I, Dick, too, could not be about the ordained ministry we are called to fulfill without your many,  

many important and vital and necessary lay ministries. Thank you for them. There are never too many Matthew 25 lay ministers, and necessarily so.        W.J.P.