What is the name of the waiter or waitress who served you the last time you ate in a restaurant? What are the names of the plumber or air-conditioning man who last came to service your house? Do you find them hard to remember? Most people do. In fact, most people never learn the names of those who serve them at table, at the gas station or at the supermarket. They are just there, people to serve and rarely to be noticed. Strange as it seems, the ideal to which Jesus calls us is the opposite of this.

Servers often work in great pain because they have no choice and cannot afford to do otherwise. Yet, they are seldom noticed and rarely appreciated. Without the servers and the dishwashers and the busboys and the cooks, the restaurant would be nothing. Those who serve are very important people, says Jesus: “Whoever wishes to be first among you will be the servant of all.”

We almost never think of the men and women who collect our garbage or take care of maintenance. We seldom notice the people who wash the dishes in our hospitals or launder the sheets at the motels we use. It is hard for most of us to put a name on the policeman who directs traffic at the center of town or the clerk in the supermarket. But, we know the names of important people such as athletes, movie stars, politicians, church leaders. The little people, however, escape our notice. Jesus is telling us in today’s scripture that we have put the cart before the horse. It is the janitor who is just as favored as the Bishop, the orderly as the doctor, the teacher as the principal, and the servant as the master. Jesus turns everything upside down. True greatness, according to Jesus, is to be achieved by serving others.

“Name dropping” is an all-American sport. People like to tell others what important people said or did. They love to be able to say they read their books, visited their birthplace, slept in a bed they once used or, wonder of wonders, met them in the flesh. If we followed Jesus’ teaching we might start another kind of name-dropping: mentioning what the janitor said, or the nurse’s assistant, or the waitress. How revolutionary is the teaching of Jesus about authority! Have you ever noticed how politicians love to drop the names of ordinary people, like Joe the plumber, when seeking re-election? They do this to show that they connect with ordinary people because they need their votes. The gospel is not about vote-getting. It is about serving others the way JESUS served, even to laying down His life for us.

On the way to Jerusalem, two of Jesus’ disciples, James and John, asked if they could sit at His right and left when He would “come into glory.” They were in for a big surprise when He corrected their misconceptions and distortions of authority in His kingdom which has nothing to do with careerism and self-aggrandizement. It has to do with service, not “lording it over” others.

The true meaning of authority in Jesus’ kingdom is service.

For the Christian, there should be no conflict between leaders and followers in the Lord’s kingdom because they are all engaged in the service of the Lord.

-Fr. Hugh Duffy