The Gospel of Mark, chapter 10:43

What was the name of the waiter or waitress who served you the last time you ate in a restaurant? Do you find it hard to remember? Most people do. In fact, most people never learn the names of those who serve them at table. They are just there, people to serve and rarely to be noticed. And, strange as it seems, this is the ideal to which Jesus calls us. He insists that if we expect to be really important in His kingdom, to really count in the eyes of God, we must become people who serve.

Servers often work in great pain because they cannot afford to do otherwise. Servers are seldom noticed and rarely appreciated. Yet, without the servers and the dishwashers and the busboys and the cooks, the restaurant would be nothing. Those who serve are important people: “Anyone among you who aspires to greatness must serve the rest.”

We almost never think of the men and women who collect our garbage or take care of maintenance. We do not 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. We know the names of important people-athletes, movie stars, politicians, church leaders-but the little people escape our notice. Jesus seems to say that we have 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 because they need their votes.

Jesus condemns abuses of authority in today’s gospel when he talks about those people who love to “lord it over” others. The true meaning of authority is service, and Jesus brings us back to this original understanding of the term in today’s scripture.

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

Fr. Hugh Duffy