What is "service"? It isn't always clear, you know.

Is it what you do to your car every 3000 miles…or is it what your waiter or waitress gives you? Is it what the minister is in charge of on Sunday morning…or is it something that "comes with a smile"? Is it voluntarily given, or do we have to "draft" people to serve?

Or…what does it mean to serve? Is it something you hope the President will do for the country, or is it something you hope an attorney with a summons will never do to you? Isn't it something the court expects the criminal to do with a prison sentence if he is convicted? If someone says to me, "Serves you right!", do you think they are wishing me the best? It isn't always clear who hopes to benefit from serving…the server or the one served; for example, when Sampras serves to Agassi, who do you suppose Sampras hopes will benefit?

The confusion can sometimes cloud the facts. One Sunday morning before entering the sanctuary of their church, a father stopped his young son as they passed through the narthex to investigate a long list of names engraved on a bronze wall plaque.

"What's that, Dad?" the boy quietly asked his father.

"This is a memorial to all the members of our church who died in the service," he answered.

The boy was noticeably disturbed as he began to count how many names were inscribed on the memorial. After a few seconds, he nervously asked his father, "Which one did most of them die in-the 9:00 service or the 11:00 service?"

One of the problems we have with service is which end of service we think we deserve to be on…and we're not the first to think that way. Two of the most notable disciples in the Bible showed they were not spiritual giants by trying to persuade Jesus to give them a high ranking position in the kingdom of God. Their request was nervy:

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask." "What do you want me to do for you?" he asked. They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory." (Mark 10:35-37 NIV)

Frankly, their request is not all that different from what many today feel they have to do to climb the ladder of success. But…the greatness that many expect to find at the top by knocking everyone else off the ladder may not be so great, and the method for getting them to the top doesn't always fare well with those they stepped on to get there:

When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:41-45 NIV)

Jesus caught them trying to take a shortcut to the top. He told them the way to true greatness was to learn to serve others, rather than always by shoving everyone else off the ladder. And…the service isn't necessarily big and showy either. Typically, by the very nature of what it is, service is often the stuff that nobody knows about but the server.

A friend told me a story last week that illustrates the point. He and his wife have attended an annual retreat for years. Long-term participants have volunteered to attend to certain duties; my friend ended up washing dishes. At a recent retreat, he went into the kitchen after dinner the first night and found a man, sleeves rolled up, scraping food off the plates and stacking them to be washed. The man was General Howard Graves, a highly decorated Three Star General who was also the special guest at the retreat. When my friend tried to fire him from the demeaning KP duty, General Graves responded, "You know…this has been my job for years and I'm beginning to get good at it!"

Generals don't have to do dishes to make it to the top; in fact, it probably isn't recommended. But, I would venture to guess that if we could look in the closets of the lives of the truly great people, we would probably see examples of this very thing…serving others when no one else was looking.

Service. Am I the one rendering it…or the one making others great by constantly expecting them to serve me?