More Than Gold • 7

Table tennis (or as we used to call it, ping pong). Handball. Air Pistol. Men's Finn. Women's Elliott. Dressage. Racewalking. Eventing. All of these, whether you've heard of them or not, are actual summer Olympic sports. All of them have athletes (and some have animals as well) competing in them. And all of them have gold medals associated with them. The other thing these have in common: none of them (to my knowledge) make it into prime time television coverage.

Now, we could sarcastically say (if I were inclined toward sarcasm) that there's a reason these events don't make prime time coverage—but since I'm not sarcastic, I'll just move on. These events that very few people have heard of (and even fewer actually follow) happen in the background. Their athletes are not any less faithful in training, in working hard, in planning how to be the very best they can be at their events. And yet, they gain very little (if any) attention. Only a few gain medals, but their medal ceremonies aren't seen on television. So why do they keep doing what they do?

The same question could be asked of the person who shows up faithfully every week at church to open the doors and turn the lights on. It could be asked of the person who cleans the second grade classroom and makes sure the bulletins are picked up out of the worship center from the previous Sunday. Or of the one who makes sure there is bread and grape juice on the altar on a communion Sunday. Or of any countless number of faithful, often anonymous servants who serve just because it's their gift, their passion and because they aren't necessarily looking for acknowledgement. They serve just because they have servants' hearts. It's who they are. And without them, the Body of Christ could not function.

A few months ago, a dear woman at our church went home to be with Jesus, and only after her homegoing did we learn how much she really did behind the scenes, in quiet ways, just because she could. She served in so many ways because that's who she was. She wasn't looking for recognition; she just served quietly as a way of loving Jesus. And I'm certain when she passed by those pearly gates, she heard those longed-for words, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Those are, after all, the words we all long to hear, because those words, without a doubt, are worth more than gold.