Whom Do We Serve?

Recently during an open church forum with the elders someone in the audience asked, “Aren’t you (elders) supposed to serve the congregation?” To which the chairman of the elders replied, “No, we serve God.” I find both the question and the response interesting. In Mark 7:9-13 Jesus said to the Pharisees, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.” NIV Jesus came to serve others and He expects us to do the same. Hearing anyone say they ‘serve God’ in a qualifying tone makes me uneasy. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think if we say we serve only God, rather than serving one another, our ‘serving’ then become Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God). Does saying we serve God negate our responsibility to serve one another?