What job that nobody wants could I do for someone?
For three days we received, and yesterday we celebrated the new year. Now come the last three days of giving, one currency at a time, starting with time.
John tells this one. It's Jesus's last evening with his closest followers before his arrest, and they're sharing a meal. John opens the scene this way: "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end."
In that world, people walked dusty roads in sandals, and washing a guest's feet was a job for the lowest servant in the house.
So Jesus "got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him."
When he gets to Peter, Peter is horrified. "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Then, "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus tells him that unless he lets him, Peter has no part with him, and Peter lets him.
John is clear that Jesus already knew one of the men at that table, Judas, would betray him that night. He washed all their feet anyway.
Then he put his clothes back on, sat down again, and explained. "Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you."
Jesus had every reason to skip the job. He was the teacher, it was his last night, and he knew what was coming. The job was dirty and beneath him, and one of the people in front of him was about to turn him in. He did it anyway. Part of the last evening he had with his friends went to the lowest job in the house.
Most households have jobs like that: the bathroom nobody cleans, the trash that piles up, the car seat full of crumbs, the dishes from the party, the gutters. Outside the house there are more: the shoveled walk for a neighbor, the hospital visit nobody signed up for, the long drive to the airport at five in the morning. Those jobs take time, and they rarely get thanked.
That's what makes them a good gift. The job nobody wants is often the one that says love most clearly.
Today, do the job nobody wants, for someone who won't expect it.
Choose one person and one job they'd never ask you to do. If your household made a plan on January 1, use the Time line from it.
Do it fully, start to finish, the way you'd want it done.
Don't announce it, and don't wait around to be thanked.
Kids' story: read "Bruno's Washing Day" together, from The Overflow Adventure in Wanderful Woods.
Time: whatever the job needs.
With kids: ask, "What's a chore nobody in our house likes to do?" A child can do it for a brother, sister, or parent, with a grown-up's help if it's a big one.
Mixed beliefs: John shows Jesus washing feet. However your family holds the rest of the story, the part to copy is plain: he picked up the towel.
Hello, my wonderful story friends! Last time, the whole woods walked in one long line of candles, all the way through the brambles, and lit the very last home: Granny Mabel’s. Now every home in the woods is glowing. Today, the friends go back to spend the whole day helping Granny Mabel.
What’s a job that nobody ever wants to do? Let’s go see who does it.
Overnight, the weather turned warm. By morning, the snow was melting everywhere, dripping off the branches, plip-plop, plip-plop, and the paths through the woods had turned into slush and mud. Squishy, gloppy, wonderful mud.
Mr. Monkey took one look at the mud and jumped right in. SPLUTCH. Hazel jumped in after him. SPLATCH. They stomped and splashed and slid, until both of them were brown from their toes to their ears.
“Hee hee hee! I’m a mud monkey!”
“Hee hee hee… SNORT! I’m a mud horse!”
Then the friends went back through the brambles to Granny Mabel’s. They were going to spend the whole day helping her. Her little home needed a lot.
So everybody got to work. Bruno stacked firewood beside her door, enough for the whole rest of the winter. Hazel and Dottie dug a path from her door to the bramble patch, so it would be easy to find.
Ricky fixed her wobbly table leg. Then it wobbled the other way, so he fixed that one too. Then it was perfect. Percy polished her tiny teacups until they shone so bright he could see his own whiskers in every one of them. Shiloh patched her roof with a big piece of his wool.
It was so fluffy that when he was done, Granny Mabel’s little home looked like it was wearing a big white curly wig.
“Haw haw haw!” went Bruno. “Granny Mabel’s house has hair!” Benji fetched water. And Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey fixed her tiny window so the wind couldn’t get in.
It took all day. And all day, everybody was going in and out of Granny Mabel’s tiny home. In and out. In and out.
With muddy feet.
By the afternoon, Granny Mabel’s clean little floor was covered in footprints. Hoofprints and pawprints and Bruno-prints and monkey-prints, all made of mud. And Granny Mabel was trying to sweep it up with her tiny broom, slowly, leaning on her stick.
Mr. Monkey saw her, sweeping and sweeping, and her leg was tired, and the mud kept coming in faster than she could sweep it out.
“Mr. Moose,” he whispered. “We’re making Granny Mabel’s floor muddy. She can’t keep up.”
Mr. Moose looked at the floor. Then at the door. Then at everybody’s feet. Every single foot was covered in mud.
“If everybody’s feet got washed at the door,” he said slowly, “then nobody would bring mud in.”
Everybody looked at their feet. Then at each other’s feet.
Then they all made the same face.
Because everybody’s feet had been in the mud all day. Wet and cold and gloppy. And everybody’s feet were stinky. Hazel’s hooves smelled like a swamp. Dottie’s paws smelled like wet dog, because they were. And Bruno’s big paws smelled worst of all, like a whole wheel of cheese.
“Mine smell like cheese too!” said Percy, wiggling his toes, and he laughed first, a squeaky little giggle.
“Haw haw haw! Mine smell like MORE cheese!” went Bruno.
“Hee hee hee!” went Mr. Monkey, holding his nose.
Nobody wanted to wash feet. Nobody at all.
Then Bruno stood up. He was the biggest one there. He had the biggest paws. He had stacked the most wood all day, and he was the most tired.
“I’ll do it,” said Bruno.
Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey heated a big bowl of water by the fire, nice and warm. Benji brought a soft cloth. Shiloh brought a little more wool to dry with. And Bruno sat down on a stump by Granny Mabel’s door, with the warm water in front of him.
“Next,” said Bruno.
Hazel went first. Bruno washed all four of her hooves, one after the other, and dried them, and Hazel trotted in with clean feet.
Dottie went next. Bruno washed her paws. But Dottie was ticklish, and every time the cloth touched her foot, her back leg kicked, thump-thump-thump-thump, all by itself.
“Ha! Ha! Ha! It TICKLES!” barked Dottie.
“Haw haw haw! Hold still!” went Bruno.
She couldn’t. He washed them anyway.
Then it was Percy’s turn. Percy stood in front of the bowl and looked down at his stinky toes. Then he looked up at Bruno.
“Even mine?” said Percy quietly. “I took your spoon.”
“Even yours,” said Bruno. And he washed Percy’s toes, every one, very gently, until they didn’t smell like cheese anymore at all. Percy didn’t say anything. But his ribbon wagged.
Then it was Mr. Monkey’s turn. And Mr. Monkey put both hands up.
“No, no, no!” said Mr. Monkey. “You can’t wash MY feet, Bruno! You’re the BIGGEST! The biggest one doesn’t wash feet! I should wash YOUR feet!”
Bruno looked at him. “If I don’t wash your feet,” said Bruno, “you can’t go in.”
Mr. Monkey thought about that. He thought about Granny Mabel’s floor. He thought about how much he wanted to go in.
“Then wash ALL of me!” said Mr. Monkey. “My feet AND my hands AND my tail AND my head!”
So Bruno picked him up and dunked him, SPLOOSH, right into the warm water, all the way, and he came up dripping from his ears to his toes.
“Hee hee hee! Now I’m the cleanest!” said Mr. Monkey, shaking himself off like a wet dog, so that everybody nearby got sprinkled.
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Mr. Moose.
Bruno washed Mr. Moose’s long legs, all four of them, which took a long time, because there was a lot of leg.
Halfway up the second leg, the water ran out, and Benji had to run and fetch a whole new bowl. He washed Ricky’s paws and Benji’s feet and Shiloh’s hooves. He did every single one, all afternoon. And not once did he ask anybody to say thank you.
And last of all, Granny Mabel came to the door.
“Oh, no, dear,” she said. “I’m the host. You don’t wash the host’s feet.”
“Everybody’s feet,” said Bruno.
So Granny Mabel sat down on a little twig, and Bruno, the biggest friend in the woods, took a tiny thimble of warm water, and washed the smallest feet in the woods, very, very carefully, with the very tip of one big claw.
Granny Mabel’s whiskers were shaking. “Nobody’s ever done that for me,” she said.
Then she dipped the corner of the cloth in her thimble, and looked up at Mr. Moose. “There’s one part of you,” she said, “that always comes in my door.” And very gently, she washed the very tip of Mr. Moose’s big nose.
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Mr. Moose. “It tickles!”
Then Mr. Moose looked down at Bruno’s feet. Bruno’s big paws were the muddiest of all. He had washed everybody else’s, and nobody had washed his.
Mr. Moose looked at Mr. Monkey. Mr. Monkey looked at Mr. Moose. And without saying anything, Mr. Monkey picked up the cloth, and Mr. Moose carried over the warm water.
“You don’t have to,” said Bruno.
“We want to,” said Mr. Monkey. And together, they washed Bruno’s big muddy paws, every single claw.
Then they all went in, with clean feet, and sat close together in Granny Mabel’s tiny warm home, as many as could fit, while Mr. Moose’s nose came in through the door, and Granny Mabel made tea.
And the floor stayed clean.
“What a day!” said Mr. Monkey, walking home with Mr. Moose, still a little bit wet. “We fixed up Granny Mabel’s home all day. Everybody’s feet got stinky, and Bruno’s smelled like a whole wheel of cheese.
Nobody wanted to wash feet. But Bruno did. Dottie’s leg kicked because it tickled. I told Bruno he was too big to wash my feet, so he washed all of me. And he washed Granny Mabel’s feet with a thimble. Then we washed Bruno’s.”
Mr. Monkey whistled, and Mr. Moose hummed, and together they sang:
We are better together,
Moose and Monkey forever.
And outside Granny Mabel’s door, as the evening came, the big bowl of washing water sat cooling on its stump, with one tiny thimble floating in it like a little boat.