Unfinished business

Tonight I listened as our dean of students gave a sermon about the resurrected Jesus and unfinished business. The scripture comes from Luke 24:36-49 when Jesus reappears before the disciples, and they don't believe it's him. They touch him, but still can't believe. Then Jesus asks for something to eat, and they get it. We all laughed when she said, "They remember this Jesus... the one who was always eating... Jesus wanted some fried fish and cornbread." Yes, we lauged at that one. Jesus needed to get them past the doubt so they could take care of unfinished business. They needed to go out from Jerusalem to make disciples - they needed to spread the good news.

I was all set to write a rebuttle on this topic. I wanted to say that some times things just have to be left unfinished. Not everything cleans up nicely, but that's the way it ends. Then I got a phone call from a friend. You see, things had not been smooth for a while. We had both been under pressure from different sources. There was a sense of drifting away - at least I felt it on my end. I thought that drifting away would be the start of the end... we would end with unfinished business... and then there was a phone call. Through the doubt and confusion was a call for me and to me.

There is a time and a place to finish the unfinished business. I still don't have it worked out where and when that's supposed to happen, but I know that God will guide me to getting it done right. Doubt, confusion, miscommunication leave us with a sense that it might be better to walk away from something messy instead of getting our hands dirty and seeing if we can clean it up. It would have been a mistake this time. It might have been a mistake in the past. While I won't be sitting down to fried fish with Jesus, I'm hoping he'll take me up on some fried chicken and mac & cheese so we can see what else needs to be cleaned up so the journey can continue.