Christian Living

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Nobody believed me when I said Andy Taylor and Helen Crump got married, but I was foot-stomping adamant that I had witnessed this matrimony in Mayberry.

“They got married on the last episode of ‘The Andy Griffith Show,” I insisted. “I know—I was there.”

Actually, I was in the den, snuggled beside my grandmother as Helen’s father escorted her down the aisle. “Oh, she looks just beautiful,” Grandma gushed, as though we were seated among the guests.

Years later, people scoffed at me. “I’ve seen every episode of that show 14 times,” they said. “There was NO wedding.”

YES, there was a wedding—and Annie bar the door, I was bent on proving it. I jumped on the Internet and searched “The Andy Griffith Show”, which resulted in 12 zillion sites. I selected one called “Floyd’s Barber Shop”, figuring that anyone with such a site had to be obsessed. Indeed, Floyd was taking questions and answered me within minutes.

AHA! He confirmed what I already knew, but with one correction: Andy and Helen didn’t marry on the last episode of “The Andy Griffith Show.” They married on the FIRST episode of its spin-off series, “Mayberry RFD” starring Ken Berry. The wedding was a ploy to get people to watch the new show.

Joy of joys, Floyd e-mailed a schedule of when re-runs would air on various cable channels, and I saw that the wedding would show in my area the following Friday at 2:35 am. When the big middle-of-the-night arrived, I was ready with my celebratory ginger ale.

The show opened with Andy bachelor’s party, where those wild Mayberry boys guzzled pie and coffee at the diner; it ended with a Don Knotts cameo and everybody hugging. Could it have been better?

Of course, I had the VCR set. The next day, with several family members gathered, I smugly pressed the play button and said, “Hold your apologies until the end.”

The screen came to life with a home movie featuring my son, J.R., his buddy, Jake, and a weathered football dummy, bouncing around the backyard in a Three Stooges parody called “Football Follies.” It was precious—but where the heck was my Mayberry wedding???!!!

Again deemed delusional, it would be another year before I was cleared. My nephew, Scott, caught the episode on TV Land and declared me sane. Once I had an eye-witness, the issue was settled.

Now, I try not to fixate on how everybody readily accepted Scott’s sanity but had vehemently denied mine. What matters is that truth prevailed—and yes, there’s a “Christian” point to this story.

There will always be people who scoff at and deny the faith we know is true. It can be downright infuriating, with discussions escalating into arguments and us racing off half-cocked to prove ourselves right. Is this the way to handle it?

In 2 Timothy 2:24-25, Paul says “no.”

“And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to knowledge of the truth.”

We live in times of watered down Christian theology and militant non-Christian doctrines, and are seeing the fulfillment of prophecy about people seeking “what their itching ears want to hear.” (2 Timothy 4:3) Never before has the environment been so ripe for head-butting on issues of faith. We’re in the midst of people with various beliefs—and everyone thinks they’re right.

Debates can turn emotional. We can lose sight of presenting the Truth and instead focus on proving we’re “right.” We become haughty, pushy, argumentive and other things Jesus said to avoid. Pride, going before the fall, might lead to mistakes that have people thinking we’re more wrong than originally thought.

Our faith, though, has something that the others don’t—the Holy Spirit, who is the only one who can convict a person of unbelief (John 16: 8-9) It’s not our “I’m right” stance that gets it done. When faced with scoffers, our job is to present the Truth as Jesus taught. We can discuss, defend, present evidence and share our testimonies with the attitude described by Paul.

The Taylor-Crump nuptials were a stupid, minute discussion. Faith is neither, so let’s make the most of every opportunity, remember that we, too, were once in darkness and be completely humble, gentle, patient and bear with others in love. (Ephesians 5:16, 5:8, 4:2)

Our faith is too important not to. As Mayberry’s finest, Barney Fife used to say, “This is big, Andy, this is BIG.”



©Donna G. Morton, February 2007

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