A Forgotten Phone Became a Holy Moment

My feelings were strangely mixed when I arrived Sunday morning at the church I serve as pastor.  On the upside of my feelings was joyful anticipation of a baptism our church family would celebrate in worship.  A woman new to our community and our church wanted to publicly profess her faith by being baptized as a believer.  I always looked forward to leading a baptism, but this one was especially joyful because of the glowing faith and earnest desire of this sweet lady to follow Jesus.  But, on the downside of my feelings was my sadness for my friend.  Charlie, a man who had loved and led our church almost since its beginning, was nearing the end of his earthly life.  He was tired, in great pain and, in his own words, “ready to get on the road.”  Mr. Charlie, as many of us call him, has embodied the faith and spirit of our church as well as any one person could.  He’s been the annual cheerleader for “Give of Your Best to the Master Day,” a kind of homecoming celebration that renewed the church’s memory of a day, early in our story, when a fledging congregation faced the challenge of raising a great deal of money in a day to have enough of a downpayment to move forward on building a new church at a new location.  The church raised the money and construction began.  Mr. Charlie was a leader in that future-shaping day and, in the best sense of the words, wouldn’t let us forget it.  He reminded us what great things God’s people can accomplish when we pray and give our best to God.  His yearly invitation to the celebration always included menu suggestions which, of course, were his personal favorites.  He would challenge the congregation to practice food fairness, telling them not to bring bologna, then fill up on barbeque.  My friend’s critical condition was heavy on my mind and my heart as worship began. 

After the wonderful baptism, I dressed to return to the sanctuary for the remainder of the worship service and started down the stairs from our baptistery toward the main level of our sanctuary.  As I neared the bottom landing, I noticed that my cell phone was in my pants pocket.  I have a firm policy that I leave my phone in my office on Sundays so I don’t somehow interrupt my own sermon with a stray call.  But this Sunday morning, I had it with me.  About the time I landed on the ground level, an idea landed in my mind.  Scrolling through my recent calls, I found and called the number of Mr. Charlie’s daughter, Julie.  When she answered, I asked her if she was with her father in his room at the care facility.  I wasn’t surprised that she was.  I asked her if she would help me deliver a gift to her dad.  I knew Mr. Charlie’s favorite song is “Jesus Loves Me.”  I asked Julie if she would hold her phone near her dad’s ear so his church family could sing to him.  She happily agreed. 

When I entered the sanctuary, our choir was presenting their anthem. My sermon would be next.  I sat down on the front pew and whispered to my surprised church pianist, “Will you play ‘Jesus Loves Me’ for the church to sing it to Mr. Charlie?”  She nodded in agreement, then grabbed a hymnal to make good use of the two minutes’ notice I had given her.  When the choir finished and I rose to preach, I asked the congregation to help me do a favor for a friend.  I told them Mr. Charlie was very ill and that I wanted us to sing his favorite song for him over the phone.  The pianist began and the church spontaneously rose to its feet like a choir in concert.  We sang from our hearts.  Many of us choked back tears.  And we shared the joy of offering a gift to our precious friend, a reminder that the love of Jesus that had so directed his life’s journey would soon become his forever home. 

          When the singing ended, I muttered a few words of blessing to our precious Mr. Charlie and hung up my phone.  Then I preached, but I did so knowing the day’s best sermon had already concluded.  It went something like this: God can take a phone forgetfully left in a pastor’s pocket and create a moment, a holy worshipful moment in which the message and melody of the good news of His life-giving love is shared with deep feeling and heard with even deeper gratitude.  Amen. 

A Medal for Opie: A Victory Greater than Winning

  

This is an excerpt from my new book, The Gospel According to Andy.  In episode 51, Opie learns some painful lessons about losing and makes a life-changing discovery about the victory that matters most.  

Episode 51

A Medal for Opie:

A Victory Greater than Winning 

 

T

he Mayberry Sheriff’s Department Boys’ Day is coming soon!  Opie and many of his friends are excited about the competition and the chance to win a medal by finishing first in one of the track and field events.  Opie is especially enamored by his fantasy of winning a medal, taking it off as seldom as possible, and earning the adulation of his hometown.  Perhaps he, like Barney, will give up bathing for a while so he can wear his award round the clock. 

     Barney agrees to train Opie for the 50-yard dash and promises him victory if he jumps rope, runs, and lifts others with his legs to strengthen his muscles for the race.  Opie follows Barney’s training program to the letter.  Boys’ Day arrives and Opie, prepared to meet the moment by Barney’s coaching, lines up to run his race.  Barney’s “official starting gun” sounds and the boys tear down the track.  Opie does his best but finishes dead last.  Dead is also the way his young heart feels after such a disappointment.  Was Barney wrong?  Does working hard to prepare to meet a challenge not lead to victory?  I think Barney was right.  Training brings victory, but not the kind of victory he led Opie to expect. 

     Working hard may not win you a medal for being the fastest runner in town, but it does bring the victory of being the best runner you can be.  Our toughest competition is against ourselves.  The event, as Andy later describes it, is becoming a mature human being.  What separates the winners from the losers?  The Apostle Paul would offer this answer,

 “…pressing on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Philippians 3:12). 

 Some people lose in the race of life because they aren’t willing to do the work required to run better.  Others are winners, not because they outshine every other person in life’s race, but because they’ve invested the effort in becoming the most loving and fully alive version of themselves possible.  As one saint said it, “I ain’t what I ought to be, and I ain’t what I’m going to be, but, praise God, I ain’t what I used to be!” 

     After some time to get over the sting of losing the fifty-yard dash and missing out on a medal, Opie discovers a victory that is greater than winning.  My son showed me that kind of victory.   I visited my son’s elementary school to see him compete in Field Day.  He was a good runner and was expected to do well in one of the distance races.  He got off to a promising start, then entered a leg of the course I couldn’t see.  When the runners came back into view, Josh was nowhere near the front.  When I finally caught sight of him, he was running hard with blood streaming down both of his legs and tears running down his face.  While the runners were out of sight, one of Josh’s classmates had shoved him to the ground to literally knock him out of the race.  He suddenly found himself on the ground with lacerated knees and dashed hopes of finishing first.  I’ve never been prouder of my son than when I saw how he responded to that adversity.  He got up and finished his race, bloody knees and all.  He finished sixth but was the big winner in his dad’s eyes. 

     Opie realizes that what he wants, even more than a Boys’ Day medal, is to live his life, victories and defeats, in a way that pleases his father.  When Andy embraces Opie and tells him that he’s proud of the way he’s chosen to face his disappointment, Opie receives a prize he never has to live without, even to take a bath.  He’s found a better way to live a winning life, not by finishing first in every competition, but by knowing that his father smiles upon the way he’s running his race.  Our Father’s smile is worth more than any medal, don’t you think?  Knowing his love and following where he leads is a victory greater than winning. 

 Father, I want to win, but help me to win in the ways that matter most.  I won’t finish first in many races, but I can strive to be all that You’ve created and called me to be.  I may enjoy the applause of the crowd when I win their momentary approval, but what I want most is to feel Your loving embrace and see Your smile.  I want to run my race to please You.  Amen. 

 Footnote:  Barney performs a bit of magic in this episode.  In the scene in which Andy explains the events to the boys, Barney has a whistle in his mouth.  A second later, when he gives a reassuring wink to Opie, the whistle disappears, only to reappear when the camera shot widens again.   

My Afternoon Began with a Smoke Alarm and Ended with a Garden Hose

This story is sad--so sad in fact that it may not be appropriate for younger readers or one of my children, for reasons which will soon become clear.  It's Monday afternoon.  I'm at the church in my study, working my corner of God's vineyard, when my cell phone rings.  Linda is on the line.  She sounds agitated, upset, frustrated, but not as much as the dog I hear yelping in the background.  Ranger, one of our grand-dogs, is boarding with us while his true family enjoys a long weekend in the mountains of Virginia.  From his carrying on I wondered if the dog has been hit by a bus or bitten by a snake.  Did Linda need me to take out a second mortgage on our home so we could carry Ranger to the emergency vet?  Ranger was, in fact, healthy, but not at all happy.  Linda explained.  One of our smoke detectors decided that today was the day to practice chirping.  Every thirty seconds or so, the smoke alarm emitted a brief high piercing chirp.  This sound must have hurt Ranger's ears or perhaps his feelings, thinking that we weren't taking fire safety seriously, because he answered each chirp with his own high piercing yelp and a few bellowing barks.  He's a big dog with a big bark.  Neighbors hear him bark.  Low flying aircraft hear him bark.  Linda was calling to tell me that she couldn't stop the smoke detector because the one that decided to chirp was high atop the vaulted ceiling in our master bedroom.  "What should I do?" she asked rather pitifully.  Donning my family superhero cape, I told Linda I would pack up my work (which is about three feet deep this week), head to the house, and help her solve the fire alarm/canine cacophony crisis.  I drove the ten miles home, wondering if I would find both Linda and Ranger still alive when I arrived.  When I burst through the door, nothing had changed.  The smoke alarm was still chirping.  The dog, now outside our house on the back porch, was still booming a reply to each chirp.  And Linda was very nearly at the end of her rope.  I scurried up the stairs to our storage room, grabbed my faithful five-foot stepladder, descended the stairs to the source of the chirping, climbed to the top of my ladder, and realized that even a five-foot ladder and a six-foot man with long arms was not enough to scale the heights at which our chirping alarm was perched. 

There I was, fully extended toward the ceiling with Linda steadying the ladder with one hand and holding on to my leg with the other when we suffered a hostile home invasion.  Ranger, who had been placed in outside timeout for making too much racket indoors, came bursting into the room.  Ranger is a very bright dog.  In his desire to be with us while the chirp monster was attacking, he had figured out a way to hit the back door handle with his head and open it.  In he ran to protect us in our time of need, and, parenthetically, to share the news with us that he had found a mud puddle in our backyard in which he had wallowed like a pig with poison ivy.  Now the mud puddle was not so much in the yard as it was in the house.  Ranger had tracked mud all over the deck, through the breakfast room and on to the carpet in our bedroom.  Being a wet dog, Ranger had also given in his canine instincts to shake his wet muddy fur.  Allow me to pause at this point in our story to share a bit of background about recent renovations we have made to our home and our firm commitment to preserve their beauty.  Ranger did not just track mud, he tracked it across our newly refinished floors and recently replaced bedroom carpet.  He did not just shake mud off his fur, he splattered it on a number of our freshly painted walls.  Fighting my caninicidal impulses, I swept Ranger out of the house, tied his leash to our deck railing, and closed and dead bolted the door.  He's smart, but I don't think he can pick locks.  

Catching my breath and regaining my composure, Linda and I shifted into disaster relief mode.  I wiped down walls and hardwood floors while she scooped and scrubbed mud from the carpet.  Believing this brief though eventful interruption was over, I returned to my primary reason for leaving work and coming home--the still chirping smoke detector.   I walked through the house, looking for something on which I might place my ladder to raise it and myself to new heights and a chance to reach the pesky smoke detector.  I was weighing options when Linda said, "We need a taller ladder to reach several things around the house.  Why don't you go and buy one quickly?"  

Strange how all other possible solutions evaporate when a man is given the opportunity to go to the home improvement store and buy something.  I drove to Lowes.  I looked at every ladder in the store.  I entertained the thought that two four-foot ladders are not functionally equivalent to one eight-foot ladder.  I carried my eight-foot ladder to the checkout with my bare hands.  No shopping cart for me.  I was like a pioneer crossing the great prairie.  As I toted my freshly purchased eight-foot ladder across the parking lot, a new challenge peeked above the horizon.  I had driven my car to Lowes, not Linda's car.  Her car is a mid-sized SUV with fold-down seats and generous cargo space.  I drive a Toyota Corolla which doesn't have adequate room for two grandchildren in car-seats and a six-foot grand-chauffer.  I sat my ladder down next to my car.  Never had an eight-foot ladder looked so long and a Corolla so short.  But not cherishing the thought of carrying the ladder home on foot, then jogging back to pick up my car, I tried to make the ladder fit like a child trying to squeeze his foot into shoes he's outgrown.  Consulting my owner's manual, I learned that Corolla rear seats will fold down to extend the trunk.  This I did creating a space that was not nearly long enough.  I then pushed the front passenger seat as far forward as it would go and folded up the back of the seat until it touched the dashboard.  My car was still about six inches short of an eight-foot load.  Worried that Ranger may have picked the lock to the back door by this time or that Linda had finally stopped the chirping by setting the house on fire, necessity gave birth to invention.  Using a bungee cord to keep the trunk lid from flying wide opened, I left Lowes with the bottom foot of my new ladder hanging out of the back of my car.  I kept one hand on the top of the ladder to be sure it didn't become a projectile on its trip to its new home.  

My new ladder was indeed tall enough for me to reach the rapscallion of a smoke detector, unplug it from its power cord, remove its battery and discharge its residual energy with one pathetic chirp that sounded like the ever deepening voice on a phonograph record coasting to a stop.  I had defeated the chirp, but I now had a home without adequate fire protection, not to mention a muddy dog on the deck.  I turned for help to my source of unlimited wisdom, the fount of all knowledge, the one who can make a brave repairman out of a mere husband--YouTube.  I watched two videos, knowing that important decisions deserve a second opinion, and learned what causes smoke detectors to chirp incessantly.  I surmised that our smoke detector had a dust problem resulting from the sanding and refinishing of our now mud-tested hardwood floors.  I cleaned the sensor, replaced the battery, climbed my new ladder, replaced the smoke alarm like the missing piece of life's great puzzle, and waited atop my ladder for the possible resurrection of the chirp.  The sound of silence once again reigned in my home.  

Now I had to decide what to do with Ranger and the layer of topsoil he wore upon his fur.  The old putdown, "Up your nose with a rubber hose" comes close to describing the next half hour of Ranger's life--that's three-and-a half hours in dog time.  I drug my garden hose from under my house, turned the spigot on full, set the nozzle for "laser beam stream of water" and removed the mud from my granddog through the geological process known as erosion.  He didn't like the cold water.  He actually snapped at the stream of water a couple of times as though he could frighten it away, but my heart was colder than the water.  He was hosed down until he finally came clean.  That's when he got water "up his nose from a garden hose."

As I folded up my new eight-foot ladder and carried it up the staircase to our storage room, the ladder nudged one of the pictures that line the staircase, sending it crashing down the stairs, behind the grandfather clock before coming to a stop with a few small pieces of the frame missing.  That picture was not the one of my oldest child or my youngest, but the owner of the dog that can't handle a chirp. (That child's portrait is now in traction undergoing wood glue therapy).  

If you hear chirping today, I sincerely hope it is that of songbirds rendering their ethereal melodies while perched in the trees outside your happy home.  And if you're asked to doggy-sit for someone you love, keep your back door dead-bolted and your garden hose handy.  

Authentic Prayer is Like a Spring Revival Solo

 

A friend invited me to attend a Spring revival service with him.  He drove me to a remote part of Southern Greenville County to the New Jerusalem Baptist Church.  My friend, a successful businessman, had arranged for a guest preacher from New York City, Dr. Bill Jones, to lead these services.  Midway through the service, my friend also brought a brief message to the congregation, a kind of warmup before the main event.  But what I remember best about that service was not the preaching, as good as it was.  I remember a solo.  I was seated near the baby grand piano with a clear view of the keyboard, the perfect place to see and hear the unique way this song unfolded. 

          Every effective solo is a kind of dance shared by the singer and an accompanist.  They work together to make their shared dream for the song a reality.  You’ve probably witnessed a time or two when one of these musical dancers stepped all over the other one’s toes.  In the churches I’ve served, the accompanist leads the dance, especially at the beginning.  The notes played set the key and the tempo of the music.  The singer joins the song, somewhat, on the musician’s terms. 

          But that’s not what happened at New Jerusalem.  A little lady, not much more than five feet tall, stood to her feet in the choir loft and, without accompaniment, began to sing.  Though not yet playing a note, the pianist’s attention was laser-focused on what this woman was singing.  He was listening more intently than anyone else in the church.  Then, very lightly, with one finger, he touched a key on the piano, then another, then another, until he found the key in which she was singing.  Then, very gradually, he added notes, low and high, chords, major and minor, until the music he played matched and magnified the song she was singing.  Her song led the dance.  He found her song and joined it. 

          That is what God wants to happen when we pray.  Too often, we come to God with our agenda, our wants, our needs, our dreams mapped out like the notes on a page of music.  We sound the first notes.  We choose the spirit and the rhythm of our conversation and communion with God.  And, naively, we wait for God to join us on our terms.  But that’s not biblical prayer.  That’s backwards. 

          Authentic prayer, prayer that honors God’s purpose, is like a solo at the New Jerusalem Baptist Church during spring revival.  God begins the song.  He leads the dance.  He reveals to us the spirit, the purpose, the mission, the calling in which He creates and calls His people to live.  Our part, at first, is to listen, to focus our hearts and minds upon the music God is making until we truly hear it in the marrow of our bones.  Then, and only then, we touch a note, here and there, and test it to see if it is in unity and harmony with the music God is making.  If it’s not, we listen again, and try again.  If it is, we build upon it, we use every gift, every opportunity, every relationship, every joy, every passion to match and magnify the song God has been singing since before the foundation of the world.  We pray so we can hear God’s song, discern it, and join it.  That’s why we pray. 

Vaughan Family Update--Christmas 2022

Vaughan Family Update

Christmas 2022

As Christmas time draws near, we think of all the good folks with whom we'd love to share a few moments of catching up.  Because that won't happen in person for most of us, please allow this brief update to catch you up, at least a bit, on the happenings in the Vaughan tribe. 

Linda continues to thrive on teaching her GED students for Lexington School District 2.  She comes home with a story most every day and sometimes shares a Hallelujah moment with Dee when one of her students graduates or makes a significant gain toward it.  During two medically mysterious months of 2022, Linda was very sick, running a fever each day and feeling weak and tired.  The symptoms abated before we received a clear diagnosis, so we're calling her illness "Gone."  She loves teaching young adults at St. Andrews and cherishes every opportunity to be Nama to our five grands.  She and Dee celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary in July.  

Elizabeth Vaughan Davison stays very busy as a pastor's wife, mother of three, special education teacher, board member of a charter school, and graduate student.  She and her husband Josh live in Gaffney, SC (Linda's hometown) where Josh serves as Pastor of East Gaffney Baptist Church and is pursuing his Doctor of Ministry degree.  Their boys, Liam, Creighton, and Josiah, are now unbelievably 11, 9, and 7 years of age respectively.  All three are doing well in school and stay busy with church activities. 

Liam loves to draw and is very gracious in sharing his creations with family.  Creighton has taken a special interest in kick-boxing this year, which will prepare him well for attending Gaffney football games and family gatherings.  Josiah won his school's spelling bee, which means his Papa needs to keep him on speed dial.  

Josh and Jen Vaughan, our resident family physical therapists, live in Lexington, SC, not too far from Dee and Linda.  Their daughter, our only

 granddaughter, Juliana, turned three this year, attends preschool at St. Andrews, and has begun ballet and tumbling lessons.  She loves to sing and practice assertiveness.  Juliana received a baby brother this year.  James is 9 months old, and is presently pursuing a career in crawling, climbing, and falling.  He is an incredibly happy little boy and brings much joy to us all.  He, too, attends preschool at St. Andrews, so Papa Dee has numerous opportunities to sneak a peek during the day and often picks up Juliana and James from school and takes them to his office for a dose of Papa Time before their parents arrive to pick them up.  Josh has competed in CrossFit competitions this year and is presently training to run a marathon.  Having two preschoolers is probably a good start in learning to run all day.  

Andrew Vaughan is thriving in his work at Palmetto Citizens Federal Credit Union where he was promoted from a teller to a loan assistant.  Andrew enjoys his coworkers and customers and played a part in his branch's Halloween Star Wars theme. He makes a pretty convincing Anakin Skywalker.  He and Richard enjoy video games, park visits, and binging on Netflix series.  Andrew moved into a new apartment this year and has officially entered the adult world by asking for household items for his birthday and Christmas. Judged by this standard, his father never grew up. 

In November of this year, Dee reached the milestone of forty years of pastoring (and pestering) Baptist churches, the most recent eleven years at St. Andrews Baptist in Columbia.  Dee also became an associate with Pinnacle Leadership Associates, a clergy and church coaching and consulting ministry.  He published his fifth book this year, the most personal he's written, a journal of his battle with depression and how the story of Jacob wrestling through the night with a mysterious attacker became Dee's inspiration to persevere in the healing process until he, like Jacob, received a blessing from his adversary.  "Don't Let Go Before Dawn" is Dee's effort to encourage those struggling with depression and those who love them, and to help Christians and churches break free of the stigma too often attached to emotional illness.  Dee was the featured speaker for the 30th anniversary celebration of Helping Hands of Woodruff, SC, a benevolence ministry he helped launch while he lived and served in Woodruff.  Dee received his Medicare card this year, which means he needs to get serious about planning the next chapter of his life. 

So, what's new with you?  The Vaughans would love to hear from you and learn about your life adventures.  As Christmas comes, know we thank God for the blessing of wonderful friends like you.  

 

Will Jesus Come This Christmas?

I walked down a hospital hallway asking myself that question.  I knew the date was December 25.  I was the chaplain on call at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center.  I had actually volunteered to work Christmas Day.  Our supervisor had called his four residents to his office for the annual ritual of the Christmas work schedule lottery.  By random selection, one of us would spend Christmas Day at the hospital while the other three celebrated with family.  Just before the big drawing, I spoke up.  I was the only single person in the chaplain’s department and I wanted my coworkers to be with their spouses and children.  That was the noble side of my volunteering.  The not-so-noble side was that I didn’t want to face Christmas that year.  My dad had died just two months earlier, the sudden casualty of an aggressive inoperable brain tumor.  I thought keeping busy and focusing my energies on the needs of patients would be the least painful way I could pass the time.  So, there I was, walking down the hallway, speaking to every other employee I passed, and doubting that anything holy would happen that day.  

 
Christmas is a long, tough day for most everyone spending it in a hospital.  All but the sickest patients are discharged so they can benefit from the blessings of home.  Entire floors of the hospital are empty with those too sick to go home gathered into a few active units staffed by other lottery losers.  Between the grief inside me and the “left behind” feeling of those around me, my expectations for the day were pretty low.
What I failed to remember that day was Christmas has never happened in perfect places.  The holy family, a young woman tortured by the gossipy whispers of her fellow villagers, a young man leading his very expectant wife on a twenty mile journey to meet the taxation requirements of a cruel occupying army, a little town so overflowing with guests that no accommodations could be found for these weary travelers, the last choice refuge of a place meant for animals, the terror of giving birth without the help of a midwife, the support of family, or the simplest comforts of home.  Jesus certainly wasn’t born in a perfect time or place.  And, as I would learn that Christmas Day, he still comes into this world in less than perfect times and places. 

As I came to the end of that long day of ministry, I propped up my feet, leaned back in my chair, and realized I had an answer to my question.  Jesus, had, in fact, come that Christmas.   

He came—to the parents and grandparents of a beautiful but tragically stillborn child, a family that clung to the hope that because of Jesus, they would, one day, hold that child in heaven. 

He came—to a woman who wanted to go home, but knew that her circumstances were taking her, instead, to a nursing home; a woman who, amid all the unwanted changes in her life, rested in the truth that would not change, the Savior who is forever faithful, the love from which nothing could ever separate her.

He came—to a man who invited me to share the Christmas celebration his family had brought to him at the hospital because he couldn’t go home, and we knew he never would. It was a happy day; it was a good day because he knew that every day is a gift from God, every day a gift to share with those you love. 

He came—in the hospital cafeteria as my family gave up their Christmas feast to drive an hour to spend a little time with me feasting on hospital cuisine.  Though we all missed my dad at that meal, we also knew how blessed we were to be together.   

This Christmas may find you in a far from perfect place, a place that feels far away from the peace and joy of the season.  May you learn what I learned that Christmas long ago.  Jesus doesn’t wait for a perfect place to be born. The One born in a stable is ready to be born into your messy world and mine.  

The Gift We All Need

Christmas is coming to Mayberry and, with it, a strong spirit of good will.  Andy rationalizes a rubric for releasing his prisoners for the holiday, comparing it to students leaving school for Christmas vacation.  The jail is empty and hearts are full as they prepare for a Christmas Eve celebration, that is until Ben Weaver stomps into the courthouse with Sam Muggins, a Mayberry citizen Ben has caught making moonshine.  Ben’s not concerned that Sam might be drinking on Christmas Eve, just that he's missing out on the money he would make if Sam bought his alcohol from Ben’s store.  Ben stubbornly demands that Sam be locked up, even on Christmas Eve.  He promises to cause trouble for Andy if he doesn’t keep Sam in stir for the season.  

When Ben returns to check on Andy’s law enforcement, he finds that Andy has “arrested” Sam’s wife and children and brought them to the jail.  Andy has also sworn in several additional “deputies” to guard these dangerous outlaws.  Actually, of course, Andy was reuniting the Muggins family for Christmas and had moved the Christmas party to the courthouse. 

 Ben, of course, protests these developments, but can’t help but be attracted to the celebration, the good news, the happy gathering he finds in the courthouse.  He wants to join the festivities but doesn’t know how.  He only knows how to make an entrance by stirring up trouble.  The only part Ben knows how to play in life’s story is that of a Christmas scoffing Scrooge. 

 Though Ben has succeeded in putting Sam Muggins in jail, Ben is the one imprisoned, not by iron bars and locked doors, but by his loneliness.  He’s locked outside the season, unable to share its joy and love with others.  He sings the words of “Away in a Manger” looking in through the bars that lock him out of the joy of Christmas. 

 How many people learn a bad way to belong?  In one of my first ministry jobs, I had a coworker who stayed in trouble with his supervisors and fellow workers.  Our boss described him as a man who would run over people while driving the ambulance to the scene of an accident.  He didn’t want to be in trouble.  He just didn’t know any other way to get people’s attention.  He’d rather stay in hot water than be ignored. 

 Wise man that he is, Andy finally realizes what Ben is actually wanting to accomplish through all his cantankerous shenanigans and agrees to lock him up for his “crimes.”  Andy is going to find a way to make a place for Ben at the party.  He’s not going to leave him standing in the cold outside of Christmas.  I wonder how many lonely Bens get left in the alley. 

 Before Andy brings Ben to jail, he allows him to stop by his store to pick up some items he will need while serving his sentence.  When he opens his suitcase, it is, in fact, filled with gifts he wants to share gladly with everyone gathered in the courthouse.  Ben had a lot to give, but couldn’t until someone saw through his scowl and gave him a chance. 

 A chance.  That’s the gift Ben Weaver received that Christmas Eve.  It’s the gift every person needs and deserves.  Let’s put it at the top of our Christmas list.

 Footnote: This is the only holiday episode in the eight-year run of The Andy Griffith Show.  If you don’t believe in Christmas magic, watch Barney closely while he opens and reads his card from Hilda Mae.  It changes from one card to another, right before your eyes. 

Messages from Mayberry is my collection of spiritual life lessons drawn from my twenty-five favorite episodes of The Andy Griffith Show.  Click here to learn more about it.