Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the flight. We appreciate your having chosen to fly with us on HSIA, Holy Spirit Inspired Airlines. In the rack in front of you, or on your coffee table or stuck on some bookshelf at home, you’ll find a copy of our safety manual, which we invite you to reference now for quick review and to study thoroughly after this important briefing and before we make our final preparations for take-off.

As is usually the case, we have lots on the Sunday morning worship menu here at Embry Hills. Among the most important things we have going on is the opportunity that is ours to recognize those inspiring ministers of light who work in our Acolyte Ministry.

If you’re ever asked to officiate at a funeral or a memorial service, and if you ever consult any resources on which Bible verses to read, John 14 will likely pop up. This chapter in John is a part of a large section of material that takes place in John’s narrative in the week before Jesus’ death. And, in chapters 14 through 17 in John, Jesus teaches his disciples and prays for them, in many ways passing on to them his deepest wishes and hopes for their lives after his death.

The event going on after church today plus life inside this brain of mine equals:

Dinner on the ground, dinner on the ground.
Lookin’ very cool with your dinner on the ground.
Plate in your hand and your heart turned kind-ways.
Lookin’ very cool with your dinner on the ground.

The little sign used to hang just outside the back door of our house, the door that opened into the carport. My Mom had put the sign there. Maybe some of you have had a similar sign next to or near your back door. The sign said, “Back door friends are best.”

Yes, I know that Judas said what he said because of his own greed and not because he gave a tinker’s ding about the poor. I know what John tells us, that Judas was a thief, who stole what was put into the savings account the disciples tried to keep. I know Judas is the one who betrayed Jesus into the hands of those who killed him. I know all that. But, let me ask you a question. Before you answer, raise your right heart and pledge to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. Do you disagree with what Judas said, when he objected to what Mary did?