Stop Making Excuses – Today we welcome Toi King, lead pastor at Clark Memorial UMC, as our guest preacher. We are beginning a series on the prophet, Jeremiah, and today’s scripture is the first part of the book wherein Jeremiah receives a call from God. Rev. King begins by asking if we’ve made excuses when someone asks us to do something we don’t want to do, or when someone asks us to do something we don’t feel like we can do. The call of Jeremiah is like that as Jeremiah offers some excuses. Rev. King gives us some historical setting for Jeremiah as the kingdom had been split into Israel and Judah, their kings had, through some years, become evil, and many of the people had either rejected or ignored God. God selects Jeremiah to preach God’s word to these two nations that are about to fall as nations with Jerusalem destroyed and many people taken to Babylon in captivity. Being a prophet, especially in that era, was not an easy job. Rev. King cites her own call to ministry, the excuses she posed when God called her, but the end product is that she is here, leading a congregation. All of us are called by God, and, much as God did with Jeremiah and Toi, God assures us of God’s presence and aid in everything we are called to do. We are called to be the Jeremiahs in our generation.