In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The motto of the Scout Movement is “Be Prepared”. This means thinking about situations before they occur and knowing the right thing to do at the right moment. Today’s Gospel reading concerns the calling of the first disciples, where they prepared? And how does this help us as we follow our Lord Jesus Christ each day.

Something that is very striking from the Gospel reading is that when Jesus calls Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John, they “immediately” stop what they are doing, give up their work, leave their families and follow Jesus.

Where the first disciples prepared for the moment Jesus called them? In a word, yes.

In the chapters of the Gospel that come before the one we have just heard St Matthew prepares us by describing the ancestry and events leading up to the birth of Jesus. He tells us that prophets have advised of the signs that proclaim the coming Messiah; Isaiah, Micah and Jeremiah and links their prophecies to the life of Jesus. We are brought right up to date by recording the teaching of the last prophet, St John the Baptist recalling the baptism of Jesus, the descent of the Holy Spirit, how Jesus overcame the temptations by the devil and the start of Jesus own preaching “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”. St Matthew is telling us that Simon Peter and the others would have been aware of these events and the teaching of St John the Baptist. The Gospel of St John tells us that Peter and Andrew had been followers of St John the Baptist before they were called by Jesus. The calling of the first disciples doesn’t come from nowhere. The Gospel is describing the first disciples own preparation to answer the call to follow Jesus.

When Jesus calls the disciples, they have to make a decision about whether to follow him or not. We too are called to make a decision to follow Jesus. Once this decision has been made though it doesn’t mean everything will be easy from then on. We have to decide each day whether we will answer the call to follow Jesus or turn aside and follow someone or something else. The most obvious example of this in the Gospels is when Simon Peter says tells Jesus “Even if I must die with you, I will never deny you” (Matthew 26:35) only to deny Jesus a little later - “I do not know the man” (Matthew 26:72), when he fears that his life is in danger.

Peter’ declaration that he would die with Jesus only to deny him is an extreme example of something we have all experienced. Our understanding of Christian teaching comes from various sources; reading the Bible, the example of others, saints and holy people some from long ago, some who may be here today, possibly even the sermons we hear in church amongst other things. This gives us guidance of what we could or should or ought to do in a given situation, to “Be Prepared”. In the case of Peter, he might have be expected to be truthful and not deny Christ, but when we actually face a situation which requires us to do this, we find ourselves wanting to and more often than not deciding we want to do something else. This is because following Jesus is rather like learning to play a musical instrument. We have to learn about the instrument, to read the sheet music, to know what the musical notes sound like and practice, practice, practice. The problem we have is that we are trying to play beautiful music on broken instrument. No matter how much we practice, playing a good tune will be impossible. We are the broken instrument; we need to recognise that we need to be healed. Through Jesus that healing is possible.

So we must be prepared to answer the call of Jesus, we need to prepare ourselves to respond to situations we find ourselves in as God would expect us to respond, and we must be prepared to fail, sometimes to fail utterly. We also need to be prepared with God’s help, Father, Son and Holy Spirit to get up “immediately” from our failures and continue to answer the call of Jesus.

Amen.