John Bradford was a roving preacher in England in the mid 1500s. In the reign of Mary Tudor he was imprisoned for trying to stir up a mob and later executed. He is best known for a remark he uttered while watching a group of prisoners being led to their execution: "There but for the grace of God goes John Bradford." We, of course remember the statement today as: "There but for the grace of God go I." It is a reminder that God is at work in our lives … weaving through our days and experiences … keeping us no matter what the times or circumstances. It is the concept of grace that reminds us of this: God is with us. That God, in the life and example, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is personal and involved with us. God is not impersonal – the deist movements would claim that. The deists claim that God is uninvolved with us … that in creation God set things moving and then withdrew. They would say that God is like the great clockmaker in the sky – building the clock, setting it in motion and now sits back and watches everything "tick tock" through time.

We gather this morning knowing that God is personal …
   that God is in our lives …
      calling us to be better persons …
         keeping and sustaining us through our days …
            weeping with us …
               rejoicing with us …
                  reminding us that no matter what, there is nothing greater …
                     God's love for us as given in the gift of Christ's life.

God's grace … God's gift of love incarnate in Jesus Christ … whose mysterious final meal we gather to celebrate this morning. The concept of grace reminds us that God's love is a gift to us … that we do not earn it, it is freely given to us … it is a love that is present at all times and in all places of our lives even when we don't know it is there.

As United Methodists we inherit a rich theology of grace as thought through by John Wesley. He began with something called prevenient grace – grace present and active in our lives before we even know we need it. Prevenient grace looks like the parent who makes their children get up and get to Sunday School in spite of any grumbling or attitude their children give them. Prevenient grace is the child who begs their parent to take them to Sunday School on a day when the parent would rather sleep in after a long hard work week. Prevenient grace is what drew an unwilling John Wesley to a Bible Study on Aldersgate Street in 1738 – a Bible study which would change the course of history. Prevenient grace is Jesus walking with the disciples on the road to Emmaus – Jesus in our midst and we don't even know it. Think of those who have been signs of prevenient grace to you.

Prevenient grace is what keeps us until we have what I call our "V-8" moment. You remember the commercials, where a person is eating all kinds of vegetables and fruits to get in their daily allotment, when all of the sudden something hits them on their head and the look of comprehension dawns – "I could have had a V-8!" Our V-8 faith moment is our converting moment – when we get it, that God's love is for me. Wesley called it justifying grace. It was the moment when his heart became strangely warmed. It is the disciples on that road to Emmaus saying, "Didn't our hearts burn within us when he spoke the scriptures to us?" Justifying grace is when the light bulb finally turns on for us and we see God has been walking with us all along. Where have you experienced justification in your life?

Then comes a life of holy living – sanctifying grace. John Wesley lived that out by preaching, and teaching … a burning desire to make sure that the message of God's love was told to all, and not just to those able to make it to the cathedrals on Sunday morning. We are called to holy living, and we become those that God works through in being signs of prevenient grace to others. Sanctifying grace is what Timothy is called to in our scripture text for this day. In the midst of persecution Timothy is called to remember the legacy of faith that has been handed down to him: "We can only keep on going, after all, by the power of God, who first saved us and then called us to this holy work. We had nothing to do with it. It was all his idea, a gift prepared for us in Jesus long before we knew anything about it. But we know it now. Since the appearance of our Savior, nothing could be plainer: death defeated, life vindicated in a steady blaze of light, all through the work of Jesus." How do you embody holy living?

This morning we celebrate with all Christianity World Wide Communion Sunday, a Sunday when we pay particular attention to this means of grace. The meal reminds us, perhaps more than anything else, that God is "in your face", personal with us. The meal reminds us of the gift given on that holy long ago night – a gift given freely that we might have life in abundance. The meal sends us out to be the embodiment of that life to others. How dare we rise from this table together and go away as if nothing happened?!

I can not help but remember back six years ago on this day – we came home from worship to hear news that we had begun bombing Afghanistan. As we celebrated World Wide Communion Sunday the world changed – some would say for the better, others for the worse. The painful reality was and continues to be that lives were lost, families shattered. In the midst of such events there are many who would say that in the face of such things, there cannot possibly be a God. But I say that in the face of such events we are reminded more than ever of how far we are from God's grace-filled love … and how much work we have to do in shaping a different world. Some of you know that I keep two reminders of what God's love calls us to do in my dining room. One is pieces of the World Trade Center – a chip of metal from the memorial to my brother in his home town, a shard of glass collected for me by one of the rescue workers. The other is bits of marble from one of the royal palaces in Kabul, Afghanistan that I picked up while walking through the ruins of this once beautiful building. They are reminders for me that God is personally involved in our lives and actually expects us to be involved in the same way. It is the life of grace-filled living to which we are called.

By God's grace we go – having been kept by God's love, having known God's love – to be the face of God's personal love to others.