A sermon on the Anniversary of Will Spong’s Death by the Rev. Dr. William Seth Adams, Professor of Liturgics and Anglican Studies, given on
February 4, 2005, in Christ Chapel

Acts 11.1-18, Luke 13.22-29

Blessed be the Name of God

Today we commemorate the life of Cornelius the Centurion, counted by tradition the first Gentile convert. Myself, I didn’t know Cornelius all that well but I do have a lot of Gentile friends. In the story rehearsed in the book of Acts, much is rightly made of Cornelius’s reception of the Gospel and his conversion and that of his household in Caesarea. Their conversion precipitated the Council of Jerusalem in which the likes of us Gentiles were welcomed by the Jewish leaders of the Church into the circle of fellowship. In Acts we read, “God has given even the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” [11.18b] Surely we have to join the writer of Acts is gladness, that God has welcomed us all, just as Cornelius was welcomed, and his household.

As I said, I didn’t know Cornelius very well—centurions generally didn’t run with my crowd—but there is another whose anniversary we keep today whom I knew with deep affection. Will Spong, priest, teacher, counselor, raconteur, player of show tunes, loving and hospitable good friend, Will died on this day, a year ago.

In the music room of our house, we have two photographs of Will. They sit, as they should, among art and the artifacts of music. The first photo, taken some years ago in the room where the photograph now sits, captures Will, eyes closed and smiling, dancing with my Beloved. They are having just a splendid time. I remember the evening. It was Cajun music. South Louisiana and all that, right there in our house. “Laissez les bontemps roullez.” Just grand. I took the photo.

The other picture is one taken by Bob Kinney, on the occasion of Will’s funeral. It shows the altar party and family, receiving Will’s remains at the beginning of the liturgy, at the church door. My back is to the camera. To my left are Will’s widow, Nancy Whitworth and one of his sons, and Mary Glover and Dan Tantimonaco, server and crucifer. To my right is another son and Amy, the deacon for the liturgy. In the first photo I described, Amy held Will’s hand in the dance. This time, in a predictably heavy container, Amy held his ashes.

It’s like that, you know. Dancing and ashes. Seventy years old, a priest and teacher on this faculty for 29 years, retired to his counseling practice and his concerts and gospel teachings, he died in his sleep sometime after talking to his Nancy by phone. A professional photographer, she was in Corpus Christi, where she was doing a photo shoot. His eldest son, John, discovered him in the sleep of death the next morning, a year ago today.

The crowd at his funeral was larger than the Church of the Good Shepherd could hold. Russell led the choir and the congregation, and we sang with such zeal, full voice, full of devotion. Charlie’s sermon was beautiful, affectionate and a true proclamation of the Gospel. We were all there to praise God for the boundless grace we had all experienced through the loving hands and heart, and wooly face of Will Spong.

Will didn’t know our centurion either, so he would have been at the same distance as most of us from the commemoration we keep today in the church’s calendar. But the note sounded by Luke in the gospel reading appointed, now that’s something Will knew well.

The instance Luke details is one of those moments where Jesus speaks a truth we don’t want to hear, something Will did with some frequency. Simply yet cryptically put, Jesus says, “It won’t turn out the way you want, the way you hope or expect. It just won’t.” The owner of the house will say, “I do not know where you come from…go away.” “But we ate and drank with you…I don’t know you…go away.” “Weep and gnash your teeth…” It just won’t turn out the way you want.

Many times Will stood here, and places like this, and said hard things, true things, things that needed to be said but we didn’t like them, though we knew he was right. He knew that whatever it was and is that God has in store, we will never capture it, contain it, domesticate it. It will never be ours as if by ownership, and certainly not only ours at that. So many times, Will spoke for the unprotected and in doing so, converted the unsuspecting—to the necessities of justice, mercy and kindness. He converted us more than once.

And he seduced us, too. He loved music. He played the piano by instinct, as a gift.. He couldn’t read music, not a note, even with his one good eye. He found the gospel all over the place—in show tunes, gospel tunes, any kind of tunes. God could be discovered there. And he’d play and talk and preach and we would all be captured by his grace and beauty, and we would know that he was right about God’s presence. And all around the church and the churches in this part of the world, people gathered to listen to Will’s musical proclamation of the Gospel, and to be drawn even more deeply into the mystery that is God.

His imagination and creativity notwithstanding—administratively, Will was an absolute mess. He needed the constant intervention of saints like Nance Busby and Nancy Bose and their forbears to keep him upright and forward moving. He should never have been allowed to chair a committee or, really, he should never have been allowed to have an idea that needed to be put forward succinctly. He couldn’t do either very well—at least if there was paperwork involved. He conceived and set in motion the MAPM program but it was really Corinne Ware who took the training wheels off. Students grew old and went onto pensions waiting for Will to return papers. His CPE evaluations were invariably tardy, and so it went. And, having said all that, no one really cared. It was Will, after all.

The calendar we keep of the saints was a local calendar in its beginnings, particular and peculiar to a specific place and people. Over time, of course, these local calendars tended to coalesce and become more universally shared. I have suggested over the years, that recalling that older practice might encourage local congregations to have their own calendar of commemorations, the remembrance and celebration of gospel lives lived right there, right here, to join with those from other times and places. The politics of constructing such a calendar would be daunting, of course, but I’d still be game to give it a try. And I’d want the life and ministry of William Conwell Spong to find a place in our local rehearsal of lives lived by gospel light.

Will didn’t read much poetry so far as I know, but I do. I want to read you something that Will would want me to tell you, on this anniversary. The intent is Will’s; the words are Mary Oliver’s [New and Selected Poems].

When death comes

Like the hungry bear in autumn;

When death comes and takes all the bright coins

from his purse

To buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

When death comes

Like the measle-pox;

When death comes

Like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

What is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

As a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

And I look upon time as no more than an idea,

And I consider eternity as another possibility,

And each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

Tending, as all music does, toward silence,

And each body a lion of courage, and something

Precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

If I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

Or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Will praised God in every way he knew—he was married to amazement and, as many of us knew, he held the world close to his heart.. In the name of Jesus, he would urge the same upon us.

Blessed be the Name of God