Homily

The Celebration of the Life of William Conwell Spong

Saturday: February 7, 2004

Church of the Good Shepherd, Austin.

In the spring of 1972, Thomas Hudnell Harvey, then Dean of the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest, distributed to the faculty and students copies of a sermon, recently delivered on the occasion of a diocesan ordination service held in Greensboro, North Carolina. The reason for the sermon’s distribution on our campus, had to do with the fact that the creator of the sermon happened to be a candidate for the faculty position in pastoral theology in our own hallowed institution. You see, we were on a search -- and we were willing to search far and wide for the best priest and scholar that we could find.

 The sermon’s title was “The Hurt of It All”. The preacher, a relatively young chaplain at the Duke University Medical Center, drew on a variety of resources in crafting his message -- Holy Scripture, an off-Broadway play called The Fantasticks, the anti-apartheid classic Cry The Beloved Country, and a mixture of his own theological insights; clearly not a theology descending from high above, but grounded in the earthy reality of human existence. As the title might suggest, the message had a prophetic edge to it -- mostly an edge steeled and tempered with truth; the hard truth. “Do not be afraid to risk ... Do not be afraid to love and to be loved ... Do not be afraid to hurt and to be hurt ... Do not be afraid to have pain ...   These are the raw materials of the ministry, he told those young ordinands. “Without hurts,” he said, “hearts are hollow.” He knew that from his own life experience and so he spent most of his life helping others heal their hurt and pain.

After we had read the sermon -- long before we ever met him -- we knew he was the one. He arrived in Austin in the late summer of that same year, family in tow, having driven halfway across the country in one of those larger-than-life station wagons, loaded down with luggage, potted plants, and a bevy of basset hounds. That's when we got our first glimpse of the pastoral prophet himself: the author of the written word that had already stirred our souls. He was a bit of a surprise. Tall, somewhat lanky, long hair even for those times, a facial structure that lacked much of a chin -- the beard would come gracefully much later -- and he immediately told everyone -- before they asked -- how he had lost an eye in an unfortunate accident. He occasionally wore white shoes. He had a remarkable voice -- one that could make reading the dictionary sound like sacred text -- and after just a few sermons and class lectures, we were, in every respect, one of his own. By Christmas of that first year, we would have followed William Conwell Spong anywhere. He had that power of human engagement, given only rarely and to only a few, and you knew that you could trust it, because it was a power and charisma grounded in authenticity. He never tried to be someone else. In a conversation or encounter with Will, you always got Will. In the pastoral life and vocation, there is simply no greater compliment than authenticity. That is why so many trusted him with their deeply held secrets, successes and conflicted stories of their lives -- especially in those moments of extreme crisis, moments where life and death seem to hang in the balance. He was simply the best crisis counselor in this city -- and without question, the best in the church.                                                  

As the official written obituary stated, Will was fond of quoting the great novelist, Nikos Kazantzakis -- especially from his novel Zorba the Greek -- “Life is what you do when you’re waiting to die.” It was a statement so important to him that for a number of years, it occupied a prominent place on his office wall -- written across a banner. That statement encompasses a two-fold perspective that characterizes Will Spong’s theology -- namely, the need to come to terms with the reality of one’s own existence, and then knowing that out of that reality emerges genuine hope. Reality for him meant giving up denial and facing the truth. On the reality side, he had a rather disarming way of getting us to let down our guard, our defenses, in order to look at what we often do to ourselves, one another and the world we share. He did this with music and song. As we sang along the tunes of Broadway or listened to some carefully selected dramatic reading, we suddenly knew that this was more than entertainment; more than a ride on a carousel. It was all about the realities of life -- our life -- and it is a life to be celebrated, to be sure, but it also includes racism, sexism, discrimination, injustice, and fear. The music drew us in -- allowed us for a moment to be a little less defensive -- and then, if you listened closely to his commentary, softly but firmly spoken between the lines, you suddenly knew that you were also being invited to become something more; someone changed for the better. At the end of each performance, the line never spoken, yet heard loud and clear, was always “What do we do now when the music stops?” We would determine the rest of the show.

The hope Will offered, on the other hand, was pure Gospel -- the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You didn’t have to wait for it in some far off and distant future; you could experience more than you could ever imagine now. How many times did I hear him say in sermon or song -- “You know, Jesus didn’t really talk much about life after death; he talked about life.” He believed that if you focused on life and what to do with it in the precious time allotted, then God would take care of the rest. In this the Gospel was always the blueprint, the road to be traveled. Such a life then is worth living and dying for. In a sermon, he once said “[God] is good, we understand [God] in Christ, and Christ brings peace and harmony and hope to an often decadent order; that’s what we can die for, and that’s Gospel.” In this respect, as counselor, priest and contemporary cultural prophet, he was a kindred soul of Dorothy Day who said that regardless of who we are and what befalls us, if we could just remember that we are each created in God’s image, this by itself would make us want to love more -- and receive love in return. That was his pastoral credo. That was the life he lived while waiting to die.

The prophet Isaiah speaks of a marvelous banquet that God is preparing: “A feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” Such a banquet is an appropriate metaphor for Will Spong’s life in his last years -- rich and deep and fulfilling. He once remarked, in that off-handed, casual way of his, that anything past sixty would be pure gravy. Well, there was plenty. A family of which he was remarkably proud -- one that grew with newfound love and affection. A coming to terms with personal loss and transition and restoring relationships once lost, yet recovered and understood in new and deeper ways. He loved working his own schedule, receiving people at his office at Grist Mill. He played and sang again. It was all gravy.

A theologian once wrote, “In God’s holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a handkerchief.” These handkerchiefs are the special ones; dropped in our midst -- making this game ever so much more interesting. Will was one of those.

And so now we return to God, with thankful hearts, one who gave us much and who now resides forever with the One who is love itself. Amen.

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A sermon preached by the Reverend Charles James Cook, Professor of Pastoral Theology at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, Austin.

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