[Oe List ...] 12/23/10, Spong: Christpower

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Dear Reader,
Starting in January 2011, this newsletter will be managed and distributed by a new publisher, The Center for Progressive Christianity. You should not see any changes in the newsletter's appearance or experience any interruption in service. If you have questions, please email support at johnshelbyspong.com or you can contact the new publisher directly at deshna at tcpc.org. 
A Note From Mike Keriakos and Ben Wolin, Founders of Everyday Health, Inc.
We're very grateful that Bishop Spong entrusted his long reputation to a couple of guys in a kitchen in Brooklyn. We're thrilled by what we achieved together, and saddened that our business took us squarely into the health category, and away from publishing Bishop Spong's important message. We wish him and his new publisher the best of luck in continuing this worthwhile pursuit. 
Sincerely,
Mike and Ben





Thursday December 23, 2010 

To My Subscribers

Dear Friends,
On December 24th, 1974 I delivered in my Church in Richmond, Virginia, a sermon, which sought to put the Christmas story into a modern context through the medium of poetry. It was based on an earlier poem I had written, entitled Christpower. In 1975 this Christmas piece was incorporated into and published along with other poems of mine in a limited, coffee table size volume, all of which were arranged by a gifted Richmond poet named Lucy Newton Boswell Negus. When that printing was sold out, like so many other books, it became little more than a memory. When I published Jesus for the Non-Religious in 2007, however, I decided to frame the content of that book between a new poem (my first in almost thirty years), entitled The Lament of a Be liever in Exile, and the original Christpower poem. These two pieces, acting as bookends for the new book, told the story of my own theological growth and development. That book then created new interest in the original CHRISTPOWER volume, causing St. Johann's Press in Haworth, New Jersey, to bring it out again in an edited, revised, updated and inclusive language version. This happened in November of 2007. For my Christmas column each year since I have offered the updated version of that Christmas story in poetry. I hope it brings with it the meaning of this season for all my readers.
I thank you for being part of this growing community of people who through this column seek the eternal meaning beneath the traditional symbols of the ancient Christ story. A blessed Christmas to you all. 

– John Shelby Spong
 
Far back beyond the beginning,
stretching out into the unknowable,
incomprehensible,
unfathomable depths, dark and void,
of infinite eternity behind all history,
the Christpower was alive.
This was the
Living
bursting, pulsing
generating, creating
smoldering, exploding
fusing, multiplying
emerging, erupting
pollenizing, inseminating
heating, cooling
power of life itself: Christpower.
And it was good!
Here
all things that we know
began their journey into being.
Here
light separated from darkness.
Here
Christpower began to take form.
Here
life became real, 
and that life spread into
emerging new creatures
evolving
into ever higher intelligence.
There was a sacrifice here
and
a mutation there. 
There was grace and resurrection appearing
in their natural order, 
occurring, recurring, 
and always driven by the restless, 
creating, 
energizing
life force of God, called the Christpower, 
which flowed in the veins of every living thing
for ever
and ever
and ever
and ever. 
And it was good!
In time, in this universe, 
there emerged creatures who were called human, 
and the uniqueness of these creatures
lay in that they could
perceive
this life-giving power. 
They could name it
and embrace it
and grow with it
and yearn for it. 
Thus human life was born, 
but individual expressions of that human life
were marked with a sense of
incompleteness, 
inadequacy, 
and a hunger
that drove them ever beyond the self
to search for life's secret
and
to seek the source of life's power. 
This was a humanity that could not be content with
anything less. 
And once again
in that process
there was
sacrifice and mutation, 
grace and resurrection
now in the human order, 
occurring, recurring
And it was good! 
Finally, in the fullness of time, 
within that human family, 
one
unique and special human life appeared: 
whole
complete
free
loving
living
being
at one
at peace
at rest. 
In that life was seen with new intensity
that primal power of the universe, 
Christpower. 
And it was good! 
Of that life people said: Jesus, 
you are the Christ, 
for in you we see
and feel
and experience
the living force of life
and love
and being
of God. 
He was hated, 
rejected, 
betrayed, 
killed, 
but
he was never distorted. 
For here was a life in which
the goal, the dream, the hope
of all life
is achieved. 
A single life among many lives. 
Here
among us, out from us, 
and yet this power, this essence, 
was not from us at all, 
for the Christpower that was seen in Jesus
is finally of God. 
And even when the darkness of death 
overwhelmed him, 
the power of life resurrected him; 
for Christpower is life
eternal, 
without beginning, 
without ending. 
It is the secret of creation. 
It is the goal of humanity. 
Here in this life we glimpse
that immortal
invisible
most blessed
most glorious
almighty life-giving force
of this universe
in startling completeness
in a single person. 
Men and women tasted the power that was in him
and they were made whole by it. 
They entered a new freedom, 
a new being. 
They knew resurrection and what it means to live
in the Eternal Now. 
So they became agents of that power, 
sharing those gifts from generation to generation, 
creating and re-creating, 
transforming, redeeming, 
making all things new. 
And as this power moved among human beings, 
light
once more separated from darkness. 
And it was good! 
They searched for the words to describe
the moment that recognized the fullness of this power
living in history, 
living in the life of this person. 
But words failed them.
So they lapsed into poetry: 
When this life was born, 
they said, 
a great light split the dark sky. 
Angelic choruses peopled the heavens
to sing of peace on earth. 
They told of a virgin mother, 
of shepherds compelled to worship, 
of a rejecting world that had no room in the inn. 
They told of stars and oriental kings, 
of gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 
For when this life was born
that power that was
and is
with God, 
inseparable, 
the endless beginning, 
was seen
even in a baby
in swaddling clothes
lying in a manger. 
Christpower. 
Jesus, you are the Christ. 
To know you is to live, 
to love, 
to be. 
O come, then, let us adore him! 




– John Shelby Spong
 




Question and Answer 
With John Shelby Spong


Romella Hart O'Keefe from Mills River, N.C. writes: 
In a lecture series last spring in Hendersonville, North Carolina, I noticed that you were wearing a cross, one of the symbols of Christianity. In light of your spiritual evolution, what does the symbol of the cross mean to you today?
Romella Hart O'Keefe from Mills River, N.C. writes: 
In a lecture series last spring in Hendersonville, North Carolina, I noticed that you were wearing a cross, one of the symbols of Christianity. In light of your spiritual evolution, what does the symbol of the cross mean to you today?



Dear Romella, 
Yours is a frequent question especially when people hear me try to deliver Christianity from the idea that "Jesus died for my sins." I am not moved by stories of salvation in which the cross becomes the symbol for human sacrifice and a blood offering that God requires, according to this point of view. I am not interested in a God who is the ultimate child abuser, who requires the death of the divine son to be able to forgive. I am not impressed with the masochistic Jesus who appears eager to mount the cross in order to endure the pain that only Mel Gibson seems to enjoy. I am not interested in the guilt message that emanates from this theology and becomes the coin of the realm of the traditional Christian life. The cross is identified with these ideas in many people's minds. I find these ideas repelling. 
I see the cross very differently. It represents to me the depth of the love of God that is known by one's ability to give life away. The cross is a symbol of a life so whole, so free and so complete that this life has escaped the human drive to survive, which makes human life inevitably self–centered. The portrait drawn in the gospels of Jesus on the cross is one in which the victim becomes the life giver even as he dies. In his dying, he is portrayed as giving forgiveness, hope, consolation and assurance to those who are still the living. I wear the cross because its meaning to me, and therefore its message, is that nothing any of us has ever done or ever been can finally separate us from the love of God. Even when we kill God's love, God continues to love us. It is thus for me a powerful and a transformative symbol and I want to define it in this new way, which I assert was its original meaning. I cannot do this unless I wear it and so I do, and beyond that. I treasure its meaning. 
Thanks for asking. 

– John Shelby Spong






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