The sermons are arranged thematically; though this, too, is a challenge because the sermons return again and again to soon-familiar themes. Some sermons could be placed with others according to one theme or grouped with yet others on the basis of another theme. (How many of these seventeen sermons treat of death? All of them, directly or indirectly; directly in most.) Nonetheless, four groupings suggest themselves.
I. Good Neediness
1. “Loneliness”: Our loneliness is a goad to God.
2. “Beatitudes”: Lack, need, receiving in gratitude, and life are
identified.
3. “The Problem of Possessions”: God’s love sets poverty in a new light: love is not minding being poor.
4. “Jonah and Human Grandeur”: Hunger for grandeur yields
oppression; acceptance of failure yields freedom.
5. “Suffering”: Neediness belongs to God.
6. “Needed—An Education in Poverty”: Commencement is a time to own the vocation of dying.
II. Kinds of Power, Love, and Death
7. “Be Angry”: Dare to face truth, love—and anger at God first of all.
8. “Palm Sunday Sermon”: Jesus is not a victim but agent of death as self-expenditure bearing the fruit of life.
9. “Eucharist”: The meaning of death in the domain of Jesus is the
communication of life.
10. “Harvard Convocation”: Proper speech is the deed of self-
expenditure.
11. “Tower Hill Graduation—Against the Expert”: Make your actions, suffering—and your death—your own.
12. “On Worship”: We participate in the worship of the Father by
the Son.
III. Qualitative Hope
13. “The Centrality of Flesh”: Look out Lent: Christianity is a festival
of flesh.
14. “The Ascension”: In uncertainty, risk measuring the meaning of
letting go by the power of Christ and not by the power of death.
15. “The Goal of Our History”: Hope not in the future but in God.
IV. Grace
16. “Jesus and the Myth of Neighborliness”: The good Samaritan is
Jesus Christ.
17. “The Good Samaritan”: The good Samaritan is Jesus Christ.
Perhaps these last overlapping, complementary sermons are appropriately placed together in a section on “Grace.” As suggested, grace may seem to be a “Grace Note”; but it motivates the whole of McGill’s theology. McGill’s treatment of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) as our neighbor so that we can “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37) not out of our own power, our surplus, our “philanthropy,” but out of God’s gracious giving—“We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19); receiving precedes giving—may be regarded as McGill’s central theological theme.34
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Editorial Note
I am most grateful to Lucy McGill for entrusting to me, on the recommendation of William F. May and Paul Ramsey, the papers of Arthur McGill so long ago, for her transcription of sermon manuscripts—and for her patience; to William F. May for his role in granting me “the McGill files,” for his patience and encouragement, and for graciously contributing a “Foreword” to this collection; to Paul Ramsey for his caring and kindness; to Chuck Balestri and Egbert Giles Leigh, Jr., friends since Princeton undergraduate days (some forty-
six years); to Chuck for so many rewarding McGill-catalytic or McGill-catalyzed conversations at Princeton, 1960–1963, when we were both under McGill’s spell; to Egbert, Biologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Barro Colorado Island, Panama, for his enduring interest and encouragement; to Cindy Toomey, Administrative and Program Specialist, Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion (CPR), University of Mary Washington, who has indeed been a “specialist” in sundry ways; to JeanAnn Dabb, Associate Professor of Art and Art History, UMW, for introducing me to ARTstor; and to Wipf and Stock Publishers and Ted Lewis, Jim Tedrick,
K. C. Hanson, Heather Carraher, and associates for their investment in Arthur McGill.
When Arthur McGill penciled, often rapidly—one can see the acceleration of the writing in his hand—a vast paper trail of theological fascinations, he did not know that persons someday would struggle to decipher his difficult and often minuscule hand. He was about his own present, pressing, and remarkable intellectual adventures. Still, the paper clips attaching little sheets to larger sheets to note cards in sometimes thick and puzzling disarray are thwarting. And the abbreviations . . .
The concern here is to respect the text. “Man” and “he” and “him” are untouched. Commas and semi-colons posed a temptation: add some, subtract others. With rare exceptions, punctuation-wise, spelling-wise, capitalization-wise and otherwise (and apart from possible misreadings of the manuscripts), the texts have been permitted to stand. When manuscript baffles or temptations triumph, there are brackets [ ]—different kinds and a “non-kind”: 1) [word?] means this is an uncertain but best-guess reading; 2) [?] means there is a word, but I haven’t a clue; 3) [??] means more than one indecipherable word; 4) no brackets means either no need for brackets or that possibly there were brackets which have been removed because the reading is likely and because the reader needs to be spared endless, distracting brackets. When the manuscripts become outline or word-notes, I have risked making coherent connections, again within brackets. Originally, every added “a,” “the,” “we,” “our” and infrequently added punctuation mark was dutifully placed in brackets. Brackets, brackets everywhere. I decided to do away with the brackets in the case of articles, etc., but retain them in the case of other additions. There are too many brackets, and every set of brackets is (for now)35 a defeat. References given by McGill are in parentheses. Added references are in brackets. Often the manuscripts slip into “inverse paragraphs”: instead of indentation of the first line, lines under the first line are indented. This accounts in part for many of the short—and one-sentence—paragraphs; though at times I have created paragraphs. Then there are the dreaded outlines and infinitesimal marginal notes.
McGill uses different translations of scripture, the King James Version (identified in the text as KJV), the Revised Standard Version (RSV), and, quite often, The New English Bible (NEB). Sometimes there seems to be no exact fit, and no translation is designated. The version may well be MM = McGill’s Memory. When a text is indicated but not quoted by McGill, the RSV is used—unless McGill’s words operate off of another translation.
David Cain
University of Mary Washington
1 Sermon 17, p. 141. McGill is referring to the so-called parable of the good Samaritan: “Tonight we will concentrate on one parable of Jesus, the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is not only an interesting story, but it has some real surprises.” I apply his phrase to his sermons. References to McGill’s sermons are hereafter in text: (Sermon #, p. #).
2 Arthur C. McGill, The Celebration of Flesh: Poetry in Christian Life (New York: Association, 1964) 14; see 187–90, “Against Spiritual Pride.”