Preaching is effective as long as the preacher expects something to happen-not because of the sermon, not even because of the preacher, but because of God.
In the spectrum of God's mysteries, preaching is a sacrament: Because of its sacramental reality some people have never again been the same.
And when we would make much of that which cannot matter much to thee, forgive us -a frequent part of the prayer that opened sermons.
It is only in the light of the inescapable fact of death that a person can adequately engage and enter upon the mysterious fact of life.
