Willimon on Barth on Preaching

"We preachers resonate to the notion of the eventful quality of revelation. The longer I preach, the more convinced am I that preaching is the most fragile of artistic media. Our words are spoken, they waft over the congregation, bounce back and forth off the walls of the church, and are heard no more. A sermon cannot be 'redone,' duplicated. A sermon can be artificially, electronically recorded, but no one, after having heard that sermon preached 'live,' would confuse a stuffed and mounted eagle with a live one."