“Words, after speech, reach into the silence”. Listening, Reading, Hans Boersma, and Resonance

Abstract

Hartmut Rosa has shown that the fundamental conflict of modernity lies in the categorical confusion of two concepts: accessibility and availability. In sermon preparation there is a tension between the controllability of the text and the uncontrollability of a resonant relationship with the meaning of the text. In my search for the homiletical implications of Rosa’s resonance-theoretical view, I investigate the sacramental view of Scripture as set out by Hans Boersma. I offer in the epilogue of this article three coordinates to stimulate a resonant relationship with the text in the process of sermon preparation.