Preaching as Waiting: Appropriating Andrew Root’s Reception of Rosa’s Theory of Resonance for Homiletical Practice

Abstract

In Andrew Root’s analysis of the crisis mainline churches in the Western world encounter today, he attends to Hartmut Rosa’s social theory of acceleration, alienation and resonance, using these concepts to address the struggle for relevance of local congregations and pastors, within a secular context. Root shows in what ways the multifaceted concept of resonance can give rise to hope, trust and action, empowering churches, while living in an immanent world, to embrace an alternative narrative-shaped map, shaped by the community’s strong evaluation. In this article, a summary of Root’s creative reception of Rosa is followed by an attempt to appropriate Root’s ecclesiology of hope towards the practice of preaching. The concept of ‘preaching as waiting’ is sketched in which the uncontrollability of the preaching event paves the way for a homiletical encounter with the openness of the unseen, both in the life of the preacher and the lives of the listeners. A recent sermon on Psalm 85, preached in a local congregation in The Netherlands, is presented as an example of ‘preaching as waiting’ in homiletical practice.