I recently came across the following statement concerning Karl Barth and how he understood the task of preaching:.

"Barth seems to conceive of the preacher as someone without dates in history who is seeking to hear just what the biblical texts said of old, and who, having heard, stands up to pass on precisely what [they have] heard. This faithful listener who has become the preacher is only a mailman, Barth says, delivering a letter which he has neither written or altered. He is an amateur trumpeter, and no matter how unskilled he may be, his trumpet will awaken the sleepers". May we be good hearers, doers, and mailmen... and trumpeters.