These are the last Lyman Beecher Lectures of the 20th Century. They were given at Yale Divinity School in 1999.  It’s an odd title for a book on preaching, since everyone knows that sermons are made of words.  The title seemed appropriate then, and in the light of 9/11, the revival of white nationalism, and the demise of truth in social media and politics, it is even more relevant today.  Bonhoeffer taught us that before preaching can take place, the preacher must absorb the horrors of our time and, like Ezekiel, sit silently in the valley of dry bones.  True preaching emerges from such silence.  In the book, I propose four countermeasures to the current devaluation of language.  They are the marks of every preacher: vocation, interpretation, narration, and reconciliation.