Sermon Giving

My spiritual director says that many times people will come up to you after a sermon and talk about what they "heard you say" in the homily and about "how it touched them"... even if you didn't say anything like what they thought they heard! The point is that people will hear certain things in a sermon that you don't say, or didn't intend to say. Obviously this gives one reason to be careful in what one preaches. But it also helps one see the various ways that God works... God says something to someone through the preacher's simple, flawed, human words - even something that he didn't intend to say!