Preaching has had a bad name in Christian circles almost from apostolic times. There are a number of reasons for this. The basic one is that God and the things of God are ineffable; therefore, when words about the divine are multiplied they attempt to do the impossible. More practically, preachers have numerous faults that can make the word of God unpalatable. They depart from the biblical word and deliver a merely human word; they do not sufficiently prepare what they mean to say; they deal in cliches, thereby rendering their remarks predictable and otiose; they preach too long. The latter is not a chronological judgment so much as the perceived disproportion between the number of words spoken and the ideas expressed.

-- Gerard S. Sloyan in, The Collegeville Pastoral Dictionary of Biblical Theology.