Did You "Taste" the Gospel?

In preaching classes, one of the questions that I have always used with students in evaluating sermons is, "Did you hear the gospel?" Then, "What is the good news?" Or, "If you did not hear the gospel, what message did you hear?" Lately, I have been also asking, "Did you taste the gospel? If not, what taste did this sermon leave in your mouth?" Students know when they have tasted the gospel. I suspect parishioners do as well. Sometimes they say, "I may have heard the gospel but I didn't taste it." They are also more ready to say what taste a sermon left in their mouth -- guilt, shame, defeat, exhaustion, obligation -- than to name the non-gospel message of the sermon they heard.