[Propertalk] SERMONS.COM - Colossians 1:1-14

[Joe Parrish]

SERMONS.COM
Leonard Sweet's Sermon

Dancing with the Saints

Colossians 1:1-14

 

As soon as toddlers learn to "toddle," they are ready to move to music and groove to iPods. 

Small children don't care if their moves are "cool." Small children don't care of they look sweet or silly as they dance to the sounds they're hearing. They just dance. 

When do we start being self-conscious? We do we lose our innocence? Sometime in elementary school? I suspect it's just about the time the PE curriculum declares that it is time to teach dancing to fifth or sixth graders. Whether it is learning to square dance or folk dance or fox trot, what was so natural and carefree at two becomes exquisitely embarrassing at twelve. 

I for one never moved beyond the sixth grade stumbles. [This is where you tell your own childhood dancing stories. In my personal case, as a kid growing up in the holiness church I had to bring a "prescription" to school from our family physician excusing me from dancing "for family reasons" he couldn't use the word "religious," for some reason)]. 

Others of you reclaimed your dancing feet in later adolescence. I suspect that even for the most cha-cha challenged here this morning, you still have a secret desire to reclaim the freedom enjoyed as a small child spinning and twirling and swaying with complete abandon to the rhythms of the music. 

What else could explain the crazy popularity of a three-hour weekly ABC special called "Dancing with the Stars." Season 10 saw "Dancing with the Stars" beating "American Idol" in the ratings. Some of the "celebrity" dancers are athletes or twenty-somethings who've spent half their lives in gyms. But a large number of the contestants have been "has-beens" -- recycled, retreaded actors, entertainers, singers, celebrities whose days in the limelight have come and gone. Aging astronauts, pooped pop-stars, actors on extended hiatus, 82 year old Academy Award winning Cloris Leachman --- they all show up to show off and strut their stuff one last time. Most of the dancing "stars" have already burned out, but as they gamely give themselves over to the music (and their professional dancing partner), we find ourselves rooting for them . . . at least I do… hoping they can pull it off and find that dancing muse that guides the feet of all two-year olds. 

Secretly, we all long to dance among the "stars." 

Even if you know nothing about the roots of jazz, or have never listened to a Dixie-land band, it's a safe bet that you know one old standard, "When the Saints Go Marching In." And you hear Louis Armstrong singing it in your head, don't you? 

Traditionally played after grave side services, when the dead are buried and the mourners leave the cemetery, the jazzy, jumping, jubilant strains of "When the Saints Go Marching In" followed the faithful out of the graveyard. Listening to that music you know that "marching" is a misnomer. Nobody could "march" to that melody. 

The saints don't go marching in. 

The saints go dancing in. 

Dancing with the saints is what Paul invites the Colossian Christians to do in his week's epistle text... 

The rest of Leonard Sweet's Sermon and all his sermon resources can be obtained by joining Sermons.com. When you sign up you will get immediate access. 



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