Trail Blazers
William Seymour is one of my heroes. In 1906, he left his Texas home to accept the call as Pastor in a Los Angeles “Holiness Church.” In his first sermon on the left coast, he presented ideas and practices which are plainly cited in the Christian Bible, yet the church leaders patently maligned his positions, terminated his residency on the spot, and locked him out of the church. Some may say this was a nascent version of what would later be called, a Twitter Mob.
Cancelled and de-platformed, William wandered the streets until he stumbled upon a welcome mat set atop a rickety porch on Bonnie Brae Street. The rest, as they say, is His story.
The Holiness Church movement of the 19th Century proposed it was not only possible to reverse the effects of sin by behavioral modification, it was also within grasp to live a sin-free life here on the Earth — today. Tell me; besides the patient, precisely who benefits from such a life spent wholly intent on the self-eradication of personal sin? Is it remotely possible for a such a myopic, self-perfecting journeyman to bring Heaven’s graces to Earth for the multitudes to enjoy whilst bound to such a rigorous, interior You-topian quest? Seems to me, the broken and imperfect carry the greater glory and bring tangible relief to the poor, the marginalized and the crushed in spirit.
While the people gathered to hear their weekly dose of more rules to live by, Seymour instead spoke of more Spirit to thrive by. He spoke of God’s indwelling power and the gifts made available to speak revelation, perform miracles and heal people, all through the submergence in the Spirit of God which releases all of this and more. Holding their ears as if hearing nails coursing slowly down a chalkboard, the people discarded him as a dangerous heretic.
It seems to me William was on the right track. He was trying to get the people to taste some new wine, but they were resistantly content to sit in their same pew and hear the same message for the umpteenth time.
“No one who drinks the new wine says, ‘The old wine is good enough.’”
Reflecting on some of the great sermonizers of history, notice how many were stoned, beaten, imprisoned, burned at the stake or killed on a cross. Seymour’s firing pales in comparison, yet was soon proven fortuitous as it was the ignition point that kindled the greatest revival this country has ever seen — Azusa Street.
It’s the trail-blazers who change history.
I took this picture while on a trail run with my favorite training partner, Java. In her prime, we could run 11 miles together at a pace that would cripple the most elite of runners. Today, the gray in our beards and the ache in our giddy-up limits us to mere geriatric distance and pacing — but it’s still one of my favorite things to do. And while her aged, determined face here captures my heart, my soul is arrested at the profound object lesson contained in this shot specific to the three yellow blazes.
In the woods, blazes are painted on trees to reveal the path, provide confidence in navigation and encourage sojourners to venture into new territories. Having backpacked my whole life, I know the ease of trekking a well-blazed trail as well as the consternation of being lost in the woods surrounded by nothing but blaze-less trees. But I can confidently say this: The journey upon a well blazed trail yields near undetectable adrenal surges and is rather unmemorable. By contrast, my frantic, adrenaline-rich bushwhacks at night etched loads of adventure and accomplishment deep into my bones like nothing else.
By design, as you stand at one blaze you should barely be able to see the next blaze far in the distance, thus charting the direction for movement. Sometimes you even have to continue walking, fiercely squinting until the next blaze appears. What then can we say about these closely bundled blazes?
Straightaway, it seems a fairly thoughtless and rather decadent waste of time and paint. Not only are the two previously blazed trees almost within reach of each other, someone thought it a good spend of time and money to sink a post midway between the two and slap a blaze on that as well. This isn’t blazing a trail; it’s more like marking off a parking lot.
We find ourselves living in a day where a cultural and spiritual battle is being waged in frenzy. While it’s true, bodies aren’t piling up in the streets — yet — I will contend withered and shriveled souls are piling up as the dim blade on the axe of equity wokeism hacks away at the taproot of our citizenry. Having tragically, yet successfully removed faith in God from public dialogue, the radical left are attempting to achieve a collective consciousness of communal contentment only made possible by the God they reject. What we now see faultily emerging is the mutant hatching of a humanistic, spiritless, post-modern beast who holds neither the promise nor the ability to deliver the promised payload.
Hopefully I have effectively set the table to make my point: It is in precisely such a time as this that the men and women behind the pulpits need to stop re-blazing the same few trees week after week, month after month, and year after year. We have so thoroughly stomped and re-stomped the same patches of ground with our agreeable messages, it borderlines propaganda — not connoting intent to deceive listeners but rather, a power-sapping act of restating again and again things which everyone already patently agrees with.
We have succumb to repeated cycles of agreeable blandness crafted in careful acuity so as not to rock the boat — or miss a tree. Far too many sermons today fall short of shining the light of truth and the weight of glory upon the atrocious cultural dragons being propped up around us. If the Gospel were a 50 lane bowling alley, why are we relegated weekly access to only lanes three and four?
When is the last time you were deeply agitated by a sermon? (Or for that matter, a blog.) So agitated, you went home, scoured the scriptures only to find — there was valuable truth raised which is deserving of further consideration and application. Enter learning. Recently, I heard an adept preacher package evolution, abortion, racism and poverty in the same sermon. This was no bottle of milk with a binky It was a Flintstone-sized, car-tipping rack of ribs.
“For everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced in the message of righteousness, because he is an infant.”
Having preached for a handful of years, I know the painstaking process of sermon prep. It is not uncommon to spend 15-20 hours on a 35 minute message. When attempting to communicate the eternal, uncontainable, mystical depths of the Kingdom, best to leave the stopwatch in the drawer, sharpen the carving knives, and strive to hive off slabs of life-giving meat to the starved listeners.
While it might feel safer to simply squirt milk on the wrist and distribute the tepid bottles, we risk cultivating a populous of christians who fearfully believe the reports:
“There are giants taking over the nation and by comparison we are mere grasshoppers. Certainly you can’t expect us to cross into their land without being cancelled?” (My paraphrase of Numbers 13)
While everything in the Kingdom happens from prayer, at some point christians have to get off their knees and put their boots on.
When the Ten Commandments came down the mountain, it was revolutionary for that generation of people. When the Levitical Law was formulated, it was wildly subversive to the culture of that day. When Jesus taught, the religious leaders were so incensed they were not satisfied until he was killed. And here we are today, on the other side of that resurrection, willing to settle for safe, agreeable plodding around the same, paint-stained couple of trees?
I have laid my hands on the open sores of lepers praying for their healing. I have watched the demon possessed rise up off the floor prior to being delivered. I have rescued sex-trafficked girls out of the most vile, depraved bars so laden with hell— I can still smell it. And there wasn’t a blazed tree to be found because: We were the blaze.
Signs and wonders will follow believers as opposed to believers who wonder where’s the signage.
While there is a season for relying upon the blazes of those who have gone before us, there is also a time for us take up solid food, a paint can and brush, and venture out into the great unknown where the the Spirit promises to always meet us. This is such a season.
I have been warning about the political spirit because my careful research tells me it has no hope to bring what its preachers are promising. Worse, the early fruit inspection of the woke yoke indicate greater division and calamity are in store if it’s allowed to spread unfettered. Why should those who carry the leaven of the kingdom shrink back like grasshoppers and let these spires of lies be erected around us?
May we stop relying on the same old, familiar blazes. May we become more aware of the indwelling power made available to us in Christ and look for the yet-to-be blazed trails He is leading us to. May we rise to the boldness of a William Seymour and dare to change the course of history. And may we never settle for anything less than what resurrection has birthed.
