Sixers vs. Celtics

So, the Sixers beat the Celtics last night evening the series at 2-2. This play-off could go either way. It is the classic battle of youth and energy vs. older and wise. In case you don't follow bball, it is the Sixers that are the young guns. Historically, Boston has the upper hand. There have only been a few cases where the Sixers have beat the Celts in a play-off series.

In 1983...the last championship the Sixers won, I believe the Celtics had lost previously to the Bucks. I was there to watch the Sixers win crucial game two against the Lakers at home in the old Spectrum. Our scalped tickets were so high up and far away from the court I would have needed a telescope to read the names on the uniforms. They should have passed out complimentary tissues since we were in the nosebleeed section. And the smell of crappy marijuana wafted through the air from a dude a couple of seats down who was getting even higher.    

Garnett is like an old scarred Watusi warrior gearing up for another battle, Paul Pierce is the sharp-shooting vet like Wyatt Earp who has delivered more than Dominoes Pizza. Rondo seems to be key to the series. He is young, and perhaps the most well-rounded player in the league since Magic. Jordan was the best of all time but even he didn't have the arsenal that Rondo has.

The Sixers really don't have a star per se. Igoudala is an amazing athlete, perhaps one of the best in the NBA, and that is saying something. I think as a rule that basketball players are the best athletes in professional sports. Of course, I am biased as a formed hoopster. However, Igoudala is an uneven player. Despite his skills, sometimes it doesn't all click for him. But the dude can play some seriously righteous defense. Good defense wins games, the shots come and go.

Doug Collins, a former Sixer player, has play-off experience that the young Sixers lack. As the head coach, he is the key to the Sixers taking Boston and draining the green down. He is downloading his years into his charges and the team appears to be listening like an mp3.

In this series, we see the generational lines. It is an age old battle in nature. In the Church, the young often are in conflict with the old. The problem is that we are on the same team. The youth often ask good questions but then won't listen or think they know more than they do (the conceit of youth). The young are also willing at times to jettison theological truth in the pursuit of some goal they deem transcendent. But you cannot have transcendence without total truth.  

The older pew-bound see young question-asking as snarky and even satanic. We are set in our ways and don't want the kids to rock the boat. We prefer a calm row, preferably with other pulling the oars, like the pastoral staff, on a serene lake versus riding the rapids of relevance. We don't care if we are dinosaurs. Let us live and die while we munch on some plants and lumber around.

It is rare that any one person or group has all of the answers. God ordains that we learn to listen to each other and work together towards the common goal of preaching the Gospel and discipling the Nations. Until the old and the young and all of the other factions in the True Church see themselves on the same team with the same goal, the wins just won't happen.