A modern tale of two cities…

New York and Seattle.

First let’s start with the New York Yankees.  Likely one of the prestigious sport franchises in the world.  You either love the Yankees or you hate the Yankees.  But one thing the Yankees do is evoke emotion.  Yankee stadium has come to be known by various nicknames.

The House That Ruth Built,

The Stadium,

The Big Ballpark in the Bronx,

The Cathedral of Baseball.

Now, I have never been to Yankee stadium, but if the ghost of Babe Ruth is to be believed, it is a place where magic happens.  That is why everyone is trying to get a piece of the magic.  Who wouldn’t want an actual piece of Yankee stadium.  Whether it be a bleacher, home plate, or even a plain piece of Yankee stadium concrete, it would represent something, something of history, something that can never be recreated.

Yet in the midst of all of the magic and the memories, there are plans to tear it down.  Because secular society gets something.

In spite of the memories, to create new memories, the old place must be torn down.

A new space must be recreated for new memories, for new magic.

Now we have Seattle, to be specific the Seattle Super Sonics.  Now by no means do the SuperSonics have the history, the memories or the magic of the Yankees, but if you know anything of the current events of the only basketball franchise the greater Seattle area, is that the franchise is moving Oklahoma City.  The Seattle SuperSonics will be no more, no more chances for memories or any potential magic, cause they are gone.

All because they did not want to build a new stadium.  Let’s call it the Seattle Syndrome.  But the franchise cannot succeed in the city without a new stadium, without a new structure.

The franchise will collapse if a new stadium is not created.

Call it whatever you want, formal Christianity, organized religion or just they way humans are wired.  We tend to want to hold onto the structures where our memories were formed.  If Christianity were the Yankee Stadium we do every possible renovation and recreation to the original stadium to make things work.  But we would never tear it down.

Some would argue, “If we torn down the structures and systems of our past what would hold up the life of future?”

But we forget one very important thing.  Structures and systems only exist to hold life. Life is what matters! The stadium only is the container for baseball.  No one goes to an empty stadium.  We go to a stadium to watch baseball!

And that is what corporate America gets that we as Christians tend to forget.

Structures only exist as they increase life.  There are times when those structure impede life and actually bring death.

Next season the Yankees will be playing and the Seattle Super Sonics won’t be.  Both places had things torn down; one had the shell torn down to continue life, one had the life torn down because they did not want a new shell.

Go Yankees!