Once there was a man who died and was offered a chance to visit both heaven and hell before he took up his eternal residence. First he was shown hell. There, he saw a great round supper table which sat many people. At the center of the table was a pot full of beef stew that smelled delicious. Each person around the table had a long-handled spoon that could reach the pot of stew easily, and there was plenty there to go around for everyone. However, there was a problem. A spoon handle that was long enough to reach all the way to the food was too long to reach your mouth, and as a result, everyone in the room was in a state of eternal starvation and all within a few feet of a feast. This scene was not for the man, who asked to be shown heaven. On arrival there, the man was astonished to see the exact same scene: a table, delicious food, and long-handled spoons longer than your arm. But here, everyone was eating and fully satisfied with as much as they wanted. The only difference was that they were feeding each other.

We are told that the Kingdom of God is not of this world, and that it has come to this world - it is all around us if we can but see it. It is like a mustard seed that is the smallest of seeds but grows into a tree that is large enough that birds can nest in it. We are told it is like a little bit of yeast that slowly works its way through the whole batch of dough. CS Lewis said that the point of death is not the beginning of life in heaven or hell, it starts right now, in every moment we live. We will look back from our eternal resting place and realize that we have always been there. That we experienced aspects of heaven or hell even while we lived.

The story above (like Lewis’ The Great Divorce) is a story not about life after death, but about heaven and hell, which are available not only after death but today, now, here. The one difference is that the ability to choose between them is available only before death.

Look around you and you can see hell. You see people with the ability to do many things. They can cook food, sell life insurance, tell stories, practice medicine, but they use their abilities for themselves, and find that they don’t want to cook for themselves, there is no need for life insurance if it is only for yourself, stories are meant to be shared, and physicians can’t heal themselves...

Look around you and you can see heaven. You see people with the ability to do many things, but they know that their abilities were never intended to provide for themselves. They cook food, sell life insurance, tell stories, practice medicine, but they do so in order to care for others, not worrying about how God is going to choose to care for them. These are the ones who live now in heaven already, and are clearly enjoying its freedom and joy now. Here. Today. They live in community with others to share their abilities with others, not only to get their own needs met. The only difference between heaven and hell is the selflessness of the redeemed, not the circumstances or gifts and abilities of each.

The socialist is the one who thinks that the people in hell are being wronged by the Cook who set the table. The leadership who made the stew and set the table must go, and allow us to take over the entire operation ourselves. Should the socialist ever get his way, he would set the table with proper spoons so that the people can feed themselves. Those who want to retain their long-handled spoons would have to first be shouted down, and eventually “liquidated” so that the rest would move into the new day of short spoons. (They would argue, “How can those long-handled guys be so cruel and heartless? Don’t they see how their insistence on long-handled spoons causes everyone to starve?”) However, once the spoons are shortened, everyone finds that the food is now too far away to reach. Their next step is to change the shape of the table, and when they find that it requires that some lose their seats at the table, they argue that it is a small price to pay for the majority to be able to eat. After some time redesigning the table again and again, only a very few seats at the table can both reach the food and feed themselves. As a result, only the strongest are able to take and hold a seat long enough to eat before being unseated by someone else, and the darkness called the “law of the jungle” descends.

The capitalist is the one who sees the truth that no one is equipped to feed himself, but attempts to make a profit for himself when he feeds others. This will work for a while, but eventually he will be tempted to think that he is surviving due to his own cleverness or business sense, and will become blind to the reality that he survives only because of the generosity of others, the same way they do, and that unless he uses his ability to feed others only for their good and not secretly for his own, he will find that he is increasingly hungry. His solution will be to raise his prices, and increase his “marketing.” If he is able to convince everyone else that they too should charge for their work of feeding others because then everyone would be able to provide for himself through money, he will unseat the spirit of selflessness. Inevitably this leads to a socialist uprising because while everyone needs food, only the most clever will make any money to buy it, and this will seem very unfair to the majority.

God has placed within the hearts of men the notion that selflessness is the path to life. The socialist and the capitalist use this notion to gather support for their respective causes. The socialist claims that “we” are being selfless, but “they” are not. We are the majority, but they have control over the food, the table, the size of the spoon handles...if they really cared about us, they would build it all differently so that we would not starve. (don’t ask HOW they should build it differently - the fact that it is not working right now is enough proof that our leaders are selfish and need to be replaced with us.)

The capitalist also sees this notion, but tries to convince everyone that in order to help others you must first help yourself. This works for a while, because it is true that you can’t give away what you haven’t got, so first grow your crops, then you can give them to your neighbors. But a seed of self-centeredness can be sown there. The problem comes when we begin to think about how much we want for ourselves. Why don’t I keep a bit for myself first, to be sure I have enough, then I’ll give away the rest. Let’s say, 30% for me, then give away the other 70%. Then, well let’s make it 40/60% or 50/50%. Heck - why do I have to give ANY of it away? I have enough for myself, so I don’t need to ask anything of anyone else. That’s a good thing, right? Not being a burden on my neighbors? So, why don’t they do the same? Aren’t they the selfish ones when they demand that I feed them?

In both cases, the internal notion that selflessness is inherently good is used to justify “our” actions as selfless, and condemn “theirs” as not. It is the very definition of irony to use a law written in our hearts by God to justify our sin. It is almost as though we are unable to save ourselves. It seems that on our own, self-centeredness is all that we can know and experience. Who will save us from this body of sin and death?

How do we offer heaven to the world? It seems it is true that the only way to live -- truly live -- is to die to yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus. That to die is gain. That to join and build a community of people who are willing to trust God for their needs really IS what it is all about. To be anxious about what we will eat or wear is how the pagans live, we are told. To worry is to give up on the one question that matters, and to be in hell already. Live it out yourself. Be the example of trust. Be fearless. Be selfless. What does it matter if we die in the attempt? We have already died. (Gal 2:20).