我的牧師決定給他的四個孩子度假驚喜。「我們要去堪薩斯州的彰聲市(Junction City)」，他對孩子說，「那是爺爺曾經當牧師的地方，很好玩哦。」其實他私底下打算只在彰聲市一天，然後開車去美好的迪士奈樂園。
孩子對他的話深信不疑，對那些狐疑的朋友炫耀說，「我們要去堪薩斯度假，好棒耶！」從丹佛到彰聲市的漫長車程，牧師一直形容那裡的好玩地方，替孩子打氣：遊樂場、游泳池、冰淇淋攤子，還可能有保齡球場。
參觀完爺爺的舊教會，孩子以為要去住旅館、玩水，誰知老爸發出驚人之語：「堪薩斯這裡有點無聊，我們開車去迪士奈好了！」老媽這時從袋子裡拿出特別做的迪士奈帽子。
牧師以為孩子會高興得跳上跳下，結果他們竟然抱怨道：「我們才不想又要坐車。」「你不是說要去游泳嗎？」「我以為要去打保齡球！」
大驚喜竟然起了反效果。接下來幾小時，牧師握著方向盤悶悶不樂，孩子則是不斷擴大彰聲市比起迪士奈的好處。
我們牧師從不會錯過機會教育，將他的慘痛經驗變成一個非常好的講道例證。他引用路易斯C. S. Lewis的話：「我們是一群心不在焉的生物，有機會得享無邊際的喜樂，卻縱情於飲酒、床事、野心，就好像一個無知的孩子在貧民區玩泥巴，無從想像受邀在海邊度假是什麼光景。」在寫給朋友馬爾肯的信上，路易斯又說：「屆時，天上的高山深谷，與你現今所見的高山深谷，兩者即非複品與原版的關係，亦非替品與真品的關係﹔兩者乃如花之於根莖，鑽石之於礦源。」
牧師說，沒錯，我們的渴望很微小。我們在彰聲市耍賴，非要去玩旋轉木馬，但是路的彼端卻有著迪士奈的「太空山脈」過山車等著我們。
今年是路易斯百年冥誕 (譯注:原專欄文章發表當時)路易斯貢獻良多，其中之一就是讓天堂重新恢復應有的思維重量。在他之前，天堂是個令人難為情，原始人殘留的想望。對天堂認真的基督徒則被批為「畫天空大餅」心態。路易斯自己也有過揮之不去的擔心，「怕自己被賄賂，被基督教的永生盼望蠱惑了。」但是他繼而強調天堂從道德而言存在的必要，並且在《夢幻巴士》(The Great Divorce) 精彩描繪了想像中的天堂景像。
從歷史來說，現代之前的每個時代都想當然認為有來生，而且是件好事，因為我們對古文明的理解多來自於他們在墳墓裡堆積的東西，不過如何準備來生的具體看法，則各有不同。雨果說：「我是天使長蝌蚪」。只是現在有人告訴我們如何盡量當一隻最好的蝌蚪，卻甚少有人告訴我們如何準備孵化。
哲學家兼神學家魏樂德(Dallas Willard)提到一位婦女拒談死後的生命，因為她不希望子女因為發現沒有來生而失望。魏樂德則指出，如果沒有來生，人也就沒有可以失望的意識了！但是如果有來生，沒有準備而進入，恐怕會有比失望還要嚴重的體驗。
我自己有個理論：天堂會讓忠心的基督徒得到他們為了耶穌在世界所犧牲的。我的登山朋友刻意住在芝加哥的貧民窟，將來會獨享優勝美地公園。在乾旱的蘇丹行醫的宣教士將有自己的熱帶雨林可以探索。(這可是新約聖經嘉許貧窮，但是卻以華麗的詞藻形容天堂的原因？)
路易斯的妻子喬伊(Joy Davidman)同意保羅說的，如果基督徒復活的看法錯誤，那「『我們就算比眾人都可憐』，因為若是如此，唯一的好處就只在今生，而基督徒卻要放棄這一切。」
路易斯與喬伊只共度了四年歲月，喬伊即因癌症離世。我毫不懷疑路易斯目睹妻子與病魔博鬥，自己對天堂的觀點被考驗，也更加堅定。他希望，喬伊撫平他心裡的渴望，只是預先略嘗所有渴望得到滿足的那一天。他熱切相信，折磨喬伊身體的痛苦，好像生產的痛苦，是宣告新生命誕生的最後一聲吶喊。路易斯看到，相信天堂不是一廂情願，而是深思過的願望。
西班牙哲學家烏納牧諾的米蓋爾 (Miguel de Unamuno) 問一名頭腦簡單的農夫，相信上帝，但不相信天堂的理論，看看會是什麼情況。農夫想了想，回答說：「那上帝用來作什麼？」 | .. | My pastor decided to pull a vacation surprise on his four children. "We're going to Junction City, Kansas," Peter told them. "It's where my dad used to pastor a church, and we can have lots of fun there." Meanwhile he made secret plans to spend one afternoon in Junction City, then drive on to enjoy the glories of Disney World.
Ever trusting, his children bragged to skeptical friends, "We're going to Kansas for vacation. It's great!" All during the long drive from Denver to Junction City, Peter kept up morale by describing the wonders awaiting them: playgrounds, a swimming pool, an ice cream stand, maybe even a bowling alley.
After touring Granddad's old church, the kids were ready to check into a motel and go swimming when their dad dropped the bombshell. "You know something, it's kind of boring here in Kansas. Why don't we just drive to DISNEY WORLD!" Mom reached in a bag and pulled out four custom-made Mickey Mouse hats.
Peter expected his kids to jump up and down in delight. Instead, they complained: "Ah, who wants to get back in the van?" "What about the swimming pool? You promised!" "I thought we were going to go bowling!"
The great surprise had backfired. For the next few hours Peter sat behind the steering wheel and smoldered as his children expanded on all the advantages of Junction City over Disney World.
Never one to miss a homiletical opportunity, Peter turned this fiasco into a fine sermon illustration, quoting C. S. Lewis: "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea." In a letter to his friend Malcolm, Lewis added that "the hills and valleys of Heaven will be to those you now experience not as a copy is to an original, nor as a substitute to the genuine article, but as the flower to the root, or the diamond to the coal."
Yes, Peter said, our desires are too small. We stamp our feet and insist on a merry-go-round in Junction City when Disney World's Space Mountain lies just down the road.
This year is the one-hundredth anniversary of C. S. Lewis's birth, and among his many accomplishments was restoring heaven to a place of intellectual respectability. Before him, heaven was an embarrassment, a holdover of primitive wish-fulfillment, and Christians who took heaven seriously were accused of a "pie in the sky" mentality. Lewis himself admits to the nagging "fear that I was bribed —that I was lured into Christianity by the hope of everlasting life." Yet he went on to stress the sheer moral necessity of heaven and to paint a wonderfully imaginative portrait of it in The Great Divorce.
Historically, every age before the modern assumed an afterlife—a good thing, since much of what we know about ancient civilizations comes from what they stashed in their tombs—disagreeing only on the particulars of how best to prepare. "I am the tadpole of an archangel," wrote Victor Hugo. Nowadays, we get much advice on becoming the best possible tadpoles, but little on how to prepare for metamorphosis.
Philosopher and theologian Dallas Willard tells the story of a woman who refused to talk about life beyond death because, she said, she didn't want her children to be disappointed if it turned out no afterlife existed. As Willard points out, if no afterlife exists, no one will have any consciousness with which to feel disappointment! On the other hand, if there is an afterlife, whoever enters that next life unprepared may experience far more than mere disappointment.
I have a theory that heaven will offer faithful Christians whatever they sacrificed on earth for Jesus' sake. My mountain-climbing friend who intentionally lives in a slum area of Chicago will have Yosemite Valleys all to himself. A missionary doctor in the parched land of Sudan will have her own private rain forest to explore. (Could this be why the New Testament commends poverty while portraying heaven in such sumptuous terms?)
Joy Davidman, wife of C. S. Lewis, came to agree with Saint Paul that if we are wrong about resurrection, "'Then we Christians are of all men the most miserable.' Because then, you see, the only real good would be the good things of this world—which Christians must often give up."
Lewis and Davidman spent only four years together before Joy died of cancer. I have no doubt that Lewis's own views of heaven were both tested and strengthened as he watched his wife's agonizing battle. The longing she had answered in him, he hoped, was but a foretaste of a time when all his longings would be fulfilled. The pain that wracked her body, he fervently believed, was like the pain of childbirth, a last loud announcement of new life aborning. Lewis saw belief in heaven not as wishful thinking, but as thoughtful wishing.
The Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno once tried out his theory of belief in God, but no heaven, on a rather simple-minded peasant. The peasant thought a minute and then replied, "So what is this God for?" |
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