The biggest question we humans face is probably, “What happens to us when we die?” Is that the end, or is there something more? It’s a question which all the major world religions attempt to answer in one way or another, by saying that the human soul enters nirvana or goes to a paradise garden, or that we are reincarnated to live again in a different form. Christianity has its own specific and detailed doctrines of a bodily resurrection and the hope of life in glory with God, for which Jesus has blazed the trail. These beliefs comfort us, especially when we’ve recently lost someone very dear to us; they also encourage us to keep plodding along the pilgrim path in the hope of a heavenly reward. The problem of course is that we have no way of proving the truth of our beliefs: we simply have to have the faith that they are not false.

Given its importance, it’s not surprising that this question came up in one of the many debates Jesus had with the religious scholars of his day – you’ll know that, time and time again in the Gospels, he is asked questions that are more often designed to paint him into a theological corner rather than to shed light on what he is teaching! Hence we have the famous question about paying taxes, asked earlier in this chapter in order to find out whether Jesus was a true Jewish patriot or happy to co-operate with the despised Romans; as you know his answer is so clever that his critics are silenced. Today’s preposterous question about a woman marrying no fewer than seven brothers is something similar: it’s being asked by a group called the Sadducees who are trying to work out exactly where Jesus sits on their spectrum of belief: should he be hailed as an ally or denounced as a dangerous heretic?

If we’re to understand what’s going on in this story, we need to look at some background (you probably guessed that I’d say that). In particular, we need to know something about both the Sadducees and so-called “Levirate marriage” which sounds very strange to our ears. This might not sound very exciting but please bear with me as it’s essential.

We’ll start with the Sadducees. Like the Pharisees who we’ve all heard of, they were members of one particular Jewish sect – today we might say ‘denomination’ – at the time of Jesus. Matthew mentions them eight times in his Gospel and Mark does so twice, however this is their only appearance in Luke (to complete the set, I can tell you that you won’t find them at all in John’s Gospel, probably because he was writing more for a Greek audience than for a Jewish one).

We don’t know very much about the Sadducees. They seem to have been a group of Temple priests which emerged in the 2^nd century BC and vanished when the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed, around 40 years after the time of Jesus. They did have a certain amount of influence with a few wealthy families among the ruling classes but never gained a popular following. They were absolute sticklers for the Jewish law and had a reputation for getting into theological arguments, especially with the reforming Pharisees who, they felt, had drifted away from the core of Jewish faith and brought in ideas from Greek philosophy rather than concentrating on the books of Moses. Today we might call the Sadducees “fundamentalists”: very hot on defending traditional views of their faith and totally opposed to any new interpretations and insights that might arise.

Let’s move now to Levirate marriage: this comes from an obscure chapter in Deuteronomy and worked like this: if a man died before his wife had given birth to a son, then his brother was to marry her and hopefully father a son on his behalf. This seems very strange to us but, because marriage was seen as a vital element in keeping society stable, it was felt that this option was better than the widow marrying someone from outside her husband’s family. It kept the family line going, which was important in Jewish culture (just think of all those Old Testament genealogies which we find so boring), it also gave the woman economic security at a time when there were no state welfare benefits. I have no idea as to how often this custom was practised (although it does creep into the story of Ruth and Boaz); however it was clearly something that people in Jesus’ day knew about, or else there would have been little point in the Sadducees mentioning it.

You probably aren’t much interested in little-known first-century Jewish sects, nor in an arcane piece of ancient Jewish law! So how does this all fit together, and where do death and resurrection come in? Well, the thing that really defined the Sadducees was their refusal to believe in a bodily resurrection.

That’s because their faith was totally shaped by the five books of Moses – the Torah – which come at the start of the Bible and don’t include this doctrine. The hope of resurrection does come in some of the other books such as Job, Psalms and Isaiah, but the Sadducees didn’t rate these as “proper” Scripture. And, as I’ve already hinted, they were also unwilling to accept the theological traditions which had developed in mainstream Judaism over the centuries: they saw these as corruptions of the pure faith that God had first given to his people. Putting it simply, the Sadducees felt that they alone were the true Jews standing firm for their faith. They knew that Jesus had often crossed swords with their opponents such as the scribes and the Pharisees, so they thought up this ridiculous story about the woman and her husbands to see if Jesus might actually prove to be “on their side”. His answer must have come as a great disappointment. 

For Jesus plays the Sadducees at their own game. “You don’t believe in resurrection because it’s not mentioned in the Torah, the books of Moses?”, he says, “Well, let’s see about that”. So he first says, “You really haven’t understood what people mean when they talk about resurrection, have you? You’re thinking far too literally, for there can’t be marriage as we know it in any future life, it would be impossible”.

And then Jesus goes for the killer blow: “You remember that story about God speaking to Moses from the burning bush?” – we can imagine the Sadducees nodding in agreement – “Well, God says that he is the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. Those great men, founders of our nation, all lived at different times and had died many years before Moses came onto the scene. Yet God says that he is their God, using the present tense – he wouldn’t have been able to say that their spirits weren’t still alive, would he!” Some scribes, the Sadducees’ academic enemies, are delighted by what they’ve heard and shout out, “Bravo, Jesus, well said”; the Sadducees themselves stay silent and ask no more questions as they don’t want to risk further humiliation.

By now you may well be thinking, “I didn’t come to church today in order to learn about a religious spat that took place 2000 years ago and 3500 miles away. What on earth has this to do with us?” That’s a fair comment; so let me try to drag this story into our own situation.

First, we need to notice that this story does tell us a bit – not very much! – about our belief or hope of a future life with God. That’s impossible to describe in ways we can understand; but Jesus does at least try to dispel some wrong ideas. He says that life in heaven (and he should know!), especially its human relationships, is very different from life on earth; marriage and sexual activity will be unknown. Most religions have a belief in the afterlife; but what Jesus says contrasts, for instance, with a commonly-held Muslim view which sees heaven as a garden of lush greenery and shade from which flow streams of milk, honey and wine. Whatever kind of meat its residents desire will be freshly provided; labour and fatigue will be unknown; and men will be rewarded with seventy or so beautiful young women. I must be fair and say that not all Muslims believe this; nevertheless it’s a long way from what Jesus is saying.

But the focus of today’s conversation wasn’t really about the afterlife at all – that was just a convenient subject for the Sadducees to hang their question on. Indeed, this absurd tale may well have been trotted out on other occasions when they’d wanted to check up on someone’s theological position to see if they used Scripture in a way they deemed legitimate. The Sadducees had no interest in learning new insights from Jesus; they only wanted to see if he was “sound” or “flaky”.

There are Christians today – it’s not always to decide whether they are reactionary fundamentalists or heroes bravely trying to ward off attacks on the historic faith – who have their own “test questions” which they use to check other peoples’ beliefs. If the questions are, in their view, answered correctly they’ll accept the people they’ve been asking as “real Christians”; if the answers don’t measure up they’ll dismiss them as “woolly liberals” and refuse to have fellowship or work with them. The possibility that they may not actually have a monopoly on God’s truth never seems to enter their minds!

So what “test” questions might be asked? Here’s a selection: do you believe that the world was created in six literal days of 24 hours; do you believe that Adam and Eve were the first people; do you believe that every word of the Bible was directly inspired by God; do you believe that Jonah actually was swallowed by a big fish; do you accept that Jesus’ mother was a virgin; do you believe that Jesus will return to earth in glory as our Judge – clearly some of these questions touch on more crucial aspects of our faith than do others. Other questions might seek to elucidate one’s views on sexuality, gender and marriage – very much a “crunch” area in some Christian circles today.

I’m going to lay my cards on the table. I believe in the Bible: I wouldn’t be standing before you if I didn’t. And I hold fast to the central tenets of our faith: in Jesus’ birth, life and teaching, in his death and bodily resurrection, in his ascension to heaven and the prospect of his return to earth. I accept the Gospels as true, albeit edited, accounts of Jesus’ life and I’m happy to read much of the Old Testament as true history. I regard the stories at the beginning of Genesis as myths which are trying hard to explain why things are the way they are; at the other end of the scale I struggle with the imagery of Revelation. So in many respects I am completely orthodox in my beliefs.

But I don’t want to be like the Sadducees and lock myself into the way I read Scripture. I don’t want to say that every question about our faith was conclusively worked through in the first century. I’m thankful for the way that thinking people developed Christian belief over the years even though they sometimes got things very wrong. I believe that, to a degree, we have to reinvent the way we live as Christians in every time or place. Above all I’m convinced that we are on a faith journey with God, never stuck in the safe rut of certainty but always willing to question and learn; I’m also convinced that our God is alive and that his Spirit constantly wants to open our eyes to fresh insights and understandings of his eternal word, the Bible.

In other words I want to be strong in my faith but not dogmatic, sure of what I believe but not narrow-minded, based firmly on the Bible but open to fresh interpretations. I want my beliefs to be built on the foundation of Church tradition but recognising that they must be appropriately adapted as culture and society change. That’s not easy and it does lay me open to being influenced by current fads which may not be helpful; I do need friends who will stop me in my tracks and say, “Are you absolutely sure that you are being led by God, that you’re not veering away from truth and into heresy?”

Nevertheless I trust and hope that the way I use the Bible, imperfect and liable to error as it is, is one of which Jesus approves. For the word of the living God is still active and powerful to teach, guide, judge and inspire us. That’s some-thing the hidebound Sadducees never seem to have realised.