Let’s talk about adultery. In Holy Scripture and common usage it means a married person having sex outside marriage. The usual response to an allegation of adultery ranges from a gossipy tut-tut to damnation in hell. From the standpoint of Christian morality, limiting it to that evades a far deeper and more challenging understanding of adultery.
At its root it means to defile something or betray the integrity of a relationship on which the well being of others depends. Two obvious examples are food and medicines. The public relies on the integrity of foods to be safe if not wholesome. Adulterated foods are products that are presented as something other than what they are or contaminated by pathogens causing illness or death. Adulterated medicines are in like manner something other than what they are said to be, ineffective, possibly harmful. You can probably think of other examples such as well water contamination, air pollution, etc. We expect and depend on the integrity of the things we consume. It’s a betrayal of trust when they have been adulterated, a betrayal that causes physical, emotional and financial harm.
The same is true with human relationships. Adultery is far more than illicit sexual relations that betray the promises made in marriage. Bonds of trust exist between friends, coworkers, buyers and sellers, employees and employers, governments and the people, and between states and nations. They are bonds of trust that are always provisional in two ways. Terms and conditions for some bonds of trust are defined by contracts and treaties between parties establishing mutual expectations enforceable in the courts. But the bonds of trust dominating daily life are unwritten mutual expectations of respect, honesty, and trustworthiness taken to be the right and proper way of things. Violation of bonds like these is adultery in the full sense of the word.
It’s a broader meaning that shines a brighter light on the responsibility Christians have for honoring the relationships in their lives no matter what sort they are. One of the things that set Jesus apart from all other humans is that he honored and never betrayed any relationship he had, whether intimate or casual. His honesty and integrity was the human manifestation of infinite divine love and the source of all truth. His disciples did their best to follow his example but were tripped up by the human propensity to gossip, compete for status, be prejudiced in their judgments, and just plain peevish. It led to countless acts of little adultery, intentional and unintentional. In other words, they were just like you and me.
They persevered nevertheless to become more mature in Christ by allowing the love of Jesus to envelop and lead them. It’s a form of spiritual discipline that surrenders self to Christ Jesus in order to receive a truer more confident self in return. A truer more confident self that exudes Christian humility, which is a type of high self esteem having no need to compete with or belittle others but to be more constantly aware of one’s obligation to respect the dignity of every person and the whole of creation.
Our capacity to fail, even fall into wickedness, knows no limits, so it’s a spiritual discipline that is always a work in progress. It’s why we are always in need of confession, reconciliation and forgiveness. John’s gospel tells the story of a woman caught in adultery (John 7). When her accusers had been shamed into leaving, Jesus asked if there was no one left to condemn her. She looked around and said no, but there was one left, Jesus himself. He said “Neither do I condemn you, go and don’t do that again.” It’s what Jesus says to each of us when we fail by betraying relationships with others – get up, start over again, trust me to be with you.
There are people who have no time for bonds of trust, whether formal or informal, nor do they place much value on integrity in what they see as a dog-eat-dog world. Self confident Christian humility does not surrender to them. It names them for what they are and proclaims a better way, as Paul did in 1 Cor. 13. Christians have an obligation not to participate in institutionalized systems of disrespect and betrayal that corrupt bonds of trust: in politics, business, their own careers and social activities. It doesn’t mean to be isolated from the world, but to be in the world as better examples of what bonds of trust look like when they are imperfectly lived out in daily life.