Cheaters

We were talking about how keen we both were to watch The Bridge Project's The Winter's Tale.

- Do you like Shakespeare?
- I like Ethan Hawke.
- But he's an adulterer! He cheated on Uma Thurman and their two kids!
- You don't know what happened, what it was like to be in his shoes. Maybe he had his reasons. You can't judge.

I mumbled something about penance and repentance, but this kept stewing in my mind all the way home. For all my mock protestations about Ethan Hawke's adultery, I am very excited about the play and the fact that he is in it - I loved Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. In the latter, he might very well have alluded to why his marriage with Uma Thurman broke down. In conversation with Julie Delpy's character, Celine, he (Jesse) describes his unhappy marriage as akin to "running a small nursery with someone I used to date."

We all judge. We judge people for judging. We are self-righteous about the self-righteous. We all have standards of some sort and according to our standards, some people are right, and some are wrong. We cannot avoid making judgments. Despite the ever-present danger of hypocrisy, I still think that it is important to make such distinctions about motivations and action, especially with regards to ourselves. Hate is wrong. Lying is wrong. Cheating is wrong.

However, when we make moral distinctions about other people's actions, the most important thing is to recognise that had we been in their position, we would have done the same - or worse. The difference between making a moral judgment (or being morally discerning), and judging someone - is humility. This is the honest admission that you are nobody's moral superior, and are probably morally inferior in so many ways. Jesus told us as much when he allowed himself to be crucified - for us. He took the judgment that we deserved to bear.

We are all cheaters. God loves us with a faithful, everlasting love, but we have been faithless. We love other things more than Him, in place of Him. Willful self-determination, money, power, success, romance, human approval... the list goes on and on. Even though he gave his whole heart to us, we gave our hearts away - and we have done so at our own peril. We do not love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and as a result, we do not come anywhere close to loving our neighbours as ourselves.

We have caused God - and consequently each other - so much pain, and yet his reponse to our betrayal is not to lash out in anger, to hurt us like we have hurt him. Instead, he takes all the pain and hurt of the world - that we have caused - upon himself, so that we may be reconciled to him. We deserved judgment, but he showed us mercy. We deserved his anger, but he showed us forgiveness. We are cheaters, but he is ever loving, ever faithful.

I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations;
I will sing of you among the peoples.
For great is your love, higher than the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,
and let your glory be over all the earth.
Psalm 108:3-5