At the bottom of Dante’s Inferno, we find the traitors, those treacherous betrayers who wrought destruction on others and ultimately, themselves, by turning upon those who trusted them. Traitor is a strong, damning, word. We typically think of traitors as those who betray their country but Dante includes Judas in this lowest circle of Hell because of his betrayal of his friend, teacher, and Lord, Jesus Christ. In Dante’s Hell, there are degrees of betrayal. Before reaching this 9th Circle, Dante encountered “evil counselors” in the 8th Circle – those who dealt treachery in their lies and misdirection – another form of betrayal.

We recently watched Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur, the 2017 version of the classic story. In this version, Jude Law plays Vortigern, the scheming brother of Arthur’s father, who steals the kingdom by striking a deal with a demon. Vortigern literally sacrifices his wife and daughter in his quest for power, treacherously betraying everyone in his life to be king. This story is played over and over throughout history and in the stories we tell. Brutus and Julius Caesar. Claudius in Hamlet. It’s easy to see in the big power plays.

As we enter Holy Week, the week heading into the pinnacle of Christian hope and celebration, I find myself thinking about betrayal. It is a strong word and just hearing it can make one wince. After all, we know it as a bad thing and people who do it as bad people. What is it to betray?

Merriam-Webster offers four definitions for the word “betray”:

1. To lead astray

A general search of the term reveals many, many nuances, but central to it is a sense of a broken promise or letting another down in degrees ranging from treachery to abandonment to unmet expectations, resulting in some level of injury to the other. Part of the complexity of the word lies in that it can be active or passive in its application – we can betray in what we do and what we do not do.

We come to discover that betrayal runs much deeper than blatant treachery. We actually develop the skills of betrayal early. As children, we learn to choose one friend over another based on our moods or preferences or the groups with which we associate. How is this betrayal? Anyone who has ever been left out or excluded knows the feeling of being betrayed. Affections shift with the wind and the nature of relationships is based on such choices. We learn about the hurt of rejection and broken hearts almost from the beginning.

At one level, it is necessary. Choices must be made and we cannot give our hearts equally to everyone. Often, someone must lose in the face of choice. However, betrayal permeates by degrees. Every lie is a betrayal – even the “white” ones – those seemingly insignificant fibs. We betray secrets, we break promises, we compromise our integrity in dishonesty – all are betrayals. And all are in the name of our desires, preferences, convenience, and choice.

Does betrayal occur when no promise was made? Our social fabric is built upon expectations of behavior. We give and receive trust based on an understanding of those expectations. However, everyone also plays in the gray zone of those expectations and navigates the gray based on preference. We let people down in degrees and rationalize based on necessity and our own conscience. Betrayal often sits in the eye of the beholder – it is a matter of expectation. What was my understanding and what was yours?

Certainly choices must be made and not everyone can be chosen equally. In business, it’s done all the time. When there are winners and losers in a deal or transaction, a choice is made and, depending on the relationship and circumstances, it might feel like betrayal. Of course, how it’s done makes all the difference. Sometimes, it is betrayal. And we know it.

Every human relationship is beset by it and anything enduring must face it on some level. No matter what, we will let each other down. We will make a choice that the other feels is a betrayal and we will rationalize it based on the circumstances and our own desires. No, not all betrayals are equal. Thank God. But they all come from the same place.

The theme fits as we enter Holy Week and relive the betrayals associated with the Passion of Jesus Christ. At its most basic level, sin is betrayal. It’s a broken promise, an unmet expectation, or an omission of right effort. Sometime’s betrayal is treacherous and directly hurts the other: Judas directly betrayed Jesus resulting in his torture and crucifixion. Sometimes it’s just a denial: Peter denied knowing Christ on three separate occasions – a betrayal of his faith and friendship. In both cases, they chose themselves at the expense of the other.

We often draw boxes around our betrayals, our sins, by telling ourselves that we never promised to do or not to do something. We hide behind nuance or the parsing of words to soften the sting of our own conscious, but we know betrayal when we see it. Intention can be a difficult thing to pin down and we normally don’t intend to betray. But sin can be gradual, and the slippery slope sneaks up on us, compromising us in the name of convenience, comfort, and concupiscence.

There is so much more that can be written about this. Perhaps betrayal is too strong a word. Maybe I press too far in laying it upon us, after all, we’re not really betraying anyone, right? Today, Catholics around the world will recreate the Passion in Mass by assuming the role of the crowd and shouting “Crucify him” before Pontius Pilate. We do that to remind ourselves that the same brokenness lies within us and though we were not there, that same capacity to betray still haunts us.

Betrayal is a strong word. And though most of us are not acting with malice or evil intent, I wonder if looking at some of the decisions we make through the lens of the other we might catch a glimpse of betrayal in what they are feeling. Perhaps that glimpse might give us pause to consider a more loving way, a more empathetic disposition, in those choices we make.