Could you forgive your enemies after all you've been given?

In Matthew 18, Jesus tells a story about a king who cancels a servant's debt of ten thousand talents, a sum no servant could repay in a hundred lifetimes. The same servant walks outside, finds a coworker who owes him a hundred denarii, about a hundred days' pay, and grabs him by the throat. When the king hears, he calls the first man back and asks why mercy that large could not stretch to a debt that small. Then he hands him to the jailers until he pays everything he owes.

On Sunday, November 8, Ross Douthat put almost the same question to President Trump on "60 Minutes." Douthat, a Catholic conservative, offered a hypothetical. All Trump had to do to enter paradise was feel love and forgiveness for James Comey, Nancy Pelosi, "anyone who you have expressed hate for." "Well, then I wouldn't be real, would I?" Trump answered. Douthat pressed: "You have had the most charmed and remarkable life of any American in my entire lifetime... After all that's been given to you?" Trump's last word: "Can I be honest? I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies, and I always will."

The clip spread overnight. Some viewers praised his candor, as if honesty about a grudge settled it, though Jess Fields, a longtime supporter, called it "painful to watch." Others announced where he would spend eternity, which is a strange verdict from people who owe the same king. Both camps point the story at someone else, and the first man who heard it makes that hard.

Jesus told it to Peter.

Matthew 18:21-2221Then Peter came and said to him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?"22Jesus said to him, "I don't tell you until seven times, but, until seventy times seven.

Peter was asking about his brother, the person who keeps hurting him at close range, and he thought seven times was generous. Jesus answers with a number meant to end the counting. Trump's objection deserves a hearing, because forgiveness performed for cameras would be fake. The parable agrees, and that is why its last line is so heavy.

Matthew 18:35So my heavenly Father will also do to you, if you don't each forgive your brother from your hearts for his misdeeds."

"From your hearts" closes the easy exit of saying the right words, and it closes the honest exit too, since naming a grudge truthfully doesn't release it. Christians have argued for centuries about how that warning fits with grace, and the story doesn't settle it. It only refuses to call the refusal small. Few of us will be asked on television, yet we each have a name we'd answer the same way: a brother, an old friend, a boss, the other party. Douthat put the king's question to a president, and it lands just as hard on anyone who has been forgiven much and is still keeping a list.