{"id":402,"date":"2017-09-20T20:32:30","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T20:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/2017\/09\/19\/forgiveness-is-funny-isnt-it\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T21:25:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T21:25:41","slug":"forgiveness-is-funny-isnt-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/forgiveness-is-funny-isnt-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Funny Business of Forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Through the many years that I\u2019ve been drawing Agnus Day<\/em>, my weekly comic strip, I\u2019ve come up with some duds as well as a few that have struck people\u2019s funny bones. Among the more successful, according to the feedback, is the one presented here, drawn back in 2011. It\u2019s inspired by Jesus\u2019 direction to Peter that, rather than the seven times that Peter thought was an act of generosity, Peter ought to forgive another 77 times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think it works on a couple of levels:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the name \u201cFaceBible\u201d is funny. It plays with the fact that the word \u201cbible\u201d means \u201cbook\u201d but it also calls to mind that many of us spend more time and energy evaluating our lives through social media than in the Scriptures, even if we regard the Bible as our source of guidance and inspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s this: who of us hasn\u2019t had the experience of a friend behaving badly on social media and who of us hasn\u2019t been tempted to \u201cunfriend\u201d such a bad actor? The idea that an app might help us weed through our friend list is at the same time hilarious and frightening \u2013 the best kind of humor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story that Jesus tells <\/a>in response to Peter\u2019s reasoned question brings its own laughs. Confronted by his overwhelming debt to the king, that some have calculated<\/a> as being the equivalent of 200,000 years of 12-hour work days, the servant begs for more time! <\/strong>Hilarious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hilarious and sobering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The king\u2019s response to his ridiculous request? Forgiveness of the debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preaching on this same story, John Chrysostom, the early 5th century Archbishop of Constantinople, invited his hearers to consider their own indebtedness to God saying,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

What then are God\u2019s good deeds? He created us from nothing, he made the whole visible world for us, the heaven, the sea, the earth, animals, plants and seeds. I must be brief because of the infinite number of his works. Into us alone of all that are on earth he breathed a living soul. He planted a garden for us. He gave us a helpmate and set us over all the brute species, and crowned us with glory and honor. And yet, after all this, when humanity turned out ungrateful toward its benefactor, he thought us worthy of an even greater gift \u2013 forgiveness. (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament, vol. 1b, [IVP, 2002] p. 86)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And Peter (and we) want to keep score of the grievances we have with others. It\u2019s too funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pr. Jim<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can contact University\u00a0Pastor Jim here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Through the many years that I\u2019ve been drawing Agnus Day, my weekly comic strip, I\u2019ve come up with some duds as well as a few that have struck people\u2019s funny bones. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-james-a-wetzstein"],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"dev@eridesign.com","author_link":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/author\/deveridesign-com\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/06\/20151211-FJA-Christmas-Advent-Vespers-018-300x200.webp","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["James A. Wetzstein<\/a>"],"unlinked":["James A. Wetzstein<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 9 years ago","modified":"Updated 11 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on September 20, 2017","modified":"Updated on December 18, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on September 20, 2017 8:32 pm","modified":"Updated on December 18, 2025 9:25 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11963,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions\/11963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}