I debated whether to weigh in on the Jimmy Kimmel suspension and provide a response from a Christian perspective. If you are a regular visitor to this blog, you know I generally avoid politics, and addressing the Kimmel suspension could easily be viewed as political.

Seeing through the lens of the Kingdom

What attracted me to this issue though is not politics but how a Kingdom view of work so clearly resolves the matter.

One of the seven Kingdom workplace principles I have regularly written and spoken about is the command that we do our work “sincerely.” This is the command the Apostle Paul gave the servants in Colossae and Ephesus. See Colossians 3:22; Ephesians 6:5.

If even the undesirable job of a servant is to be performed sincerely, we can fairly assume the command applies to all other work as well, including that of comedians.

What it means to work sincerely

As I’ve discussed here before, to do one’s work sincerely means to perform one’s job for the reason that job exists in the kingdom of God.

Thus, a pastor or plumber who performs his job primarily for the money is not working sincerely, nor is just about anyone else. A pastor works sincerely when he performs his job to assist people in their spiritual growth because that the role of a pastor. A plumber does his work sincerely when he does so to repair people’s plumbing because that is what the plumber does in world functioning the way God intended it.

Nor is a person working sincerely whose work is performed to bolster his or her self-esteem, or garner fame or acclaim. These are motives that corrupt the sincerity of our effort in performing the work God has given us to do.

And that brings us to the role of a comedian, which is what Jimmy Kimmel is, or at least was supposed to be. Yes, he hosts a late night television show, but the part of that show that is the subject of this post is his comedic monologue. Jimmy Kimmel was hired in this role as a comedian, and the role of a comedian is to make people laugh. Hence, a comedian performs his job sincerely in the Biblical sense when he works to make people laugh.

The real problem with Kimmel’s remarks

There has been much said about Kimmel’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s assassin being false, and they most definitely were. I’m not convinced Kimmel knew those remarks were false at the time, although he certainly does now. Kimmel is like most of us: he was too quick to embrace a narrative that fit his politics, rather than checking his facts. But that was not the biggest problem with what Kimmel said.

The problem from a Biblical perspective is that the role of a comedian is not to persuade people to one’s political opinions; it is to make people laugh. That is why Kimmel was hired, and that is why people buy tickets to see his show. Kimmel’s show had become much like Stephen Colbert’s and even Letterman’s in his later years–political and designed to garner applause rather than laughs.

What Kimmel did would be like me getting up in front of a jury during closing arguments and saying, “I know I’m supposed to convince you of my client’s case, but I feel it is important you understand what I believe about Donald Trump’s policies.” It’s a form of Kaepernicking.

And look, Kaepernicking is not exclusive to the left. Given the posture of our current culture, it is a little more difficult to find Kaepernicking on the right, but it is there also, and with many of the bold moves of the Trump administration will no doubt become more common.

If people worked sincerely

I care more about the kingdom of God than I do about Jimmy Kimmel’s politics, and because I do care more about the Kingdom, I would rather Kimmel work on being funny, not being political, just as I want doctors to doctor me out of a desire for my good health and rather than their own profit.

I would love a world where professional athletes were more interested in entertaining us than in making more money, and politicians were more interested in serving people than accumulating power.

In short, the world would be a better place if people did their work sincerely, or stated differently: the world would be a better place if Jimmy Kimmel focused on making me laugh instead of making me a democrat. GS