from the importunate-widow desk
Note: moderate language advisory for this video
Jon Stewart is back on The Daily Show. For one day a week, at least. His first show was this past Monday, and he came out swinging with a piece about the upcoming presumptive election battle between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The whole piece is good (it’s worth asking why we have to choose between two very old men of whom the question of capacity at least has to be asked, when there are plenty of capable and qualified people under the age of 50 who could be on the ballot).
But his closing words are a tour de force.
So what’s the good news? …That was not rhetorical framing, I’m literally asking you.
Look, the next nine months or so (and more than that, depending on the coup schedule)— they’re gonna suck […] it’s all gonna make you feel like Tuesday, November 5th is the only day that matters. And that day does matter, but man, November 6th ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at, or November 7th.
If your guy loses, bad things might happen, but the country is not over. And if your guy wins, the country is in no way saved. I’ve learned one thing over these last nine years [note: since his first run on The Daily Show ended]—and I was glib at best, and probably dismissive at worst about this: the work of making this world resemble one that you would prefer to live in is a lunch-pail [bleep] job, day in and day out, where thousands of committed, anonymous, smart, and dedicated people bang on closed doors and pick up those that are fallen and grind away at issues ’til they get a positive result—and even then have to stay on to make sure that result holds.
So the good news is, I’m not saying you don’t have to worry about who wins the election. I’m saying you have to worry about every day before it and every day after, for-ever.
Although, on the plus side, I am told that at some point, the sun will run out of hydrogen.
If you’re a Christian like me, please resist the urge to mentally tone-police or redraft Stewart’s statement here. Yes, the word “worry” is a little bit outside our theological preference. Yes, the nihilism of the sun’s eventual demise is far from the actual hope we have in the future. Yes, the Lord is sovereign over our elections.
But the message he’s sending here comports with Christian theology, as well as probably every theological framework people in our world subscribe to. Namely: that the fate of the world isn’t decided on a single day, and the outcome of even the most fateful days is less important than that of the days that precede it and follow it; and that our role in the meantime is to keep trying to make this world resemble the one that you would want to live in (Jeremiah 29:7), to pick up those who are fallen (Matthew 10:7-8), and to grind away at issues ’til you get a positive result (Luke 18:1-8).
And Stewart is framing this as good news! Because it’s funny, yes—but also because it brings things to within our sphere of influence. We can affect the way this world works, and in fact we should. We have the ability and opportunity to make changes.
So let’s do that.
