Speech given by Jill Shook at the Tesla Showroom Saturday, April 19, 2025

 

 I am so proud of my wife Jill for speaking her truth fearlessly and publicly in a public space. She is definitely in the great tradition of George Fox and early Quakers and of Christians going back to Peter and Paul. 

My name is Jill Shook, and I’m a cofounder of Making Housing and Community Happen, a nonprofit based here in Pasadena. Our organization is faith-rooted- it takes faith to imagine a different world where everyone’s affordably housed.  It also takes advocacy and organizing.  We work with many churches, as well as temples and Mosques throughout the City of Pasadena and beyond to do our organizing and advocacy work . I could talk for hours about many of our successes, but I’m speaking today about this very special weekend.

For churches and the Jewish faith, this is a very holy weekend.  The Passover is a time when God passed over the homes of the Jewish people who had painted the blood of a sacrificed lamb above the entrance to their homes. 

Why was God asking the Jewish people to do this?

They had been enslaved for 400 years, crying out for mercy and to be set free. They were made to build monumental buildings in order to glorify the pharaoh. Today we have a president who wants us to glorify him.

Because the pharaoh of Egypt refused to let the enslaved Jewish people go free to worship their God, God caused a whole series of plagues of gnats and frogs and all kinds of things that were worshiped in Egypt— in order to humble the pharaoh and open his eyes to see that the God of heaven wanted to end slavery and set the people free, as well as setting the pharaoh free of his idol worship.

Today you were here to set our nation free.  God is using you as his hands and heart and feet to stand here in defiance of what is happening. To stand here for truth.  To stand here for democracy, to stand for love, mercy, justice and inclusion. 

What are the idols we worship today? We are all caught up in the system, tainted by the worship of money, power,  and convenience.  — we could put any number of things on the list including violence.  We may not think of ourselves as Violent— but we all support of violent  system.

Martin Luther King said that the US is the biggest purveyor of violence in the history of the world— when we think how our nation began by wiping out the native population, by forcing slaves to come to our country to build our wealth on their backs, to refuse to allow immigrants to have legal status so we could pay them low wages and have them as second class non-citizens, we think about having military bases all over the world— an empire, like an octopus with tentacles everywhere, that has toppled perfectly good democratic governments— I wonder if this may be why God is bringing a plague on us today.  We need to repent of our complicity and turn from our violent ways as a nation.

As a Christian,  this weekend, it’s all about Jesus, just as God passed over the home of the Jewish people by putting the blood of a sacrificed lamb over the entrance of their homes,  today, the blood of Christ passes over or covers our sins, both personally and corporately as a nation-  if we repent and turn away from the violence, the worship of money, convenience, and so many things that we put before loving our neighbor, before seeking understanding rather than judging others. We need to repent for our lack of patience it takes to truly be present to each other include, and embrace all with love. To accept one another just as God fully accepts us—just as we are. 

When the Jewish nation was being formed, God made it clear that they should not have a king- and to worship only God.  Yet the people cried out for a king wanting to be like other nations.  So, God gave them a choice—but also laid out the consequences of their choice.

Today we have a choice, we can support the No Kings Act. 

For the Jewish nation, God gave profits to hold Kings accountable to follow God’s law.  Every prophet spoke to Kings and those in authority to care for the most vulnerable, to change their policies so that the widows and the orphan, and the poor had Justice, mercy and inclusion.

Today you are the prophets standing here for mercy, justice, and inclusion.  We plead today before God for mercy on our nation, for all to be included and not rejected— especially our immigrant friends and neighbors.  But also, the people of Gaza, the people of Ukraine, the people of Sudan the people of Congo and so many places where we as a nation have the power to do good and not evil.  Today we ask for mercy, Justice and inclusion into our foreign policy.

Jesus himself was a prophet and spoke to the authorities about mercy, justice, and inclusion, loving our neighbors as ourselves. In the book of Luke alone, he confronted the authorities 27 times.  Jesus died for his sins but also died because he was challenging the system.  He was a threat to the system— a Roman system  that put into poverty the masses by preventing them from having access to land and homes and Justice and Mercy. They we under the thumb of a system that kept them in fear and impoverished.

This is what it is like today in our time. 

Today you are choosing to be fearless, to be courageous, to stand against a violent system that is forcing people into Salvadorian prisons, and like a weaking ball, dismantling our government and economy—and the world economy. The world is a family—we are all made in God image—and we desperately need each other and what we each have to give, to stand together.

Yesterday at noon I was in two worship services, one with the Black community here in Pasadena where eight pastors preached with all their hearts about the love of Christ and Jesus’ willingness to sacrifice his very life for us.

Last night I was at the United Methodist Church where we had a more somber service reflecting on the death of Christ. 

Yesterday, I also spent time at the Quaker Meeting House where we made posters for today.  Some of our Quaker friends are here with us. 

Whatever faith you might be or if you have no faith community that you are part of, I want to thank you for coming today and sacrificing your time. Thank you for loving our country.  Thank you for loving democracy— a system that believes that we are all leaders, and we all have a responsibility to stand for mercy.  To stand for inclusion.  To stand for Justice. To stand for truth.  To stand for love. 

Thank you.  🙏🏼