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Jesus Freak: Feeding Healing Raising the Dead

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Wow! I mean....Wow! A uniquely powerful narrative. Look for it soon...

The book is due out in February 2010....PRE-ORDER NOW!

How many times must we read true stories about people who are living as Jesus today, before we begin to adopt their ways...walk their wisdom...breathe the beauty of intentionally "leaning into the interruption" (p.77) that living in The Way, actually affords us. Why do we complain that so many of us seem to be missing the miracle of living - inhabited by the Spirit of God?

In this book, Sara Miles reveals that "Sharing our real stories, unvarnished and unfinished, not only provide helpful tips or sympathetic laughs: it's the thing that allows us to become whole." (p.76). This book is penned to "pass it on." Parts of it will make you laugh, make you weep, make you cringe -- and stand awestruck at the magnificence of the miracle of mercy. Listen to Sara Miles:

"We'll stay hungry if we eat alone. We'll be lonely if we think we can only share fellowship with the right people. We'll starve if we believe that a community is a supernatural kind of miracle, or a product we can buy -- not something we create by offering ourselves recklessly to others." (p.26).

If, as Sara suggests, "we understand God through stories," (p.1) -- I assure you that the stories she shares in these pages will rearrange your heart, redirect your feet, empower you with the essential energy and deliver the direction to embrace the leading of God's Spirit, so eloquently illustrated in this uniquely powerful portrayal.

If you are one who is recovering from being a byproduct of established religion, read this book to restore your relationship with the Living God and your confidence in "a better way" that Jesus continues to call us to -- Today.

Christianity is not an intellectual endeavor. It is not a philosophy. It is a way of life where the heart pumps direction to the hands, mouth and feet. Sara Miles life, and those around her, are living, breathing evidence of this. It is where we encounter "inappropriate locations for something holy to occur" (p.6). This is true from the perspective of our sacred texts, as Sara points out:

"The first thing we learn from the story of Jesus' baptism is that God is probably not planning to reveal anything particularly important in church, or in any kind of temple we think is appropriate for the holy, or through anyone who's an official holy man" (p.5).

The point is that this book is about permission; permission to experience dimensions of the Christian life and the God who inhabits it in ways that you have heretofore denied yourself. As the author states emphatically, "I kept learning that my new Christian identity required me to act" (p.XIV).

A truly timely, riveting, practical, paradigm shifting story. Share extra copies with others. This book was written to be passed around and shared with others. Make a meal out of it --- a potluck.

Sara Miles' memoir of living the word of Christ is the kind of frank, forthright challenge that many Christians need to get us out of our self-satisfied funk. She shows us that, far from being a set of tenets to believe, Jesus gives us the hope of a new and transformed life. And that life has played out in her by giving her new friends, new hope, and something meaningful to live for.

As detailed in her previous book, Take This Bread, Miles came to Christ late in life. But when she did, she dared to hope that the words of Jesus and the apostles were more than metaphors: maybe we are literally meant to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and lift up the oppressed. So she did so, right where she lived, in the least desirable part of San Francisco.

And she unearths a life full of more meaning than she could hope for. Founding a food pantry in her church, she meets the whole range of her city's people, from the rich and haughty to the low and desperate, seeing Jesus in each of them. Her life of prayer and service to the word takes her outside of the usual "Christian" circles, and she sees Jesus everywhere she goes.

Chapters on feeding the hungry, healing the sick, forgiving sinners, and raising the dead give object lessons in how Christ is about more than mouthing correct pieties. In particular, the healing chapter convicted me of how I take the message for granted and look for easy ways out of Christ's word in my life. Her unusual bluntness can have the same effect on you.

Miles challenges Christians to see Jesus' word as something we can live up to. Not just a list of beliefs, Christ gives us a new, abundant life, but too many of us fear to live it. Miles shows us how living out Christ's message has given her more than she ever dreamed possible, and she dares us to think that we, too, could have Jesus in our midst. She makes me believe.

Sara Miles, former restaurant cook and war correspondent, established herself as one of the most engaging and inspiring voices in contemporary Christianity with the account of her conversion, Take This Bread. In this much anticipted new book, she takes us further into her ministry at St Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco. She asks what it would mean for us if lived as if we - and our neighbors - were Jesus. "It's actually pretty straightforward, Jesus says. Heal the sick. Cast out demons. Cleanse the lepers. *You* give the people something to eat. *You* have the authority to forgive sins. Raise the dead." (xi) Again and again, Sara and her friends, in all frail and fallible humanity, enact the Gospel, and we are left (to borrow her term) poleaxed by grace. Sara's tremendous, experiential faith in the reality of Jesus and his transforming power will challenge some Christians, while the inclusive embrace of her community will challenge others. It is a boundary-breaking freshness that blows through this book. Readers, Christian and not, liberal or conservative, are at great risk of being taken up by this wind!

Sara Miles shares her obsession with living like Jesus among the sidelined people of America. A self-described "Jesus Freak," Sara oversees The Food Pantry of St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, CA. She shares numerous stories of encountering the presence of God in people many well-adjusted Americans might just as soon ignore.

Miles writes moving, lyrical prose while celebrating the miraculous appearance of God's kingdom in the most chaotic of persons. She's a storyteller, and she's at her best when telling stories about The Food Pantry. Sara certainly swims in a more theologically liberal current than I do, and her freewheeling reading of Scripture were frustratingly imprecise on more than one occasion (cf. Jesus being healed of racism, 18).

For all our theological differences, "Jesus Freak" remains a book to celebrate. Miles takes Jesus seriously, so much so that she believes Jesus whenever he says (in various ways) that we, his disciples, really can do much of what he did by the power of the Spirit. The Christian life is incarnational, just as Jesus, the Word of God, became flesh and lived among us. Or, in Miles' words, our "spiritual life" following Jesus means we must be a "physical life," tangibly blessing others.

"Jesus Freak" is an infectious book to tangle with, one that I hope motivates us all to follow in the footsteps of the Man from Galilee.

What Sara Miles is talking about in this book is radical Christianity. The really odd thing is that she is only listening to the words of Jesus and acting on them. In other words, this should be common Christianity. Sara and her Church are actually feeding the hungry and cooking for them too, instead of the practice of many Churches who have a food pantry open at some short specified hours. I was attracted to this book because of the title. As one of the multitude of youth that decided to follow Jesus during the Jesus Movement of the 70s, I relished being called a Jesus Freak back then. The book is well named because it harkens back to that time when we were putting the Bible into action instead of just playing Church. Like Sara we were concerned with feeding the hungry and befriending the unloved. I suppose some Christians who pick up this book are going to be put off by Sara's liberal views, but they shouldn't be. I did not agree with all her ways of looking at things, and that is ok. The Bible says "by their fruits you will know them". If that is the case, then Sara Miles is sprouting fruit all over the place. This is a wonderful book that you should read.

Kept thinking of my late mentor Bea Brickey while reading this wonderful book. The chapters on Come and See, Feeding, Healing, Forgiving,Raising the Dead, Follow Me, are so concise and readable. The reason I kept thinking of Bea Brickey was because like the author, she believed that to be a real 'Jesus Freak', you had to live an authentic Christian life, and for lack of better terminology, become like Christ to those around you.

So one takes care of the sick and in whatever way, heals them. Or what about feeding that person you encounter who is hungry? And forgiving. Yet, how quick are you to forgive the person who has said or done something wrong? I remember when my late husband was hit and left disabled by a drunk driver, and later died, and how he constantly reminded his family that we should never hold a grudge against the drunk driver. Have lost count of the number of times as I lay in bed, where I have prayed and asked the Lord to help and bless that man.

Yet, its the last chapter in the book where the author shares the strange looks and comments she gets from some 'Christians' who didn't see the simple Jesus the author sees. Instead modern day western Christianity is all to often about putting on a production, showing off, being bigger and better than someone else. Loved how the author reminded me of why I like being a Christian. In a way it reminded me of The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and how he reminds the Christian that when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die to self.

In this book, Sara Miles relates the very provocative idea of "being" Jesus and feeding the hungry, healing the sick, forgiving the wrongdoers and raising the dead. It reminds me of the old saying, "It's not that Christianity doesn't work, it's that it's never been tried." Sara Miles deserves props for very publicly asking the question and relating her story which is fundamentally of a former athiest who becomes born again and enthusiastically starts a food pantry in the name of Jesus. True, other Christians have founded food pantries, but what makes this one different is that it is THIS author's story. She shares the questions she's had about what Christianity looks like, and she shares what she thinks the answers are. It is another thread in that 2000-year-long discussion. The book itself is structured nicely, however the chapter on "Forgiving" is noticeably short, evidence perhaps of the continuing discussion the author is still having with herself. Some of the theology is shakey. And in the chapter "Raising the Dead," there is a political diatribe that feels like the author went down another rabbit hole. So I would recommend that people read it for its story, but not look to it for theological authority.

I love books like this and wish there were more of them. Although Sara Miles is a gay female living in San Francisco, and I'm a straight white male living in rural Pennsylvania, I felt an immediate kinship with the author. I, too, came late to my faith, at the age of 47, and I still find myself feeling frustrated by the tight confines of doctrine and dogma, even though I also attend an Episcopal church. Even though I see my particular denomination as being one of the most open and inclusive, I cannot shake the feeling that every denomination is in a constant battle to halt, or at least impede, any type of change. It's as though they want to freeze their faith in place to keep it from eroding. The constant intrusion of the outside world clearly frightens some Christians, but it's only in this encroaching outside world that we encounter what truly matters.

Miles presents an image of faith far removed from the comfortable personal faith of Sunday church-goers. Instead of fighting to shore up our defenses against the outside world, why not feed and nurture the change? Miles see her Christian faith as a rambunctious, nurturing vegetable garden growing wildly out of control, and not a small plant that we quietly nurture in the corner of a closed room. Faith is living fearlessly. Faith is loving and feeding anyone who needs it. Faith is not walking away from contact with undesireables, but taking the time to talk to them, to touch them. The outside world cannot be viewed as an intrusion, Miles discovered, because it's only in the messy, unkempt outside world that we truly encounter Jesus.

But Miles makes a point about organized religion that I've also discovered on my own. While we may struggle against the rules and regulations of "formal" and structured faith, the sense of community we gain from it is difficult to find anywhere else. She speaks of initially feeling uncomfortable speaking to new people at coffee hour, and cringing during the sharing of the Peace. I knew exactly what she was talking about, as I went through the same process when I began attending church. Truth is, it made me uncomfortable, but over time I found a home and a new family, and learned that its in opening ourselves up to others that we find our faith.

The themes of the book loosely follow the subtitle "feeding, healing, raising the dead." In each section we find vignettes of the daily life and struggles of ordinary human beings coming to terms with the reality of life in the Kingdom. It's not easy, and we were never promised that it would be. But in feeding and nurturing everyone, without regards to whether or not they "qualify" for this generosity, Miles discovers Jesus in her midst. One of the best lines in the book comes when a minister visits the church's food pantry on a Friday afternoon, looks around the room filled with prostitutes, alcoholics, crack-heads, homeless and crazies, and says, "This looks a lot like Jesus." And in this wonderful book you'll find the true meaning of "church" and the type of people we should all hope to find within it.

I do not usually like pop-religion books, and avoid the "inspirational", too. Despite its off-putting main title for people like me, I found this book to be thoughtful and well-written, perfect for the socially-conscious and questioning Christian who isn't looking for validation of what s/he already believes or for pat answers. The book is full of thoughtful and surprising insights from the author's experiences; her delineation of the difference between healing and curing, for instance, was not just a stroke of brilliance, but inspired, inspiring, and generative. I have read the book more than once, something I almost never do, have recommended it to others, and led study based on it. Incredible.

On the heels of her terrific memoir,Take This Bread,Ms Miles has further explained her journey towards a radical embracing of Jesus.Working in a soup kitchen,ministering to AIDS patients, marching living trying to walk the alk, as it were. This is a serious book for folks who leave their judgements where they belong: in the trash. Jesus was about a radical love for the drunks whores dope fiends thieves and in general poor people.Ms Miles again tries to show that this radical love is for all.WELL DONE!!!!