Sara Miles Quotes

“It doesn't promise to solve or erase suffering but to transform it, pledging that by loving one another, even through pain, we will find more life. And it insists that by opening ourselves to strangers, the despised or frightening or unintelligible other, we will see more and more of the holy, since, without exception, all people are one body: God's.”

— Sara Miles

Faith, for me, isn't an argument, a catechism, a philosophical "proof." It is instead a lens, a way of experiencing life, and a willingness to act.

— Sara Miles

“He's the thrilling, scary Boyfriend who's going to dare you to do things you'd never dreamed of, shower you with unreasonable presents, and show up uninvited at the most embarrassing times. Then he's going to stick with you, refusing to take the hint when you don't answer his calls.”

— Sara Miles

“Feed my sheep, feed my sheep," I repeated. "He didn't say, 'Feed my sheep after you check their ID.”

— Sara Miles

I'm not always able to think about so much loss without bitterness and anger. I don't know if I'll ever be capable of loving my enemies; I'm not always capable of forgiving myself.

— Sara Miles

“There's a hunger beyond food that's expressed in food, and that's why feeding is always a kind of miracle.”

— Sara Miles

“I was, as the prophet said, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. I found it at the eternal and material core of Christianity: body, blood, bread, wine, poured out freely, shared by all.”

— Sara Miles

The point of church isn't to get people to come to church." "No?" said Steve, cocking an eyebrow. "What is it?" It seemed obvious to me. "to feed them, so they can go out and, you know, be Jesus." Take this Bread, A Radical Conversion by Sara Miles

— Sara Miles

Repentance means turning toward other human beings, our own flesh and blood, whenever they're oppressed, hungry, or imprisoned; it means acting with compassion instead of indifference.

— Sara Miles

“Imperialism and exploitation," he wrote, "spheres of influence, trade barriers, unequal distribution of the world's goods, starvation in the midst of plenty, slums with gold coasts next door, poverty supporting luxury: These are marks of an unChristian world.”

— Sara Miles

“Thank God for Jesus. Because, you know, he was here like us, so he knows how hard it is to be a person. He must have a sense of humor about us.”

— Sara Miles

“All of it pointed to a force stronger than the anxious formulas of religion: a radically inclusive love that accompanied people in the most ordinary of actions-eating, drinking, walking-and stayed with them, through fear, even past death. That love meant giving yourself away, embracing outsiders as family, emptying yourself to feed and live for others. The stories illuminated the holiness located in mortal human bodies, and the promise that people could see God by cherishing all those different bodies the way God did. They spoke of a communion so much vaster than any church could contain: one I had sensed all my life could be expressed in the sharing of food, particularly with strangers.”

— Sara Miles

“What I heard, and continue to hear, is a voice that can crack religious and political convictions open, that advocates for the least qualified, least official, least likely; that upsets the established order and makes a joke of certainty. It proclaims against reason that the hungry will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, and that all things, including my own failures, are being made new. It offers food without exception to the worthy and unworthy, the screwed-up and pious, and then commands everyone to do the same. It doesn't promise to solve or erase suffering but to transform it, pledging that by loving one another, even through pain, we will find more life. And it insists that by opening ourselves to strangers,”

— Sara Miles

“On a volunteer's shoulders to see Donald break the English muffin. I understood why Christians imagined the kingdom of heaven as a feast: a banquet where nobody was excluded, where the weakest and most broken, the worst sinners and outcasts, were honored guests who welcomed one another in peace and shared their food. "Let this broken bread and shared wine be a foretaste of your kingdom," we sang, "and bring us finally to your heavenly Table, where no one is left behind, and we will join with saints and angels at the feast you have prepared from the beginning.”

— Sara Miles

“I began to understand why so many people chose to be "born-again" and follow strict rules that would tell them what to do, once and for all. It was tempting to rely on a formula- "accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior," for example-that became itself a form of idolatry and kept you from experiencing God in your flesh, in the complicated flesh of others. It was tempting to proclaim yourself "saved" and go back to sleep.”

— Sara Miles

“The Bible is not a set of instructions that can give us simple answers," wrote Webber, "nor a text with which to prove points ... . The guidance the Bible gives was provided for a society very different from ours ... and any set of words is open to different interpretations.”

— Sara Miles

“Heavenly comfort, rather, is truth, which blows away human fantasies that we can live forever, control everything, or fake our lives before God.”

— Sara Miles