Jesus Freak: Feeding, Healing, Raising the Dead

by Sara Miles

Jossey-Bass, 208 pp., $21.95   

Reviewed by Martha K. Baker

    In the Introduction to her new book, Sara Miles asks this question: “What would it mean to live as if you -- and everyone around you -- were Jesus, and filled with his power?” Miles has been answering this question for herself, in the first person, since biting that chunk of communion bread that brought her. She first wrote about her leap of faith inTake This Bread; she reviews it in Jesus Freak, where she organizes her serial leaps in the book’s subtitle: “Feeding, Healing, Raising the Dead.”

    Jesus Freak is a good book, richly written, immediate, and alive. It is a moving book, full of piss and vinegar, graced with humility and humor, and full of Jesus and the freaks who follow Him. It is also shocking, at times, to mirror the shock that was Jesus.

    Before she gets to the crux of the book, Miles lays out its direction by echoing Jesus’ seduction: “Come and see.” She paraphrases the words Jesus coupled with his acts: “Say yes.” “Jump right in.” “Don’t be afraid.” “Embrace the wrong people.” These imperatives issue from the man she sweetly and sassily calls Boyfriend -- the scary, daring kind of date, who showers his lovers with unasked for presents, who shows up at embarrassing moments and stays stuck on you.

    Much of Jesus Freak springs from Miles’ work as director of The Food Pantry at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco. She firmly believes that where there’s food, there’s church, where “spirit and matter intersect.” In “Feeding,” she draws portraits of Michael, the toothless ex-con who coordinates the food ministry; of St. Gregory’s rector, the Rev. Paul Fromberg, who mashes a great potato; and of the delinquents who shine as servers. She flagellates herself for being rude and short with the clergy, the hungry and the greedy, that is, for being more saint on the earth than on the ceiling. But she also humbles herself by feeding others generously because she has been so fed -- and describing the feeding of the 800 in her church.

    In “Healing,” Miles is grounded in Easter, when Jesus “showed what healing could mean.” She gropes her way to understanding that healing depends on the truth, that it means “creating meaning,” not curing. Healing, Miles says, means listening to the Gospel through our stories. She tells stories of San Francisco General Hospital; of Big Jim, a big drunk; of Anibal, a healer; and of nurses late to the profession, her wife Martha, included.

    “Raising the Dead” presents the real story of raising a large dead woman onto a gurney. It shows, again, that raising the dead is not easy: it’s heavy lifting. So is forgiving, and so is following Jesus, the subjects of two other chapters. Miles ends this energetic book with a proclamation: Jesus is real and so are we, who are fed and healed and raised from the dead. “Go and do likewise,” she quotes.

    In Jesus Freak, Miles consolidates her prodigious reportorial skills with her continuing education in the Gospels, the pantry, and the church.  She adroitly proclaims the Gospels through modern equivalents, updating the Bridegroom, for example, to the Boyfriend. She exemplifies the power of the laity, and she never fails to set an example because she never stops following one.