Sarah Bessey > Quotes

“I want to be outside with the misfits, with the rebels, the dreamers, second-chance givers, the radical grace lavishers, the ones with arms wide open, the courageously vulnerable, and among even—or maybe especially—the ones rejected by the Table as not worthy enough or right enough.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there never has been another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them as “The women, God help us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about woman’s nature. Dorothy Day, Catholic social activist and journalist”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Rest in your God-breathed worth. Stop holding your breath, hiding your gifts, ducking your head, dulling your roar, distracting your soul, stilling your hands, quieting your voice, and satiating your hunger with the lesser things of this world.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“I won't desecrate beauty with cynicism anymore. I won't confuse critical thinking with a critical spirit, and I will practice, painfully, over and over, patience and peace until my gentle answers turn away even my own wrath. I will breathe fresh air while I learn, all over again, grace freely given and wisdom honored; and when my fingers fumble, whenI sound flat or sharp, I will simply try again.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“The lack of women among the twelve disciples isn't prescriptive or a precedent for exclusion of women any more than the choice of twelve Jewish men excludes Gentile men from leadership.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“One needn't identify as a feminist to participate in the redemptive movement of God for women in the world, The gospel is more than enough. Of course it is! But as long as I know how important maternal health is to Haiti's future, and as long as I know that women are being abused and raped, as long as I know girls are being denied life itself through selective abortion, abandonment, and abuse, as long as brave little girls in Afghanistan are attacked with acid for the crime of going to school, and until being a Christian is synonymous with doing something about these things, you can also call me a feminist.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“I don't want to be swallowed by the darkness. Nor do I want to be blinded by the beautiful facade. No, I want to be part of a people who see the darkness, know it's real, and then, then, then, light a candle anyway. And hold that candle up against the wind and pass along our light wherever it's needed from our own homes to the halls of legislation to the church pulpit to the kitchens of the world.”
― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

“Miracles sometimes look like a kapow! lightning-strike revelation; and sometimes miracles look like showing up for your counseling appointments.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Let’s sit here in hard truth and easy beauty, in the tensions of the Now and the Not Yet of the Kingdom of God, and let us discover how we can disagree beautifully.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Anyone who gets to the end of their life with the exact same beliefs and opinions as they had at the beginning is doing it wrong.”
― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

“People want black-and-white answers, but Scripture is rainbow arch across a stormy sky.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: God's Radical Notion that Women Are People Too

“Women have more to offer the church than mad decorating skills or craft nights.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Set out, pilgrim. Set out into the freedom and the wandering. Find your people. God is much bigger, wilder, more generous, and more wonderful than you imagined.”
― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

“For instance, some evangelicals have turned Proverbs 31 into a woman’s job description instead of what it actually is: the blessing and affirmation of valor for the lives of women, memorized by Jewish husbands for the purpose of honoring their wives at the family table. It is meant as a celebration for the everyday moments of valor for everyday women, not as an impossible exhausting standard.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“He called her''daughter of Abraham,' which likely sent a shock wave through the room; it was the first time the phrase had ever been spoken. People had only ever heard 'sons of Abraham'--never daughters. But at the sound of Jesus' words daughter of Abraham, he gave her a place to stand alongside the sons, especially the ones snarling with their sense of ownership and exclusivity over it all, watching.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Sometimes miracles look like instant healing; and other times, miracles look like medication and patience and discipline.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“People want black-and-white answers, but Scripture is rainbow arch across a stormy sky. Our sacred book is not an indexed answer book or life manual; it is also a grand story, mystery, invitation, truth and wisdom, and a passionate love letter.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“People have tried to tell us that women aren’t as visual as men. To which, I respond: “Um, have you heard of Pinterest? Because YES WE ARE.”
― Sarah Bessey

“I saw how Jesus didn’t treat women any differently than men, and I liked that. We weren’t too precious for words, dainty like fine china. We received no free pass or delicate worries about our ability to understand or contribute or work. Women were not too sweet or weak for the conviction of the Holy Spirit, or too manipulative and prone to jealousy, insecurity, and deception to push back the kingdom of darkness.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: God's Radical Notion that Women Are People Too

“Patriarchy is not God's dream for humanity.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“God has a global dream for his daughters and his sons, and it is bigger than our narrow interpretations or small box constructions of “biblical manhood and womanhood” or feminism;”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“One of my friends has a saying: “If it’s not true in Darfur, it’s not true here.” He means if we can’t preach it in every context, for every person, it’s not really for everyone, and so then we should probably ask whether or not what we are preaching is actually the gospel.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“I look forward to the day when women with leadership and insight, gifts and talents, callings and prophetic leanings are called out and celebrated as Deborah, instead of silenced as Jezebel.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Many of the seminal social issues of our time - poverty, lack of education, human trafficking, war and torture, domestic abuse - can track their way to our theology of, or beliefs about, women, which has its roots in what we believe about the nature, purposes, and character of God.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“So may there be grace and kindness, gentleness and love in our hearts, especially for the ones who we believe are profoundly wrong. The Good News is proclaimed when we love each other. I pray for unity beyond conformity, because loving-kindness preaches the gospel more beautifully and truthfully than any satirical blog post or point-by-point dismantling of another disciple's reputation and teaching.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“who wants to live in an ivory tower when there is fresh air to breathe anyway? I want to be outside with the misfits, with the rebels, the dreamers, second-chance givers, the radical grace lavishers, the ones with arms wide open, the courageously vulnerable, and among even—or maybe especially—the ones rejected by the Table as not worthy enough or right enough.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“It's a scary thing, a life-changing, paradigm-shifting thing, to honestly ask yourself this question: Am I moving with God to rescue, restore, and redeem humanity? Or am I clinging fast, eyeteeth clenched, to an imperfect world's habits and cultural customs, in full knowledge of injustice or imperfections, living at odds with God's dream for his daughters and sons?”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“You learn how to love by being loved.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Theologian and scholar Walter Brueggemann writes beautifully in 'The Prophetic Imagination' that real hope comes only after despair. Only if we have tasted despair, only if we have known the deep sadness of unfulfilled dreams and promises, only if we can dare to look reality in the face and name it for what it is, can we dare to begin to imagine a better way.
Hope is subversive precisely because it dares to admit that all is not as it should be.
And so we are holding out for, working for, creating, prophesying, and living into something better---for the kingdom to come, for oaks of righteousness to tower, for leaves to blossom for the healing of the nations, for swords to be beaten into plowshares, for joy to come in the morning, and for redemption and justice.”
― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

“But I had to learn that taking the Bible seriously doesn’t mean taking everything literally.”
― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith