The Cost of Community Quotes

“Rather than elevating poverty to a form of righteousness, Jesus is instead calling for a revolution of imagination around the nature of what we consider true blessing.”
― Jamie Arpin-Ricci, The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis and Life in the Kingdom

“Incarnation is good news not because it offers us a way out of the mess of this world, but because it shows us what God's love looks like here and now.”
― Jamie Arpin-Ricci, The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis and Life in the Kingdom

“All too often, when faced with the sadness and suffering of others, we rush to offer comfort in order to ease our own discomfort. While we are no doubt motivated by good intentions, too often we hope to relieve the awkwardness and rawness of the other's suffering. We want to give advice, to solve the problem, to fix what is broken as much to relieve our own discomfort as to genuinely help the other's hurt. Instead, Jesus invites us to come alongside, identify with those suffering and join them in their mourning.”
― Jamie Arpin-Ricci, The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis and Life in the Kingdom

“When Mary asserts explicitly that God is on the side of the poor, we can understand it within the tension of what it means to be blessed as the poor in spirit. Rather than elevating poverty to a form of righteousness, Jesus is instead calling for a revolution of imagination around the nature of what we consider true blessing. Jesus is here declaring that the humble and repentant heart is the fertile soil of his kingdom.”
― Jamie Arpin-Ricci, The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis and Life in the Kingdom