Episodes
11 hours ago
Exploring Anger (S15 Episdoe6)
11 hours ago
11 hours ago
Well, now that the dust has settled on our Anger Royal Rumble debate, it is time to dig into the emotion of anger. This Sunday we will explore the positives of anger, its dangers, and why we should maybe question some of the dogmas surrounding this complicated emotion. We have a lot of stops to make along the way: from my deviled egg debacle to the 18,000 angry people of Greenfield, Massachusetts, the psychological sophistication of Scripture when it comes to emotions, and of course, why being angry like Jesus is much more complex than we realize.
The intricacies of anger mean there is no "one size fits all" approach to the emotion. Given that, I want to conclude the sermon with my own personal convictions about anger, fully realizing that what may work or be "right" for me may not be so for others. I hope to see you Sunday for An Exploration of Anger.
11 hours ago
Anger Royal Rumble Debate (S15 Episode5)
11 hours ago
11 hours ago
Friends, it is time to mix things up a little this Sunday. You see, as Jesus heads into the meat of his Sermon on the Mount, first up is our inner worlds and what to do with an emotion like anger. We know, of course, that Jesus himself got angry on several occasions. And yet, here in the sermon, Jesus seems to strongly caution against being angry at all. For Jesus Path people, this can be a little confusing.
Now, there are various schools of thought around what to do with an emotion like anger. I could just describe them to you on Sunday, but that sounds a little boring. I think a better (and more fun) approach would be to just host a Royal Rumble debate on anger!
So, this Sunday morning after a brief introduction to the subject, you will be presented with six cases about anger from six very different people. Let me introduce you to our debaters. First up, we will have @AngryTwitterTina1234, followed by the Apostle Paul, then Brené Brown, Jordan Peterson, Ichiro Kishimi, and finally, the philosopher king himself, Marcus Aurelius, on behalf of the Stoics.
So, they make their case on anger, then we will discuss together which vision of anger we found most compelling. I hope this will set us up well for the weeks to come.
Monday Sep 30, 2024
The Hidden Life (S15 Episode4)
Monday Sep 30, 2024
Monday Sep 30, 2024
We continue our search for The Good Life by delving deeper into Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This week we find Jesus making a remark that will certainly give us pause. According to Jesus, his path is only accessible to those who are more righteous than the Pharisees! That seems like cause for concern. First, isn’t the Jesus Path radically inclusive? Why the barrier to entry now? Second, and even more concerning, weren’t the Pharisees well known for being super-duper righteous? If we must surpass that, well, it sounds like trouble. Ah, something must be afoot here!
This passage, in my estimation, holds the interpretive key for all that follows in the Sermon on the Mount. So, on another journey we go: from traveling three hours only to find out your destination is closed, to Jesus' “anti-beatitudes” (his “woes” in Matthew 23), from why my dentist rubs me the wrong way, to the science of self-awareness, from the practice of hiddenness and introspection, to hosting a “Dinner of Truth,” we are off to explore why Jesus’ comments about the Pharisees might unlock the secret ingredient to living the Good Life.
Monday Sep 30, 2024
Flourishing Unexpectedly (S15 Episode3)
Monday Sep 30, 2024
Monday Sep 30, 2024
Friends, after two introductory weeks, it is time to take the dive into Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This season is all about searching for The Good Life and human flourishing. So we begin, of course, with the Beatitudes, a series of peculiar and unexpected statements about human flourishing. On the surface, the beatitudes seem to represent the very opposite of flourishing. What are we to make of them?
To mine the wisdom of these statements will require another interesting journey: from Yale’s most popular class, to why Stoics think hope is a toxic emotion, from my ongoing battle with my physiotherapist, to the social experiment Nexus has been running for 15 years, from comedian Neil Brennan’s take on his own atheism, to the devastating loss musician Nick Cave experienced and how that shaped his thinking about cynicism. Through it all, I hope to illuminate the beatitudes in a fresh way for us all.
Monday Sep 16, 2024
The Philosopher's Club (S15 Episode2)
Monday Sep 16, 2024
Monday Sep 16, 2024
This season is all about searching for The Good Life by way of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and other visions of human flourishing. To start our quest in earnest, we will need to make a few early pitstops. If the Good Life is to be found, who are the sages that might point us in the right direction. And where does Jesus fit into all of this?
Join us this Sunday as we head to some ancient sites in Athens and Syria before heading to the bohemian ruin bars of Budapest. Our goal is to chat with a few sages, both ancient and contemporary, living and dead, in order to orient ourselves in the proper direction.
Monday Sep 09, 2024
Everyone is Searching (S15 Episode1)
Monday Sep 09, 2024
Monday Sep 09, 2024
Where does the Jesus Path have us heading this year? Well, this season will be all about searching for The Good Life. How can we experience true human flourishing? What is happiness, should we aim for it, and how does one obtain and sustain it? This season we will be exploring Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount by bringing it into conversation with wisdom on human flourishing from Stoic philosophy and other voices. I can’t wait to get started, so to prime the pump, imagine this:
Somewhere in the mountains north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a treasure chest filled with two million dollars worth of gold, artifacts, and other treasures. It can all be yours, if you can just find the chest. To find it, all you need to do is solve a riddle.
Would you go looking for the treasure? Where would you start looking? Can you figure out the location based on the riddle? For almost half a million people, this was no imagination exercise, but the beginning of an actual treasure hunt that began in 2010 and only finished in 2020. During the hunt, five people died, scores had to be rescued from the wild, and dozens were arrested. Turns out, if you hide something worth finding, people will search for it...relentlessly. Which is where we shall begin our new season. We are all searching for something, but what? I hope to see you Sunday @ 10:30am at our new home in St. Andrew's for Everyone is Searching.
- Brad Watson
Monday Jun 17, 2024
State Of The Faith Address (S14 Episode34)
Monday Jun 17, 2024
Monday Jun 17, 2024
For this Sunday, our penultimate episode of the season, I want to reflect and do a sort of “state of the union” talk about Nexus, the place of faith in our wider culture, along with where I am at with faith these days. I am bringing along my “life verse,” a few tales about eels and Sigmund Freud, precarious cliffs, and why the most pressing question for me in terms of faith these days is simply, "Jesus or . . . what?"
Monday Jun 10, 2024
A Theology of Conflict (S14 Episode33)
Monday Jun 10, 2024
Monday Jun 10, 2024
As our season winds down here at Nexus, we are bringing our relational tensions series to a close with a theology of conflict. If there is one thing that is certain in all relationships (be it with our friends, colleagues, partners, or parents), it is that conflict is inevitable. Conflict will occur. Then what?
There is nothing we dread more than dealing with conflict in relationships. What is worse, most of us aren’t great at it. This is because conflict forces us to battle our own worst proclivities. Further, we often come from family backgrounds that left us with unhealthy notions of conflict management. Even still, conflict can’t be avoided. To mature in life and love, we must learn the art and science of doing conflict.
So, this week we will take some cues from Jesus and Paul before turning to the proverbial wisdom of Scripture to help us learn the fine art of negotiating conflict well.
Monday Jun 03, 2024
I Don't Know What To Do With My SELF (S14 Episode32)
Monday Jun 03, 2024
Monday Jun 03, 2024
This week, as we head into our final month of Season 14, I’ll offer my last sermon for the season called, “I Don’t Know What To Do With My Self”." A common complaint of mine for various reasons, but in this case, it’s connected to setting boundaries. Inevitably, as soon as someone brings up boundaries, someone else will mention the word “selfish” (case in point: the latest episode of the Sacred Sofa).
So we’ll explore why that might be, what Jesus Path people are invited to do with our selves, and how that might influence our relationships with others. We’ll explore some of the challenges inherent in setting and maintaining boundaries, and how we might discern what kind of boundaries are needed. Along the way, we’ll examine a greatly misunderstood portion of The Sermon on the Mount which could be quite influential - for good and for ill.
Monday Jun 03, 2024
All That We Have Lost (S14 Episode31)
Monday Jun 03, 2024
Monday Jun 03, 2024
This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday and that is always fun to explore because it is the event that birthed us, the church. The event is filled with intriguing details: a violent wind, tongues of fire, the Holy Spirit, foreign languages mysteriously being heard and understood, and eyewitnesses thinking Jesus followers are drunk at 9am. The story is rich in metaphor and symbolism.
What is often lost though is how this story connects with a story from Exodus. The Pentecost event happened during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, a festival marking Israel’s wheat harvest as well as the revelation of the Ten Commandments to Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai. I hope the connections made between these two stories might be revelatory for us all and a source of hope.