The Nexus Podcast

The Hidden Life (S15 Episode4)

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.

Flourishing Unexpectedly (S15 Episode3)

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. 

The Philosopher's Club (S15 Episode2)

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.

Everyone is Searching (S15 Episode1)

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

State Of The Faith Address (S14 Episode34)

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?"

A Theology of Conflict (S14 Episode33)

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.

I Don't Know What To Do With My SELF (S14 Episode32)

 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.

All That We Have Lost (S14 Episode31)

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.

Sex On A Ladder (Season 14th Episode30)

We keep climbing ladders in this series on relational tensions. We have explored marriage and relational boundaries. Friendship and community are coming up next. But for this week, we are in search of a robust Jesus Path sexual ethic. To do that, we are going to need to put sex on a ladder. Just one more week of uncomfortable sex talk! But stay with me. Why is this important? Four quick reasons:

First, the internet. Second, many folks walked away from purity culture with a lot of baggage, so we owe it to ourselves and our children to think through all of this in a much healthier way. Third, these conversations aren’t easy to have, even in our marriages, which means conversation starters might be good. Fourth, because a whole book of the Bible is dedicated to sexual innuendo and erotic love poetry. If Scripture is willing to go there, so am I. So, let’s have some fun, even if it is a little uncomfortable. 

How Does One Follow The Jesus Path (And Not Get Taken Advantage Of)? (Season 14 Episode29)

This question was written by a Nexus person on the Sunday after Ash Wednesday as we reflected on questions of life and faith. It felt like a good question to consider together in this series on the tensions between us. 

As Jesus-path people, we’re called to live cruciform - cross-shaped - which involves serious demands on our life and character, to live in the self-giving pattern of Christ. That looks like radical forgiveness, hospitality, generosity, compassion - others-centeredness…

But…must we be taken advantage of? 

How can we show up in our relationships with love and compassion without being depleted and exhausted? Is there a way for our relationships to fill us up, even as we give? Could living cruciform actually somehow be life-giving? 

We’ll look at surprising research on how boundaries can help us out. Some clarity around who we are (and who we aren’t) can lead to freedom. Clear “No!”s can help us say “Yes!” to people and things that are important, freeing us up to be compassionate and build relationships that are life-giving to all.