The Nexus Podcast

This Sunday at Nexus, we continue our series on anthropology by asking what may be the most practical question of all: what do we expect from the people we love? Anthropology can sound abstract until you are married to someone, raising kids with someone, building friendships, joining a church community, or assembling a gazebo with your spouse and discovering that “marital harmony” apparently has a Rona assembly fee. Much of relational life happens not only in what people do in relationships, but in the story we tell ourselves about why they did it. When people disappoint us, forget things, get defensive, act strangely, or fail to become the people we hoped they would be, what story do we tell? This week we will explore how a low anthropology may not make love less possible, but more honest, more merciful, and perhaps more able to carry the ordinary weight of real human relationships.

Friends, this Sunday we keep moving through our anthropology series by asking a deceptively simple question: what if the "self" is not something to be found, but something to be formed? As we start to explore the real-world implications of the anthropology we hold, I want to explore the tension between cultural aphorisms like “be yourself” and “you do you” with Jesus’ words “deny yourself.” Can you be yourself, or do you, while denying yourself? There is a tension here between the modern quest for authenticity and the strangely different path Jesus offers. So, our anthropology journey continues with a look at the "self" and why it may be less coherent and stable than we often assume, and why that might actually be good news! Along the way I want to explore the story of Peter denying Jesus, his dinner invitation to Zacchaeus, and why the movie Downhill (starring Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus) might offer us a clue as to why performing the "self" can come to feel less like freedom, and more like a burden. So, this Sunday, we’ll consider the possibility that grace begins not when you finally find your truest self, but when you discover something better.

Where we begin makes a big difference to our journey and to our future. We don’t pick up a book and begin at Chapter 3. Why would we do that with Scripture? The Bible begins the human story in beauty and goodness, but so often, our theology and the stories we tell ourselves tend to begin with our brokenness. We overindex on the negative. (Don’t mean to brag, but I am quite skilled at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...like everything went well, but I will find something to berate myself for, just in case I get any ideas...) A negative theological starting point and focus impacts us in a wide variety of ways…imagine you receive an invitation to the world's greatest art gallery. You enter expectantly, but instead of being invited to take in the masterpieces, someone hands you a bucket of soap and a scrub brush and barks at you to start cleaning the floor tiles, saying you should be thankful to even be allowed inside. The orders meet your inner sense of shame and unworthiness, so you hit the floor and get to work.  An unlikely scenario maybe, but many of us go through life as a cleaning crew, focused on the floor instead of the art.  In a similar vein, there’s an old story about a giant clay Buddha statue in Thailand which was being moved. At some point during the move, it cracked. As the monks gazed in horror at the cracks, someone looked more closely. They saw something shining underneath the clay. Chipping away the mud, they discovered the clay had been covering a statue made of fine gold. Instead of enjoying and valuing the treasure we hold, cultivating the goodness we do find inside, many of us spend our lives trying to fix the cracks in our clay. What if we stopped trying to patch the mud and began to notice the gold - there since the very beginning? This Sunday, let’s continue the journey, exploring the highs and lows of our anthropology, considering what happens when we start with beauty. We certainly cannot deny that we are cracked. But what happens when we consider that perhaps our cracks don’t just let the light in, they let it out?

Well, with Lent and Easter now behind us, we’re returning to our Anthropology series this Sunday after a six-week pause. I want to pick the series up again with one of the biggest questions beneath so much of life: what are human beings really like? What does it mean to be human, not just in theory or only when we are at our best, but in the ordinary realities of conflict, relationships, stress, hope, and the strange ways we make sense of ourselves. This week, we move into a very revealing part of that conversation as we look at the third pillar of a low anthropology. To do that, we will need to talk about sport parents, why psychologists have identified 188 “biases” or “fallacies” humans are prone to fall into, and to my delight, Glenn Pascoe will also showcase for us an all too familiar flaw in ourselves. In the end though, I hope there may something unexpectedly clarifying, and even freeing, about telling the truth about ourselves a little more honestly.

On Easter Sunday, we gather again to step into a very different kind of morning. If Good Friday asks us to stay with what feels lost, Easter invites us to consider what we might be missing even when it is right in front of us. With poetry, song, Scripture, and reflection, we will move into a story where recognition comes slowly, hope arrives strangely, and the world may be more alive than we first imagined.

This Good Friday,  we will make space for the weight of the story without rushing past it. Through Scripture, music, art, and reflection, we will linger with the cross as a place of sorrow, honesty, and difficult love. This is a service for anyone who knows that not everything can be fixed quickly, explained neatly, or tied up by the end.

Friends, we are about to enter Holy Week, and so, as we do, we’re turning to one of the most surprising exchanges at the cross. It is the dialogue between Jesus and two criminals also being executed beside him. I want to pair this moment with Andrea Mantegna’s painting Crucifixion (Louvre). There is something incredibly vivid, to me, about this painting. It kind of draws you into the scene as a spectator. If you have a chance to look at it before Sunday, which of the two criminals do you think is the “good thief?” Of course, the teaching this week isn’t really about who deserves what. Rather, it’s about what people reach for when they’re almost out of time: the things we ask for, what we bargain for, what we fear most, and what we hope might still be possible. It’s about the strange ache behind the words remember me, and the startling way Jesus answers.

Have you ever been left behind? I have been - at church, no less. And I must confess…I have also left a child at church. While I was probably 16 years old when it happened to me, our daughter was but 18 months. I know. Not a stellar parenting moment. But it’s surprisingly easy - it always involves two cars, and the abandoned person somehow falling between the cracks. A simple miscommunication and misunderstanding. (It turned out just fine, by the way, thanks to a good friend who had our phone number, some time, and patience. Well, that and the fact that the instant we both got home we realized something was awry…both of us wide eyed…I thought you had her!) I’m sure we’ve all experienced a whole range of abandonments…times of feeling forsaken. Alone.  What was it like for you? On this second last Sunday before Good Friday and Easter, we continue with the sayings of Jesus from the cross. This time, a heart-wrenching question: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  Known as the Cry of Dereliction, this saying is full of meaning. We might have some curiosity about this cry of Jesus. It’s a chance for us to consider what we believe was happening in that moment…where was God? What does it mean for us that Jesus spoke these words? As we listen to Jesus’ cry, we may also notice a tension, some mystery, and some hope for us all.  As with all the Lent sermons, we’ll be looking at an art piece - this time, a recent work from a controversial Canadian artist.

The Dry Place, from March 15th is avaialble by podcast: This Sunday in our Lent series, we’re going to focus on Jesus’ shortest, and easiest to skip, saying from the cross. In John, Jesus simply utters, “I thirst.” It isn’t a speech or sermon. It isn’t a lesson. It is two simple words that speak volumes and asks us to lean in close rather than hurry past them. In those two words are I think both a revelation and a vocation for us. We will also be gazing at a striking crucifixion painting from the Louvre. It comes to us from the Renaissance period and was created by Niccolò di Liberatore’s in 1492. It is simply called, La Crucifixion. Peek at it before Sunday if you like. I am hoping its details will do what art does best: not explain but evoke. There’s a visual tension in the scene. See if you can spot it.

This Sunday in our Lent series, we’ll be sitting with more of Jesus’ words from the cross. This one is less divine revelation and more communal and tender in nature. And I want to come to Jesus’ words as with one piece of art held up long enough for it to actually do something to us. We’ll be gazing at La Crucifixion (a stark, monochrome crucifixion plaque), and letting it orient our attention into the mood of this moment on the cross. Along the way, I think there is plenty to consider especially around loss and grief.

Lent is now upon us, and for the weeks leading up to Easter at Nexus we’re slowing the pace down on purpose. Each week we’ll take just one of Jesus’ sayings from the cross and we’ll keep a single piece of art in front of us as a visual companion. This Sunday’s artwork is Karel Dujardin’s: The Calvar (1661): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duajrdin-Calvaire-Louvre.jpg a dark, storm-charged scene where the world feels loud and chaotic...and yet Christ is strangely illuminated, impossible to ignore. And the saying we’ll sit with is as disarming as it is unsettling: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” That line cracks open a revelation about what God is like, but it also exposes something about us. It confronts our revenge impulse, our certainty, and the way communities can get carried along by fear and scapegoating. We’ll also look at a modern echo of this prayer through the story of one church, with a long history, where forgiveness showed up, not as sentiment, but as a costly refusal to let evil move in. For us, the question won’t just be “Does God forgive?” but something more personal and a little dangerous. Can we become the kind of people who interrupt the cycle? Can we become people who tell the truth, hold boundaries, pursue justice, and still refuse to be remade into enemies?

Have you ever had a day, or week, where you sincerely wanted the good, and then things still unfolded opposite of all your good intentions? The invitation this Sunday is to take that strange, universal experience seriously, not as a quirky personality glitch, but as a window into what it means to be human. We’re exploring The Conflicted Self this Sunday. We’ll hear one of the most uncomfortably honest passages in the Bible where Paul admits, in essence, “I know what’s right . . . and then I don’t do it.” And we’ll talk about why “just try harder” so often backfires and why internal laws have a funny way of creating rebellions within us. If you’ve ever felt frustrated with yourself, or oddly harsh toward other people, this is a sermon that aims to make room for honesty and compassion. Not to excuse our mess, but to understand it, and to discover why grace meets us right in the middle of our dividedness, instead of waiting for us to get ourselves together first.

For today's sermon, we’re going to have fun with metaphors - we’ll return to the garden image, connecting that to Paul’s biblical image of the body. All of this is to explore the lens we use to look at the world. Consider - how much do you notice your thoughts…and how critical would you say they are? Do you have a strong inner critic? Or would you be more of a finger-pointer? Maybe like me, you’re good at both! (We don’t want to brag, I know.) If you’d like to get a sense of your self-compassion (or lack thereof), there’s a handy little test you can take - the work of Kristin Neff. I found it quite sobering and eye-opening to see how committed I’ve been to this strategy of criticism. I wonder if it’s time to put down this tool, and reach for something much stronger. In times like this, we can’t be wasting our time trying to be something we’re not. Trying to force our loved ones to be something they are not. Let’s assume we’ve had a good reason for using our old tools, but let’s also consider that there might be a better way. Looking forward to seeing you for “Judge Not!”

Friends, what do FBI hostage negotiators have in common with Instagram, Netflix, and Spotify/Apple algorithms? Well, uncomfortably, they may know us better than we know ourselves. Which tells us something important about human nature. This Sunday, we’re continuing our Anthropology series by poking at a story many of us are quietly living inside: the idea that with the right hacks, tools, and techniques, we should be able to optimize our way out of our weaknesses and limitations. So, we’ll talk about predictability, partial sight, regret, exhaustion, and why some of the most ordinary moments of modern life can be surprisingly revealing. Along the way, we’ll explore why Jesus seems remarkably unbothered by blurry vision, why limitation isn’t a moral failure, and why faith might have less to do with clarity and more to do with humility, community, and grace. If you’ve ever felt pressure to be more, know more, or see more clearly than you actually do (and I am assuming that is all of us), this Sunday is for you.

Who are the people in your life that you can actually relax around? You know, the ones you don’t have to rehearse for, impress, or hold yourself together in front of? Hold that thought, and now, consider the moral, intellectual, or spiritual giants in your life that you look up to? Would you describe their company as relaxing? This Sunday I want to linger over a strange but persistent pattern in the Gospels, but particularly in Luke. The people most aware of their mess and flaws in life seem oddly comfortable around Jesus, while those most confident in their goodness felt threatened by him. That should unsettle us a little and have asking why that was? So, this week we will explore how some of our most admirable assumptions about human potential may quietly be costing us more than we realize, like fuelling exhaustion, perfectionism, and division. Moreover, I want to examine why Jesus seems stubbornly unimpressed with our optimism about ourselves. In the end, my hope is that if you’ve ever felt tired of pretending, suspicious of easy answers, or feel quietly burned out by the pressure to have it together, this Sunday will feel like a big relief.

Today we pay tribute to Murray and the role he has played in our community over the past 15 years. We hope you will join us then as we remember one of the pillars of our community.

Nexus, we are on our way into a new series that will occupy much of our winter and spring, and I couldn’t be more excited about it. In a season where we are exploring the ways we are shaped and formed, the question behind this series is this: what if the way we talk about being human is quietly shaping everything? How does our understanding of what it means to be a homo sapien shape our relationships, our expectations, our politics, and even our faith, without us ever really noticing? So, starting this Sunday at Nexus, we’re beginning a new conversation by asking a deceptively simple question: what do we actually believe about human nature? Along the way, we’ll look at familiar cultural voices, surprising moments of honesty, and the way Jesus seems to locate people before he ever tries to fix them. The goal this Sunday isn’t to make anything tidy or come to any quick conclusions. Rather, it is just an invitation to notice the assumptions we’re living with about who we are and to ask ourselves if those assumptions are helping us flourish, or are they quietly setting us up for disappointment? As always at Nexus, the goal isn’t agreement. It’s curiousity.

Happy New Year Nexus! I hope you had a meaningful Christmas and rang in 2026 in the best possible way (even if that was sleeping). Our new years arrive, for many of us, with equal parts hope and heaviness. We know that life doesn’t magically reset when the clock strikes midnight and what we carried from last year still comes with us. This Sunday, we’ll sit with that reality together as we begin our year at Nexus with a sermon I am calling The Criminality of Despair.   My hope is to remind us that while success is never guaranteed, giving up on ourselves and the world isn’t the path we’re called to. We’ll reflect on Ecclesiastes, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, and the quiet turning point for the prodigal son, as a gentle encouragement for us all to keep moving, even if all we have is the next honest step. I hope to see you all on Sunday!

Christmas is just around the corner now friends, and for this final of Sunday of Advent, we are inviting everyone to bring some kind of “sweet” finger food for after the service. It should be a fun and meaningful morning. Also, don’t forget about our Christmas Eve service at 4pm at St. Andrew's. We would love to see you all as we welcome in Christmas together. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself though as we are still in the season of Advent. Advent is often described as a season of waiting, but what if the real question isn’t whether we’re waiting, but where we’re waiting? This week, I want to listen closely to Mary’s song and her unsettling claim that God looks with favour on the lowly. Not the impressive. Not the powerful. The lowly. As we trace Mary’s story and song, we’ll explore why God so often seems to meet people not at their strongest, but at their most exposed, and why that truth is both comforting and deeply disrupts the stories we tell about ourselves.

Friends, this week we’re stepping into the Advent story through the eyes of Mary, a teenager in a nowhere town suddenly asked to carry God into the world. It’s a beautiful scene, until you remember it was also terrifying, disruptive, and about as far from “silent night” as you can get. And apparently, the church has always struggled with this story (so at least we are in good company). In fact, a few hundred years after the fact, church leaders tried to sort out what Mary’s “yes” actually meant. And, well, let’s just say it did not go smoothly. Picture a theological debate that somehow drifted into something resembling an ancient fist fight or an episode of Jerry Springer. Yes, really, it was that bad. Christians have never needed much help making things weird. But underneath the chaos of the story is a question Advent keeps putting in front of us: What does it mean for ordinary people to carry something of God into the world? What does Mary show us about fear, vulnerability, and how the smallest “yes” can reshape a life? We’ll sit with the mystery this Sunday, and laugh a little at our own species, while trying to see where this story might be trying to nudge us next.