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.