Working The Lectionary

In this episode of Working the Lectionary, John Bottomley and Brendan Byrne are the guests of our colleague, Rev. Associate Professor Robyn Whittaker and the By The Well podcast as we discuss readings from Genesis and The Gospel According to Matthew through the lens of work and economy.  
 
Theme music: Work Undone by Pearce Roswell. Available through Epidemic Music. Used under license. 

In this episode of Working the Lectionary, your hosts John Bottomley and Brendan Byrne explore a reading from The Gospel According to Matthew for Pentecost 6, and discuss how Jesus' invitation to rest in him also challenges us to re-asses how our assumptions and conventions prevent us from seeing God's liberating grace in the world. For Pentecost 7, a reading from Genesis becomes the lens through which they examine the sometimes harsh realities of human existence and how the truthfulness of openness to those realities sets us free to be other than who we all-too-often are.Theme music: Work Undone by Pearce Roswell. Available through Epidemic Music. Used under license. A NOTE ON THE AUDIO: Unfortunately, our primary recording technology malfunctioned during the recording of this episode, and we had to rely on backup technology to produce this episode. We have done our best to clean up the audio file, but it is of lesser quality than usual. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

In this episode of Working the Lectionary, your hosts Brendan Byrne and John Bottomley discuss the troubling reading from Genesis in which Abraham obeys a command to sacrifice his son, and examine how human complicity with the structures of abusive power perpetuate violence and injustice at home, in the church, and at work.Theme music: Work Undone by Pearce Roswell. Available through Epidemic Music. Used under license. 

After a brief break, Working the Lectionary is back! In this episode, your hosts John Bottomley and Brendan Byrne will be exploring Pentecost 2 and 3 through readings drawn from The Gospel According to Matthew. For Pentecost 2, we'll examine how Jesus' calling to Matthew was also a calling into healing, which in turn calls the Church into a ministry of healing for the wounds inflicted by the world of work. Pentecost 3 finds us exploring Jesus' injunction to the disciples to give without payment what they have received without payment, and what this says about the Church's status as a beneficiary of colonialism and its failure to speak prophetically into the "helpless and harassed" realities of work. Theme music: Work Undone by Pearce Roswell. Available through Epidemic Music. Used under license. 

In this episode of Working the Lectionary, your hosts Brendan Byrne and John Bottomley examine readings for Easter 2 & 3. In Easter 2, we reflect on how the Gospel According to John's account of Jesus' gracious response to Thomas' fear-fueled bravado liberates us from the tyranny of pretense that we are not vulnerable and wounded, which capitalism's profit motive and competition-saturated workplace culture impose upon us; while for Easter 3, a reading from the Gospel According to Luke provides the basis for discussing how the Church can care for those who are wounded by work as well as bring its pastoral reflections out of the sphere of private contemplation into the public world of work.
Theme music: Work Undone by Pearce Roswell. Available through Epidemic Music. Used under license. 

In this episode of Working the Lectionary, your hosts Brendan Byrne and John Bottomley reflect on a reading from 1 Samuel (Lent 4) and how God's commissioning of Samuel to anoint a new king points to God's sovereignty in moving oppressive systems toward new ways of being; while for Lent 5, a reading from Ezekiel articulates God's presence - even in the life-denying realities of work - and the divine re-shaping of those realities despite appearances to the contrary.Theme music: Work Undone by Pearce Roswell. Available through Epidemic Music. Used under license. 

In this episode of Working The Lectionary, your hosts Brendan Byrne and John Bottomley discuss how a reading from Paul's Letter to the Romans contrasts the death and violence implicit in the creation narrative of capitalism contrasts to the life-giving grace located in faith in God as the moving force of creation; and how Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman reflects and critiques the demonization of those deemed to be losers under capitalism's violent competitive ethos.
Theme music: Work Undone by Pearce Roswell. Available through Epidemic Music. Used under license. 

In this week's edition of Working the Lectionary, we'll explore the famous - indeed, infamous - reading from Genesis 2: 15-17; 3: 1-7, in which the alleged "tempting" and "fall" of humanity occurs. In doing so, we'll examine how our assumed knowledge of this text has perpetuated injustice across millennia...and how our continued assumptions about the "inevitability" and "necessity" of modernity's construction of work and economy continues to blight our lives today.
Theme music: Work Undone by Pearce Roswell. Available through Epidemic Music. Used under license. 

In this episode of Working the Lectionary, your hosts Brendan Byrne and John Bottomley reflect on Psalm 40 and its detailing of the presence of God in the world, including the world of work and the "daily grind"; they also examine Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians and how it speaks into the historical realities of colonialism and the possibility of reconciliation between First and Second Nations people by modelling leadership and equality that is grounded in our shared human vulnerability. Theme music: Work Undone by Pearce Roswell. Available through Epidemic Music. Used under license. 

In this Episode of Working the Lectionary, your hosts Brendan Byrne and John Bottomley examine how the violence portrayed in the "Massacre of the Innocents" reflects the violence implicit in modernity's construction of work and economy; as well as a reading from The Acts of the Apostles that points toward the manner in which restorative justice can heal the harm experienced in the modern work environment.
CONTENT ADVISORY: This episode contains discussions of self-harm and suicide that may be upsetting or harmful to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.
Theme music: Work Undone by Pearce Roswell. Available through Epidemic Music. Used under license.