In this episode of Working the Lectionary, your hosts John Bottomley and Brendan Byrne examine readings from The Gospel According to Mark for weeks 21 and 22 of the season of Pentecost. For Pentecost 21, they reflect on how a false idolisation of the poor and of poverty can justify exploitation through the ideology of hard work as an alleged signifier of human dignity; while for Pentecost 22, they examine how a self-serving misinterpretation of servanthood can facilitate harm in work - even within the Church.

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, examine a passage from The Gospel According to Mark, in which the disciples try to stop an exorcist who is not part of the disciple group from performing miracles in Jesus' name - and how Jesus' response and his injunction against placing obstacles in the path of others calls on Christians to reflect on the ways in which their own formation blinds them to God's movement in the world, including the world of work and economics.

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 discuss readings for Pentecost 6 and 7 in Year B. They begin with Mark's account of Jesus' encounter with Jairus, the leader of the synagogue, and analyze how Jairus, stripped of all his socio-political importance and reduced to basic human need, is emblematic of the way in which modernity's construction of work victimizes even its "winners". In the second reading, the unbelief of the people symbolizes the bitter irony of our own age, in which cynical rationalism has led to belief in all manner of conspiracy theories and self-serving narratives that become the cornerstone of modernity's mythologies of self-autonomy and the moral value of "hard work".

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode does contain some discussion of suicidal ideation.

Theme music: Work Undone by Pearce Roswell. Available through Epidemic Music. Used under license.