Biography
Dr. Thomas Groome is Senior Professor of Theology and Religious Education at Boston College and a recognized authority on Christian religious education. A native of Ireland, Dr. Groome was educated at St. Patrick's Seminary, Fordham University, Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University in New York City.  He is a Roman Catholic layman and the author of a number of  books on religious education. Dr. Groome has lectured widely throughout the United States and abroad. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"My Name is Jairus" 
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew:

"While Jesus was saying these things, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, 'My daughter has just died; but if you will come and lay your hands on her, she will live.' And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples.

Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for 12 years came up behind Jesus, and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, 'If I can just touch his cloak, I will be made well.' Jesus turned, and seeing her said, 'Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.' And instantly the woman was made well.

When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, he said, 'Go away; the girl is not dead, she’s sleeping.' They laughed at him. But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in, took her by the hand, and the girl rose up. And the story of this spread throughout the whole district.' "

Hello, My name is Jairus. I know I’m not dressed like Jairus, but don't let the clothing fool you. I’m the Synagogue official you just heard about. Though Matthew doesn’t mention me by name, both Luke and Mark do, and each of the three tells the story a little differently. You wish those characters would have gotten together on their stories, don’t you! But neither of the three accounts quite capture what really happened that day. So, I came back to tell you the real story—or at least, my side of the story—and only because you might hear an echo in your own story.

Now all three accounts say that I am an "official of the synagogue." Well, they got that right. What they don’t tell you is that my special appointment was to supervise the observance of the law and especially regarding things clean and unclean. The story really began the day I first heard and met this Jesus of Nazareth. To be honest, I went to check him out, to make sure he wasn’t being disrespectful to the ritual requirements of the law.

Officially, of course, he had no religious standing, he was only a local carpenter. But he was the most amazing person I’ve ever met. He set my soul on fire. Something that had been dead within me. You know, little by little over the years, too much law can do that to you. But I could feel it coming back to life again in his presence. Then, when he ended, Jesus walked right over to me, looked me in the eye, and with great gentleness he asked, "Jairus, will you come and follow me?"

Ah! What a crisis in my heart. I froze in panic. The first thing I thought of was my job. I could lose my job and I had a family to support. I had a lot of standing as an official of the synagogue. I could lose everything. Well, I walked away!

Now, before you rush to judgment of me though, let me ask you: does he ever do that to you? You know, invite you to a whole new place, to respond in ways you don’t feel ready, to give over something that you cherish? How do you respond?

Well, that was not the end of my story!

My spouse, Elizabeth, and I, we were not blessed with children for a long time. We waited almost 15 years. Then miraculously, as a gift from God, a beautiful little girl was born to us. We were overjoyed. We called her Talitha, which means "beautiful little girl." Ah! Talitha became the apple of our eye, the song of our hearts. But then, when she was about 12, tragedy struck. Talitha came down with a mysterious disease, and died within a few days.

Oh, Elizabeth and I, we were devastated. We asked God: why, why, why? But, of course, no response. Then I said to Elizabeth, "I’m going to go to him, to the Carpenter of Nazareth. He can bring Talitha back to life." Elizabeth only wailed, "Oh, now Jairus has gone crazy with the pain, with the loss. No one dies and comes back to life."

But I left. I knew he was in the neighborhood. By now, he was easy to find. And I found him, surrounded by a great crowd of people. You can imagine it: the devout, the curious, the skeptics, the hangers on; vendors and merchants hawking their wares, making a fast shekel. I pushed through the crowd and I could hear people saying, in amazement, "Its Jairus! It’s Jairus, the synagogue official! Is he coming to accuse Jesus of breaking the law?" I walked into the middle, I knelt down before him. I didn’t care what anybody thought, and I said to him, "My daughter has just died. But if you would come and lay your hands on her, she will live again"

The people gasped. Some of them shouted, "It’s a trap, Jesus! Be careful." But he came over to me, lifted me up, looked at me with great love, and said, "Jairus, I’m so happy to see you again." And then he said, "Lead the way!"

Oh, my goodness, he said it. "Lead the way!" I pushed back through the crowd with Jesus coming behind me. And then, I saw her: that bleeding woman. I had driven her away from the precincts of the synagogue many times. She’d be there begging, but she could contaminate the whole place. You must understand that as a perpetual menstruant, she was permanently unclean and everyone she touched was unclean or whoever touched her became unclean. I saw her coming for Jesus. I shouted at her, "Don’t touch him!"

She just wailed, "I only want to touch his prayer shawl and I will be cured."

I shouted again, "Don’t touch him!"

But I was too late. She touched him. Ah! My heart sank. Now all was lost because he couldn't come and pray over my daughter unless he was first purified. By then Talitha would be long buried.

He paused and he inquired who had touched him. I was going to say it was someone other than that bleeding woman. But she came forward and confessed. And then, something extraordinary happened. Jesus said to her, "Take heart, daughter. Your faith has made you well." He addressed her as if she was his own daughter. And not, "I have cured you" but "your faith has made you well."

And then it happened. You could actually see the blood coming back into her face. She straightened up, like a dead flower reviving, and she hugged him with a great embrace. Then Jesus turned to me again and said, "Lead on, Jairus." And suddenly I didn’t care that he was unclean. It didn’t matter. It was like someone lifted a hundred ton weight from my shoulders. We ran, we stumbled to my house. Those flute players and the mourners, they were all there with the wake in full swing.

Jesus said to the crowd, "Talitha is not dead, she’s only sleeping" But they laughed at him, they said he was crazy. Then he went in to where she was. He brought his disciples, Peter, James and John, and Elizabeth and myself with him. We were there.

He prayed over her for the longest time and then he took her by the hand. Then he said, "Little girl, get up," and slowly, right before our eyes, Talitha rose up. She rose from the dead, gave us a big smile and held out her arms for a hug.

Oh, my goodness, you can’t even imagine the party we had. Those old flute players, they changed their tune so fast. People came from miles around to see the marvel of Talitha alive again, to celebrate with us. The party lasted for days. But now, I had the same question again: Will I follow him this time? Become a disciple? You may be amazed that I’m even asking— hesitating—but my job, my position.

Maybe I could follow him from a distance? Have you tried that? I’ve heard him say that he came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Maybe I wouldn’t have to change anything? Maybe he would need someone with my expertise? (Though I doubt it!) But not only my daughter, he brought back to life in me that dead part. I don’t want it to die again!

Well, it doesn’t really matter what I decided. None of your business, really. But what about yourself? What decisions does he invite you to make? What are the dead parts of you that he wants to—he longs to—bring back to life? Will you say "yes"? Because, unless he has changed a lot since the Jesus I knew, I’m sure he still sings the same old song. Oh, different lyrics and tunes, perhaps; but the same old song:

Will you come and follow me, if I but call your name?

Will you go where you don’t know, and never be the same?

Will you let my love be shown?

Will you let my name be known?

Will you let my life be sown in you and you in me?

Interview with Thomas Groome
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: Tom, you're a masterful storyteller.

Thomas Groome: Thank you, Lydia.

Talbot: And I suspect that has something to do with being at the knee of your grandmother, Maggie, back in Ireland.

Groome: Yes, it does, Lydia. You know, people sometimes ask me, "Where did you take your course in storytelling?" and I never took a course in my life in storytelling.

Talbot: That surprises all of us.

Groome: It's really my grandmother.

Talbot: An intriguing twist on the story from Matthew, the first person narrative in the person of the synagogue official. How did that occur to you?

Groome: When I pray the scriptures, Lydia, at least at this stage in my life. There was a time when I kind of read them and reflected on them and asked what they meant for my life. Now I find myself imagining being there and imagining getting inside the skin of these characters, be it Jesus, be it Jairus, John the Baptist, or whoever. And it has brought a wonderful new richness to my own reading of the scriptures.

Talbot: An active response to the literature in scripture. Tom, you take us there, you take us inside the event itself. And of course, the critical question, "Will you come and follow me?" which the synagogue official never reveals. That lays the question on us.

Groome: Yes, yes.

Talbot: I must ask you, what was that for you the first time you remember responding to that question.?

Groome: Well, of course, Lydia, as you know, Jesus asks it all the time and you have to make the decision over and over and over again. The decision I made as a child had to be made again as a teenager and made again as a young adult and made again at 53 years of age. Isn't it made every day, really? It's an invitation to take another step to reach more deeply into God's love. It’s where Jesus is inviting us. And yet it seems hazardous at times. It seems precarious, what we have to leave behind in order to take that step, and yet the invitation, the gentle invitation, is always there.

Talbot: And Jesus' words—"And your faith has made you well"—to the woman with the issue of blood. The connection between faith and healing.

Groome: Yes. You see, I love the fact in the Gospels, Lydia, that Jesus never healed anybody without their cooperation in faith. In fact, the Gospels report that there were times when he couldn't work any miracles because there was no faith there. In other words, he wasn't a magician doing things to people willy-nilly. They were participants, they were partners in it. I find that extraordinary. And Matthew's text says it very explicitly. He said to her, "My daughter" which was like addressing her the way that Jairus would think about Talitha. He said, "My daughter," to this bleeding woman, "Your faith has saved you." It's just a lovely way that he had of saying you're the agent of your own healing.

Talbot: And so the difference between a miraculous cure and the strength of faith.

Groome: Yes.

Talbot: Thank you, Thomas. I wish we had more time.

Groome: I do, too, Lydia. Lovely always to be with you. Thank you.