"Returning Thanks"

When he was 18 years old, James Cook became an apprentice to a shipping company. In 1755 at the age of 27, he joined the British Navy at. In 1768, the Navy appointed him leader of a scientific expedition to Tahiti to observe a solar eclipse by Venus. After observing the eclipse, Cook opened a sealed envelope he had been given where he found orders to try to find a southern continent that geographers believed kept the world in balance. Even though he wasn't able to find the southern continent, he did manage to do some interesting things. For example, in October of 1769 Cook was the first European to visit New Zealand. Then, in August 22, 1770, Cook claimed the eastern coast of New Holland, as Australia was known by the Dutch at that time. During his return trip to England in 1771, Cook was the first ship commander to prevent the outbreak of scurvy by serving his crew fruit and sauerkraut to prevent the disease.

The British Navy sent Captain Cook out again, and this time he sailed farther south than any other European. He managed to circle Antarctica, but the ice surrounding the continent prevented the sighting of land. The existence of the Antarctica remained unproved until 1840. He returned to England in 1775 and was promoted to Captain. In July of 1776, Cook set sail on his third voyage to look for a northern sea route between Europe and Asia. In 1778 he became the first know European to reach the Hawaiian Islands. Later that same year, Cook sailed up the northwest coast of North America and was the first European to land on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. He continued up the coast through the Bering strait, and entered the Arctic Ocean. Huge walls of ice blocked the expedition, so Cook headed back for the Hawaiian Islands.

Twice before, James Cook had departed England and had returned. But on this journey, he wasn't able to come back to England, at least the way that he wanted. Unfortunately, on February 14, 1779, while investigating a theft of a boat by an islander, Captain Cook was stabbed to death by Hawaiian natives. The expedition arrived back in England in October of 1780 and Captain Cook was memorialized in his hometown of Whitby. On his statue, the folks engraved these words: 'Captain James Cook, 1728-1779, To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.'

Two of the more interesting things Captain Cook saw during his three expeditions stick with me. Both of them involve Australia. The first is when Captain Cook sees, for the very first time, a strange-looking animal that hops around on its back legs and has a pouch in the front. Captain Cook asks, "What is the name of that animal?" to which the aborigine replies, "Kangaroo." Captain Cook thinks that that's what the animal is called, but that's not what the aborigine said. Kangaroo is actually the aboriginal word meaning, "What'd he say?"

The second is that Captain Cook was the first "white man" to see a boomerang being used. And from what I understand, there is no truth to the story that Captain Cook saw an aborigine all battered and bruised and asked him what happened and the man said, "I got a new boomerang but I can't seem to throw the old one away."

What do boomerangs and Captain Cook have in common? They were both designed to travel; they were both designed to return; they were both designed to do something for which to give thanks.

In the case of Captain Cook, we owe him thanks for his discoveries of land, for the discovery of the properties of Vitamin C in fighting disease, and for his courage. And if you're an aborigine, you owe the boomerang thanks not only for procuring birds and other fowl for your daily dinner, but also for returning so that you can give thanks at least one more time. And that, in part, is what Thanksgiving is all about. That, in part, is why we are created: to return and to give thanks.

One day Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem and takes a route between Samaria and Galilee. He's walking along, when ten lepers stand a ways off, yelling at the top of their voices, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

Leprosy was a disease during the time of Jesus that made AIDS seem like the measles. It was the death warrant for everyone who contracted it. For all intents and purposes, it meant a living death to everyone stricken by it.

Leprosy was caused by contact with a fungus that attacks the nervous system. The hands and feet ulcerate. The muscles waste away. The tendons contract. Then comes the progressive loss of fingers. Sometimes, because there is so much dead tissue on the affected areas, an entire hand or foot would simply fall off.

Now, if all these physical characteristics of leprosy weren't bad enough, something made it even more horrific: lepers were treated like dead people. The minute a person was diagnosed as having leprosy, he was completely banished from society.

If he had a wife, he could never touch her again.

If he had children, he could never hold them again.

The Rabbi was called and a funeral service was held for the victim.

After that, the leper wasn't allowed in any city with walls. He went about with his clothing torn. He couldn't come closer than 10 feet to anyone. Whenever he came to a village, the leper would have to cover his upper lip and someone would walk in front of him yelling, "unclean, unclean, unclean." He could not be greeted in public. He could not be touched. He lived a living death.

It was awful being a leper. And about the only thing worse than being a Jewish leper was being a Samaritan leper.

When I was a kid, we lived in a neighborhood on the edge of town. Just over the hill was a little "holler" where a bunch of real hillbillies lived in shacks with old Ford pickup trucks and washing machines rusting in the front yards. They burned trash in barrels, never cut their grass, and had chickens running around. The kids only wore shoes went it snowed.

There was one family there called the T's who, to the rest of us, were untouchable. They were dirty and smelled like cigarettes and beer. Their hair was always greasy. They were always getting in fights. It was said that to even touch a T meant that you would come down with tuberculosis. They were looked down on and spat on and razzed and ridiculed and despised.

The Samaritans were the first century equivalent of the T's. They were Half-Jew, half Gentile. In 587 B.C. Israel was conquered and burned to the ground by the Babylonian empire. King Nebuchadnezzar gathered up all the artisans: brick masons, carpenters, and farmers. Anyone with half a brain or skill was rounded up, chained with fishhooks through their noses, then led away to Babylon.

Who was left behind? What the Jews called "the dregs of society": the unskilled, the poor, the deranged, those who could barely fend for themselves. In the meantime Nebuchadnezzar left behind a contingent of soldiers whom the Babylonians called the dregs of their society.

Over time, these two groups of dregs intermarried and produced a half-breed race called the Samaritans: half Jewish, half Babylonian, a hybrid religion of Judaism and paganism.

Now, how were they viewed? The Babylonians hated the Samaritans because they weren't pure Babylonian. The Jews despised the Samaritans because they had intermarried with pagans. And so it was that the Samaritans were universally hated by everyone.

One of my mentors served as a chaplain during the Korean War. He once told me of the thousands of children fathered by American G.I.s with Korean mothers. Most of these children were loathed by the Koreans. Hundreds were drowned, smothered to death, or left exposed to the elements. The Americans, for all intents and purposes, completely abandoned them.

That's the kind of people the Samaritans were. Untouchable.

Jesus is going through this village when He hears ten lepers, standing away from the parade route, crying for mercy.

And you know what? I don't think Jesus asked these ten to fill out a religious preference card. My sense is that some of them were Jews. Some of them were Gentiles. And at least one of them was a Samaritan.

Ever noticed how tragedy makes people overlook their differences? Visit the children's' cancer ward at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Walk through the halls and you'll see women dressed in mink coats crying on the shoulders of poor black women from the inner city. People of all economic and social and religious and gender and race there are all thrown together because of a crisis. They don't have time for the differences. They have to work together to overcome the barriers of disease.

Jesus says, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." That's one big difference between AIDS and leprosy: sometimes, people with leprosy would be cured.

But not everyone who says, "I'm cured, I'm cured" will enter the kingdom of the normal. Clergymen did double duty back in those days with one of their duties being that of health inspector. So if the priest examined the leper and verified that the fungus was stagnant and the necrosis had stopped, the priest would write a letter, certifying that the victim was now clean.

There is no procedure for this healing: no laying on of hands, no spit in the eyeballs, no incantation of a long prayer. Jesus simply tells the lepers to visit the priests and show them their former boo-boos.

So ten lepers begin to walk. And as they do, odd things begin to happen. That leg is gaining strength. The gray in their hands is giving way to normal color. The eyes are beginning to see normal. They look at each other: no longer do they look like creatures from the zoo. They are beginning to look like human beings. And as all these things are happening, they all begin to leap and run and shout. Nine of them are running helter-skelter to the nearest temple when one of the lepers stops dead in his tracks.

He smiles. He turns around. No longer before is the shouting "unclean, unclean," with only the sound of the astonished crowd and the wind blowing and the sound of his feet, the Samaritan former leper runs.

This former leper falls down in front of Jesus and thanks Him. Miracles are granted. Families are restored. Lives are turned upside down. And only one, an outcast of outcasts, returned thanks on this day of Thanksgiving.

The Australians have a saying that goes like this: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't return? Answer: a stick. A boomerang is made to go out and do that for which is was made, and then return. Just in the same way that James Cook was endowed with all the gifts and raw talent to sail around the world and claim things for his sovereign and then return, God made all of us the same: He endowed each with unique skills and talents. He sends us out to accomplish things, to claim lives and to reclaim lost lives, and then to return to thank Him.

Don't be one of the nine lepers whose lives were reclaimed but didn't bother to return thanks. And while you're at it: don't sit there and be a stick: be a boomerang.

© Rev. Duane Brown, 2003