In our house, the season of Christmas movies has already begun. 

We watch a lot of the classics and a fair number of not-so-classics, which we also love.  

But I am very much a lover of Thanksgiving, and so part of why we start so early with Christmas is simply that there really aren’t any Thanksgiving movies we can watch instead. 

Certainly, there are none that feel like required holiday viewing, right? 

“Miracle on 34^th Street” begins with Thanksgiving, but as soon as Natalie Wood gets her mother to invite the guy across the hall for dinner, it’s done.  

There’s the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, which is pretty good.  I like that one, especially its culminating friendsgiving, but that’s pretty much it.  

And then there’s the Steve Martin/John Candy movie, “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” which is about two strangers who get thrown together, trying to get home to Chicago for Thanksgiving after a series of epic misadventures. 

In that movie, the real kicker comes at the end. 

The two men are profoundly different.  Steve Martin is intense and inclined to complain; John Candy is more happy-go-lucky but also a bumbler.  

Their bickering and bad luck are the backbone of the movie. 

Finally though, they get where they’re going, and they shake hands with a kind of well-meaning finality. 

Steve Martin gets on the train to go the last few miles toward home.   

But as he’s looking out the window, as the city goes by and he’s heading out to the burbs, he begins thinking through the whole journey in his mind…and it’s then he suddenly puts it together. 

He realizes by remembering some strategic silences and some body language he hadn’t picked up on that, in fact, his traveling companion doesn’t have a place to go…that his family or his friends aren’t waiting for him…that all along, his warmth and happy-go-lucky way were masking a much more complicated and painful story.  

Martin turns around. 

He goes back to the station where he’d just left his fellow traveler.  

Sure enough, Candy is sitting there alone in an empty station, sadly staring off into space. 

The situation is just as Martin had suddenly realized. 

And so, of course, in the last two minutes of the movie, with all their bickering forgiven, Martin invites him to come join his own family for Thanksgiving.  

It’s lovely.  

Except maybe we shouldn’t be quite so quick to say “of course.” 

Or maybe it’s fair to say that if he puts the truth together in time, and if he decides to backtrack toward his original station, and if it turns out that his traveling companion is still there – if all the “ifs” line up like that – well, in that case, then “of course,” he will invite his friend to Thanksgiving dinner. 

Which he does. 

Do you ever have moments where you think to yourself, “You know, I should really…” do…(I don’t know what)? 

“I should really call them.”   

“I should really send them a note.” 

“I should really stop by and say hello.” 

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of things that any of us should really do—organize the basement or check it for radon, stock up on that icy-melt stuff for the front walk, or what have you.  

Today, I’m talking more about those things we should really do when it comes to other people.  

So often, those realizations bubble up for just a moment and then pop. 

Something else we really should do, in fact, something we should really do first, enters into your mind, and that’s that: the moment passes to make that call or show up with that plate of brownies.  

If you think about it, it’s not so obvious how all our “ifs” line up, and what needs to happen to get us to “of course.” 

To put it another way, there are moments of realization – the moment when we put two and two together.  

But beyond that, there are moments when we put two and two and two together, and we actually make the effort to turn back – to make good on our passing realizations and turn them into something more durable. 

II.

This morning’s Gospel describes a moment like that – a  moment when someone manages to put two and two and two together.  

The place where it is thought to have happened is now known as Burqu’in, about a mile and a half from the city of Jenin, on the West Bank and now part of the Palestinian Authority. 

The current church rests on a cave, which was the original church and is both one of the oldest churches in the Holy Land and also remembered as the place where the ten lepers were quarantined…According to local telling, it was their cries from the cave that drew Jesus closer, and you can still see the hole in the roof of the cave where it is claimed people would drop alms or maybe food and water.  

The cave doesn’t figure in the story as Luke tells it.

But you can imagine the isolation and sadness of such a place, which point to the isolation and sadness of their lives in general. 

Imagine how they must have spoken of home if they allowed themselves to speak about it at all.  

Luke says that Jesus calls to them – and maybe he stands right above that hole in the cave and calls right down, and the cave where they’re sitting is suddenly echoing with the voice of God, like the tomb of Lazarus, telling them to come out.  

They don’t need to be told twice.  

They don’t wait.  They don’t ask questions.  They don’t stand around for a quick selfie.  

Like most of us probably would be, they’re off like people running to catch their flight, hoping they can make it home before the family cuts the turkey.  

They look down, and for the first time in ages, they’re clean.  Free of their disease.  Free to return to the land of the living.  

Free.

Except that one of them seems to put two and two and two together, and unlike the others, he does this powerful thing.  

Like Steve Martin in “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” he has a revelation, and he turns right back around.  

You’ve got to figure that he’s as eager to get back home as any of them. 

But he recognizes that the moment is inviting him to respond, to offer something in return – to do something more durable.  

And he comes back and kneels at the feet of Love Itself…Love Incarnate…The Word Made Flesh…to say thank you.

It’s a gesture that signifies not only that he has been made clean, but something even deeper—that he has been made well. 

III.

I think it’s a misreading to suggest that the other nine were somehow not thankful for what had happened. 

I’m sure they were.  

I’m sure that back home, somewhere after their third plateful of Thanksgiving everything, with their families sitting at the table speechless and their whole villages all standing outside in the yard, it occurred to them: they should have taken a moment back at the cave to say thanks. 

I’m sure that for many of the nine, there wasn’t one single night they went to bed without remembering and giving thanks for Jesus.     

So when sermons on this story underline the whole idea of cultivating an “attitude of gratitude,” as if it’s just the one who turns back who feels grateful, I think they’re missing something very important. 

The point is that, in our gratitude, we are invited to respond.  

Because yes, it’s great to be grateful.  

But now that they’re back, what happens?  

The next time a leper, or some other outcast, finds their way to the edge of the village, what will they do? 

It’s interesting to imagine them passing by a quarantine cave in their own neighborhoods, a place they’d grown up with and maybe never thought much about before their own affliction.  

But now they know the darkness of such a place. 

Now they’re fluent in the cries that come out of it.    

It may not be them or their child who’s in there now, but each person in that cave is someone’s child.  

Each person in that cave is one of God’s children.  

They should know.  They should remember.  

So having been made clean, themselves, how will they respond?

That’s the question. 

This isn’t a story about simply remembering to feel the right feelings.  

It’s a story about turning around – because the gestures we make…the steps we take…are what show what is well with our souls.  

IV.

Personally, I wish there were more Thanksgiving movies. 

More stories about unexpected guests and accidental friendships. 

More stories about moments of realization that, because of God, we belong to one another and are charged with being each other’s keeper. 

More stories of making room at the table and turning around to seek one another.  

May our thanking always take the form of giving, and our hearts continue to be shaped by gratitude.  

Amen.