At the Movies: Moana 2

I have a deep bootstrapper mentality that isn’t always the most helpful. It assumes that everything I have, do, and am is by my own hand, and frankly, it’s a lie. 

But it’s such a tasty lie! I love wallowing in my own sense of self-worth and achievement, oblivious to the many hands and voices that have made the way for me. As much as we’d like to believe otherwise, faith—and life—are impossible in isolation. 

This rugged individualism stands in stark contrast to the need to invest in community. Pixar takes on this greater call to move beyond our personal comforts in pursuit of the interconnectedness of community in Moana 2.

Moana 2

After the smashing success of the 2016 original film, Moana 2 is the much anticipated sequel the 6-year-olds turned teenagers have been waiting for. 

Honestly, I still bawl my eyes out every time I listen to “Know Who You Are,” when Moana realizes that Te Kā, the lava monster, is actually the goddess Te Fiti. She’s just missing her heart.

I have crossed the horizon to find you,

I know your name

They have stolen the heart from inside you

But this does not define you

This is not who you are

You know who you are

That’s right, Moana, I know who I am! Even when I’m heartless! Even when I’m shattered! Even when I’m raging! This does not define me. I know who I am.

Even though my children are all teenagers now, I still listen to Disney soundtracks for fun, on purpose, because I can.

So, yes, I couldn’t wait to see Moana 2. After finding Maui, grabbing him by the ear, and telling him, “I am Moana of Motunui. You will board my boat, sail across the sea, and restore the heart of Te Fiti,” where else could Moana possibly go?

In Moana 2, the ancients have her answer.

Life on Moana’s island is pretty darn good. She has her friends and her family, Heihei the rooster and Pua the pig, her demigod pal Maui, the occasional visit from her grandmother the glowing manta ray, a mystical relationship with the ocean, and even a new sibling that simply adores her. 

But there were once more people than just the islanders of Motunui, and Moana is determined to find them.

Finding the Love: Faithifying Your Viewing

At the beginning of Moana 2, a hermit crab is offered a larger shell than the one it currently occupies. It’s grand, and a bit awkward, and maybe a little oversized for a crab as big as this one, but he takes it on anyway.

I love that early symbolism. Moana’s current home is lovely, but something larger is calling to her, a grander vision for her world, and when the ancients call her into that vision of a more connected world, it’s impossible for her to consider disobeying it. 

There’s a larger shell out there, and it’s high time she finds it.

It seems to me to be the same call placed on the American church in the last decade. Generally speaking, the American church has emphasized a spirituality that aligns well with the prevailing culture of individualism. We tout the need for a personal relationship with Jesus, a faith that is our own, one we can cultivate and grow through private Bible study and quiet times.

But like Moana, the ancients are calling to the modern church. They are inviting us back into a communal understanding of our faith. Events in our collective history divided us into thousands of different factions and denominations. But these last days, there is a growing need and call to set aside denominational divides that have separated us and seek unity. 

In Jesus’ last prayer for his disciples in the Gospel of John, the call for unity isn’t just an aspiration; it’s essential to Christ’s divine mission.

“Holy Father, protect them by the power of Your name, the name You gave Me, so that they may be one as We are one,” he begins in John 17:11. Jesus continues in verses 20-23:

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We are one—I in them and You in Me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.”

Our unity as the body of Christ and the bride of Christ is the strongest testimony to a hurting world. It is central to God’s nature. It is a core expression of love. 

Our faith simply cannot be practiced in isolation. God wants all people to be saved, all people to return to him, all people to experience the saving grace of Christ, reaching beyond our human-established walls and divisions, our baptismal practices, our beliefs about communion, and so on, to return to the first things of our faith: love and unity. There is no unity without love, and there is no love divided.

Moana might try to do her mission on her own, but the community knows she needs others, not because she is incapable on her own but because life is better and more beautiful lived together.

There is a dark force that blocks the currents of the ocean. It stands in the way of the people of the world coming together in peace and joy, and the pathway through is sacrificial love for the sake of relationships and unity. 

With love, we can overcome.