“As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Family is hard. It’s hard in a lot of ways. It’s hard because you don’t get to pick your family. It’s hard because your family shapes who you are whether you want them to or not. It’s hard because you are stuck with your family. You can try to deny them, but those hooks are in deep. It’s hard because you love them and love makes you vulnerable. It opens you to wounds of the deepest sort. But family is good. Because of that love that can make it hard, family is where you can be received no matter what. Family gives you a home and a place of stability when the storms of the world blow. With family you know you can find support no matter how deep of a hole you’ve dug for yourself this time. The good of family outweighs the hard, and so you stick with family no matter what. A recent Disney live action remake of an animated classic offers a good reminder of this. Let’s talk about Lilo and Stitch.

I know I wind up writing these months after the films come out in theaters, but I almost never go to the theater to see movies anymore. I didn’t even see Fantastic Four in theaters. I’m eagerly awaiting its streaming release in November. But eventually they do come to Disney+, and eventually we get to talk about them. I finally got to watch the live action remake of Lilo and Stitch this past week. The movie was an absolute smash at the box office this past summer. It was the only film this summer to surpass a billion dollars. It out performed two Marvel movies, one of which has been intensely anticipated for a very long time, a Superman movie which officially launched the new DC Cinematic Universe, and the live action remake of How to Train Your Dragon, which I still haven’t seen.

Having finally seen it, I understand why. It was terrific. It stayed true to the delightful original story. It changed a few things including the removal of Captain Gantu, the shark-human hybrid alien who was the primary antagonist of the animated original, but that honestly didn’t take away from the live version at all. Where the animated version focused more attention on Gantu’s efforts to capture or destroy Stitch, the live action version gave its primary attention to Nani and Lilo’s attempts to keep their family together in spite of the immense challenges they faced.

The movie received some criticism when it was released because of the other major change it made. In the animated version, Nani ultimately gives up her dreams in order to stay in Hawaii and keep raising her sister Lilo after the death of their parents. Her sacrifice was highlighted and celebrated. In the remake, Nani goes to school and leaves Lilo in the hands of a foster family. When I first heard the criticism over this, it made it seem like a much bigger deal than it turned out to be. The foster family turns out to be the neighbor who had been looking out for Nani and Lilo ever since their parents’ deaths, making sure they were able to keep their family together. Lilo’s staying with her added a degree of realism in the best way possible. And, because of a bit of convenient alien technology, Nani was able to see Lilo in person every day. It was not nearly the takeaway from the original emotional climax that it was made out to be.

Ultimately, the movie is excellent and absolutely worth seeing. But there was one thing that caught my eye that could have made the movie even better. In the movie (both original and remake) Lilo is a mischievous little girl who is just a bit different from her peers. Her mischievousness isn’t ill-willed, but it is pretty destructive, and a major drain on Nani who is doing her best to work and take care of her sister and keep up a house and pay the bills and satisfy a genuine social services worker who really does want the best for both of the girls. Benevolent or not, though, she keeps causing problems that add to Nani’s load.

After one climax moment when the girls butt heads pretty hard, they share a tender moment together as they both apologize for how they have handled themselves recently. Lilo asks Nani if she is bad. Maia Kealoha who plays Lilo does a remarkable job of putting the right amount of emotion into the moment. She is clearly feeling the guilt of her actions and is concerned that her brokenness is the problem. Nani reassures her that she’s not bad, she simply does bad things. She tells her that families are sometimes broken, but that family is good. The key line is: “Ohana means family; and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”

Later, when Stitch comes to his own similar realization after discovering that he really does love Lilo and feels genuine remorse over all the destructive things he has done to cause problems for the girls, he asks Lilo the same question. “Is Stitch bad?” And Lilo, having learned from Nani, offers him the same reassurance. Stitch then uses this strong concept of family to demonstrate to the Grand Councilwoman of the Intergalatic Federation that he has changed and should be allowed to stay on earth with his new family. Family is broken sometimes, but family is good.

The theme of the goodness of family running throughout the movie is wonderful. This combined with a complete lack of anything objectionable, including any LGBT references, is likely what led to its incredible box office success this summer. Hopefully Disney takes the hint and keeps moving down the path of making movies that whole families can see together rather than trying to push a worldview agenda that a majority of their customers don’t share or support. Or they can keep making expensive movies that badly underperform. The former seems like a better idea to me.

In any event, this whole theme is handled really well, but it falls short of an opportunity to proclaim a key Gospel concept that is a better answer to the question that both Lilo and Stitch ask. Am I bad? In both instances in the movie, they are assured that, no, they aren’t bad. They just do bad things. And that’s the answer our culture gives to that question. It’s no surprise that was the answer Disney provided. But can I suggest another answer that’s more consistent with the Scriptures…and reality?

Here’s what I would have said to Lilo…and Stitch too. The truth is that, no, you’re not bad. You’re broken. So am I. So is everyone. That’s called sin. And sin separates us from God. It breaks our ability both to do good and to even want to do good. We’re not as bad as we could be, but we’re broken at every point all the same. This whole mess keeps us stuck on evil. We may occasionally do some good things, but that’s the exception to the rule.

That’s not very encouraging news, but it gets better from here. You may not be good, but you are made in the image of a God who is good. This God made you to be good like He is, and He’s so committed to your reflecting that image well again and living in a right relationship with Him, that He has made a way to fix what is broken in you. He sent His Son, Jesus, to earth as a baby who grew to be a man. That man lived a perfect life, never once doing anything wrong. He didn’t sin at all. And when the time came, He willingly gave up His life to God on our behalf as a sacrifice to bridge the gap between us and God. He gave His perfect life for God to pay the price for all of our very much imperfect lives broken by sin.

Now, if you are willing to accept Him for who He is, accept that after giving up His life as a sacrificial offering that God raised Him from the dead again to new and permanent life – a new and permanent life that He is ready to share with us – then you can indeed share in that life with Him. When you put your faith in Jesus, God will extend to you through Him all of the blessings and benefits Jesus earned by His perfect life. He will extend to you the glories He received as a reward upon His resurrection. When that happens, He will come into your life and with the presence of His Spirit in you begin working to fix what is broken inside of you so that you look more like God made you to look in the beginning.

This offer of life is open and available to anyone willing to receive it. All it takes is a willingness to take Him at His word. With His help, you will grow to be the kind of person who not only does good things, but who wants to do them. This won’t come from you, but from His presence dwelling in you. This is a good thing too because you grow weary of doing good after a while. He doesn’t and He won’t. You can keep relying on Him, and He will make you more than enough. He will make you righteous and able to dwell for eternity in His kingdom where you will be a part of His family. And being a part of His family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.

May you receive this good news and live by it. You’ll be glad you did.