The movie begins with these haunting words: In the old days, the land felt a great emptiness. It was waiting...waiting to be filled up...waiting for someone to love it...waiting for a leader. And he came on the back of a whale...a man to lead a new people. Our ancestor, Paikea. But now we were waiting for the firstborn of the new generation...for the descendant of the whale rider...For the boy who would be chief.

If you have seen the movie Whale Rider, you know that that boy never appears. The first scene of the movie begins with the death of the one possible heir, the chief's grandson. The chief's own two sons are not adequate candidatesone wants nothing to do with the old traditions in New Zealand and flees to Europe. The other son is a deadbeat living in a haze of drugs and alcohol.

Listen again to those opening words and hear how they could be spoken of our time, of our culture, of our current situation, of our land: the land felt a great emptiness. It was waiting...waiting to be filled up...waiting for someone to love it...waiting for a leader. Do you feel that way sometimes? Does it feel like you are waitingwaiting for something or someone to change the world? We are despoiling our environment with toxic pollution in the air and water, global temperatures are risingthe land does feel a great emptiness, as if no one truly loves it. We have such hopes and dreams for our worldwe desire justice for the oppressed, peace for the war weary, abundance for the poor, respect for the dispossessedand yet no leader, no credible leader with a vision larger than any of us has appearedand so, like Paikea's people, we wait.

Where is our leader? Who will love our land, our earth and who will lead a new people? All too often, I suspect, we too feel like we are waiting for a firstborn of a new generation, a descendent of the great spiritual leaders of the pasta new Moses, a new Abraham Lincoln, a new Martin Luther King, Jr.to rise up and lead us to a new tomorrow, to a new way of beingwe too are waiting for the one who would be chief.

The tension in the movie Whale Rider is who will rise up to replace the aging chief? This is certainly the central concern of the chief. His sons have abandoned him, he has no grandson, and the other boys of the village, nice as they are, don't seem to have what it takes. And then there is Paikeahis granddaughter who is the twin of his grandson who died at birth. She is spunky, talented, and precocious, but... she is a girl. The chief, the entire people are waiting, yes for the descendent of the whale rider, but for the boy, not the girl, who would be chief. And to make her presence that much more perplexing and confounding to the chief, his granddaughter was given the name Paikea, the name of the original whale rider, the original male whale rider. This would be like naming a girl Moses or Jesus. An auspicious name for any boy, but nonsensical if you are a girl. Throughout the movie we catch more than glimpses of Paikea's talentsshe is agile, she is smart, she has embodied her people's customsin short, she gets it. But that doesn't make her a leader. But there is something else going on in hersomething deeper, something more profound.

We first catch glimpse of Paikea's special gifts when she volunteers to retrieve her grandfather's scrimshaw necklacethe symbol of his office. He threw it overboard into the ocean during a test for the village boysthe one who could retrieve it would be the chief. Of course, none of the boys could find it. Later that day, Paikea asks her uncle to take her to the place where the necklace was lost. She dives down deep into the silent waters, she lets go of her anxieties, and she finds, not only the necklace, but a lobster for her grandfather's dinner. This should have been enough to show everyone that she was the leader everyone was waiting for, but few could see it. A few days later, a catastrophe occurs: dozens of whales, the sacred symbols of the community, beach themselves for no apparent reason. The entire village rushes to their aid, but the whales are too massive to move. Finally, while no one is watching, Paikea climbs on top of the biggest whalewhich she knows to be the whale of the original whale riderand coaxes him to swim out to seawhich causes the other distressed whales to follow. She rides the whale into a new tomorrow. How did she do this? We aren't toldwe can only conclude that Paikea has a giftwhat we in the church would call a spiritual gift. In her case, it was a gift of faithfaith that the ancestors and the sacred whales would guide her and her peopleand courage, the courage that she could make a difference, even when everyone, especially her grandfather said she couldn't.

The kind of gift that enabled Paikea to create a new possibility for her community is at the very heart of our equipping ministry emphasis. When we talk about equipping, the first focus is not on the churchas if equipping were primarily a way to produce more efficient committeesno, in equipping, the first emphasis is on each person and on the spiritual gifts that God has given you. So what are spiritual gifts? Are they the same thing as talents? Is it just a matter of getting better at what you are already good at? No. A spiritual gift is a quality, an aptitude, an orientation that God gives to every person in order to share God's love with others. We are given these gifts at birth and an equipping ministry helps us identify these gifts and respond to God's calling by using them in service to Jesus Christ. Spiritual gifts are enumerated in scriptureand although we may come up with different lists of spiritual gifts and have somewhat different definitions, they are the basis of all of our service. Here is one way to think about the difference between spiritual gifts and talents. Paul Vasile and I have different roles in this church's ministry, but we both share a common spiritual giftthe gift of proclamation. The gift of proclamation is the gift of sharing God's word so that it comes alive for others. Now while we share this gift, we have very different talents. Paul expresses the gift of proclamation with musical talenthe has the talent to bring God's word alive through music, through playing, and directing and composing. My gift, while the same, is expressed in the talent of preaching. Does that make sense?

So what are the other gifts? Here are some of them: teaching, helping, administration, mercy, giving, healing, wisdom, faith and encouragement? As one person once asked me, "How can encouragement be a ministry?" Encouragement is the gift of inviting others into serviceand we have all encountered people for whom we would do almost anything, and we have encountered people who could barely get us to do what we already love to do. For a ministry to succeed, it will need someone with this gift so that others will be encouraged to participate and share their gifts. One person in this congregation who has this gift is Sandy Norkaitis. Each Fall, Sandy invites us to participate in the giving of Advent bags to our homebound members. And each year, Sandy only has to ask onceshe has a marvelous way of not only asking, but making this ministry feel so important and worthwhile that, darn it all, you just want to be a part of it. Now Sandy does other things to make that ministry such a successshe is highly organized and she is very clear about what each person needs to do. But she has a gift in inviting others to participateand that ministry flourishes, in part, because Sandy shares that gift.

I Corinthians 12 tells us that we all have gifts for ministrythey are different gifts, but they are all given by the same Spirit to serve the same Lord. Therefore, one of the most significant roles of the church is to help people discover those gifts, develop those gifts, and use those gifts in meaningful ministrybe it in church, at home, in the workplace, wherever. And that is one of the most significant roles of an equipping ministry. Did you notice something with that description? Equipping ministry does not start with our committees and the work that the church needs to get doneit starts with the discipleit starts with you. What gift has God given you? How is God calling you to use that gift in service? It may well be that your gift is exactly what one of our ministries or committees needs and you will find great joy in serving there. But it may be that your gift takes you to other expressions, to other ministries, to places yet to be imagined.

We all know the agony of being on a committee or board where we feel at best like a warm bodywe have no joy in the task and feel like we are wasting our time. This is the root cause of burn out. We sometimes think that burn out comes from doing too much of something. But that's not the case; burn out comes from doing too much of something that brings us no joy. But think of those times when you were in the right placefor some it may be building a Habitat house; for others it may be staying at home raising small children; for others it may be that low paying job that you would gladly do for even less pay; for others it may be serving on one of the committees at churchwhen we are in the right place, our lives feel like they matter, our hearts lift, we are, in the words of the gospel song, Glad to be in the service. When we serve out of our giftedness, we find ourselves in the place just right, in the valley of love and delight. This is why spiritual gifts are at the heart of an equipping ministry.

But spiritual gifts are about more than just discovering joy in our lives and in our Christian service. Spiritual gifts, when we know them, develop them, and share them transform the world. That is what happened in Whale Rider. At the beginning of the movie, the girl Paikea said that her people were waiting for a new leader, the firstborn of a new generation. Everything about Paikea was wrongher gender, her age, even her name was wrong. But through her giftedness she gave new hope and the community experienced a new beginning. Listen to how Paikea, at the end of the movie, described what happened: My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs...stretching all the way back to the whale rider. I am not a prophet...but I know that our people will keep going forward...all together, with all of our strength.

Paikea alone did not change her people, she alone was not the solitary leader they were waiting for. Instead through her gifts of faith and courage and leadership, she inspired a new vision in her communityeven in her grandfather. And as she shared her gifts, others shared theirs and they found their strength, not solely in her, not only in themselves individually, but in their life together. Her words at the end of that story are true for us believers, as a community of faith: I know that this people will keep going forward...all together, with all of our strength.

We sometimes wait for a leader to make things differentto change the world. And God, by giving us all spiritual gifts, has called each of us to be those leadersnot alone, not in isolation, but together with all of our strength. And because God is with us and through us and has given us all amazing gifts for service, the land will be filled up, the land will be loved, and world will receive hope. Amen.