Title: The Modeler and the Modeled
Text: I Corinthians 12:1-11
Thesis: Christ makes himself known as a creative Modeler… and we are the modeled.
Introduction
Michael Chesko describes himself as an eccentric mix of engineer, model maker, unofficial cartographer, and most of all, artist. When he was a little boy living in Arizona he would make maps of fictitious landscapes of places like Arizona and then he started to model cities. He would literally fill a room in their home with a scale model city.
Chesko is an eccentric. He sees skyscrapers almost as living things which continue to mold the people who frequent the buildings’ neighborhoods.
In 2008 Michael Chesko unveiled his miniature replica of midtown Manhattan. He used balsa, wood, xacto blades, and fingernail files to create the miniature midtown Manhattan. He based his miniature using a scale of 3/8” equals 100 feet. He hand-carved each piece of the city using blueprints, photographs, digital reproductions, and satellite images. It took Chesko 2000 hours to complete this replica.
Project Midtown Manhattan Photograph
They say that if his model of Midtown Manhattan were full-sized it would be within 5’ of the actual building modeled. (James Woodman, downtown express, Volume 21, Number 8, The Newspaper of Lower Manhattan, July 4 – July 10, 2008)
Businesses like Hobby Lobby have aisles in their stores dedicated to modelers. Serious modelers may create elaborate model train layouts or miniature solar systems. When I Googled “modelers” I was immediately taken to the Modeler’s Annual Magazine website where I saw extraordinary scale model replicas of an abandoned caboose, a dilapidated brick building, a rusty 1957 Chevy hardtop, an outhouse and an antique Fordson Tractor project. (http://www.finescalerr.com/)
There are as many kinds of models are there are modeling interests. Every model is a reflection of the one who modeled it. And it is noteworthy that God reveals himself in Scripture as a modeler as well.
I. God is a Modeler, we [people]are being modeled
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “He did not make me?” Can the pot say to the potter, “He knows nothing? “ Isaiah 29:16
If God is a modeler and we are to understand ourselves as the work of the one who modeled us, then we must be a reflection of the God and what interests and intrigues God.
In Genesis 1 God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness… “So God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:26-27
In the second account of creation we see that God “formed” the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7
On January 26 sixteen teams from nine countries will arrive in Breckenridge, CO where they will spend the next five days creating stunningly beautiful ice sculptures from 12 feet tall / 20 ton blocks of machine made Colorado snow. Then on January 31 the River Walk Center will be open the following week for public viewing.
Whether it is a team of professional sculptors working over a 20 ton block of snow or a little boy rolling up balls in the front yard to make a snow man… it is the image of molders shaping and forming their subjects. Such is the image of God we see in Genesis of God kneeling down and forming a man from the dust of the earth.
The image of God in Isaiah 29:16, Isaiah 43, Jeremiah 18 and Romans 9 is that of a potter working with a lump of clay, forming it and molding it and modeling it into the person he wants it to be. And the shaping is not just about the shaping of a form… it is about the formation of a person.
The same way God is the shaper and molder of individuals, God is also about shaping and modeling the Body of Christ or the Church.
II. God is the Modeler, the body of Christ [the Church] is being modeled
All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines. I Corinthians 12:11 (1-11)
In I Corinthians 12:12, the body of Christ is depicted as a unit or a body made up of many parts. It says that though there are many parts, they form one body.
If we think Michael Chesko’s painstaking attention to detail in modeling Midtown Manhattan is a work of art… think of the intricacies of forming a real, working model person. Then think of what is implied when we think of God expressing himself through the formation of the Body of Christ or the Church of Jesus Christ. Each and every detail carefully created and purposefully placed to complete the whole body.
When I was a boy I was into building model cars. These models were not little snap-together toys… these models required the assembly of the entire car. The model would come with a molded body, window glass, rubber tires, an undercarriage and a couple of sheets of molded parts attached to a skeleton of sorts. You had to remove each part of the car from the plastic skeleton, file off the rough edges and glue it carefully into place for assembly and painting. Sometimes when I was finished I would discover that I had some extra parts left over. It might be a tiny little shifting lever or a little tachometer that was supposed to have been mounted on the steering column. Over time I collected a lot of extra parts I kept in a model car box labeled: Extra Parts.
That box of extra parts represented a collection of model cars that were in some way incomplete or unfinished.
The bible says of the body of Christ or the Church, that there are different kinds of gifts or different kinds of service or different kinds of ministries, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all people. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one as he determines. I Corinthians 12:4 and 11
Once again, I Corinthians 12:12 gives us a summarized statement of what all that means: The body of Christ is depicted as a unit or a body made up of many parts. It says that though there are many parts, they form one body and work together in harmony.
The same attention to detail that went into the forming of a human body with its: Circulatory, Digestive, Endocrine, Integumentary, Immune, Lymphatic, Muscular, Nervous, Reproductive, Skeletal, Urinary, Vestibular and Endocanniabinoid Systems along with all the pieces and parts that make it all work, is going into the forming of the Body of Christ.
In the modeling of a plastic replica of a car or the modeling of a human body or the modeling of the Body of Christ, i.e., the Church… it takes all the parts in the right place to make the model a complete working model.
As we all know, when one part is missing or not functioning properly, it throws the whole thing out of whack. And as God is forming the Body of Christ universal, its local expression, the Heritage Community Bible Church, we are being put together with purpose. And just as the making of the individual is important to God, so is the making of his Church. So it is imperative that we be a diverse and different but working together in all the intricacies of life and ministry.
I am always a bit taken back when someone suggests they are the only ones or a group suggests that they are the only ones functioning in the Body of Christ or when someone suggests that everyone should be functioning in the same way and all doing the same thing. I hope that you will take the time to read the Annual Reports that will be distributed today. And I hope you will read them with an eye toward seeing just how many people are involved in the life and ministry of this local expression of the Body of Christ. We are not all doing the same things. That is the beauty and wonder of the human body and that is the beauty and wonder of the life and ministry of the Church. And it is Jesus Christ who forms us and equips us and places us in our respective places for the greater good.
The third point is simply a reminder that we aren’t finished yet.
III. God the Modeler, does not give up on what is being modeled
...so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Jeremiah 18:1-6
Do you remember the old acronym: P B P W M G I N F W M Y? (Please be patient with me, God is not finished with me yet.)
None of us is who we are destined to be in the creative hands of God. And no church is what it is destined to be in the creative hands of God. God is constantly at work molding and forming us as people and as a church.
In Jeremiah 18 the potter is working at his wheel when the clay in his hands becomes marred. It collapses or is misshapen so the potter then reshapes the blob of clay into another pot, “shaping it as seems best to him.” Jeremiah 18:4
Years ago I was president of the school board of USD 294 in Oberlin, Kansas. We were searching for a new Superintendent of Schools and in the process we interviewed several candidates. One interview is still vivid in my mind. When asked how he would approach change in our school district he said, “I am a tinkerer. I will tinker with this and that to see what works and what doesn’t work.”
At the time I thought his answer was kind of lame. We weren’t looking for a tinkerer… we were looking for a transformer. We wanted a superintendent of schools who would grab the district in his two hands, lift it up and splat it down and begin the business of reshaping us into the perfect school district.
I know there are times when a potter has to just start over. But I also know that much of the making of anything is in the tinkering or the tweaking. The making of any creation is largely about putting on the finishing touches.
When a model train enthusiasts has created a vast layout with tracks and little towns and little mountains and tunnels and curves and country landscapes, he will invite people down into his basement to see it all work… He throws the switch and the train leaves the station and zigs and zags around the track. Then suddenly the engine derails on a curve and everything piles up and comes to a halt.
When that happens, does the model train enthusiast goes into a rage… does he grab the underside of the plywood upon which the layout is built and flip it off the saw horses that support it? Does he literally destroy the entire layout and then begin again? Of course not… he gently puts the engine and the cars back on the track. He might tweak the track a bit with a shim or tighten a connection. And then he flips the switch again to see if it will perform as it is intended.
God is in the business of molding each of us and God is in the business of molding his Church. God is going to keep on molding and shaping and tinkering and tweaking until we get it right.
Conclusion
So perhaps the most important thing for us is not our informing the potter as to what kind of person we want to be or the kind of Church we want to be… but letting the potter inform us as to what he wishes for us to be becoming.
And if that be the case, it falls to us to remember to be pliable… flexible people. People receptive to the hands of God forming us into the people and the church he envisions us becoming.
