1 Corinthians 12:1-11
January 10, 2010
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
On Christmas morning if you had small children in the house, you or someone else were probably on your knees putting together toys or some kind of small model of a Thomas train system or a dollhouse or a Matchbox stock car speedway. Last week at our son’s house, I was on my knees connecting tracks for this remote control car roadway. When there was a too steep of a curve, we would add some plastic guardrails to prevent the cars from falling off. A small model of something that is real provides us with the opportunity to see how things work together.
In 1957, The US Army Corps of Engineers built a scale model of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta that is called the Bay Model. It’s one of the main attractions for people visiting Sausalito. The model includes a hydraulic system to flood it with water and simulate the movement of tides. The model helped test a proposal being put forth at the time to dam the bay and create two freshwater reservoirs. Once the model was operational, the engineers quickly saw that the proposed dams would be disastrous for the area, and they summarily dropped the proposed plan. The model, however, continued to prove useful for testing the impact of other projects, such as a new runway at SFO, for charting the direction of possible oil spills and for disaster planning in the event of major storms.
There are famous models of big cities like New York, Chicago, Australia’s Sidney and China’s Shanghai that have been used for urban planning.
Building small-scale models of cities also give us a way to think about God and how we relate to God. A small model of the Kingdom of God provides us an opportunity to see how God works in the world.
Modeler God
The Bible presents the idea of God as a modeler, though it doesn’t use that term. For example, in the Old Testament, God is imagined as a potter modeling clay. In Isaiah 29:16, we hear how God was questioning the people’s sincerity, “Shall the potter be regarded as the clay? Shall the thing made say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’; or the thing formed say of the one who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’?” We also know of the well-known Jeremiah text that God knew him before Jeremiah was born, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (1:4).
The image of God as Creator is also a God who is the modeler, creating us from clay and breathing the divine breath into us—and thus making us small-scale models of some small part of what God is. That isn’t to say that we are little gods, but only that we have the stamp of our Maker upon us.
Model Church
When we read 1 Corinthians 12, we can think of God as a modeler of a city. Paul describes God as constructing the church giving different people within it different gifts of the Spirit to match “varieties of activities,” all “for the common good.” While the church may not be a “city” as we know cities to be like San Francisco, New York or Chicago; in the New Testament, the church is a working small-scale model of something much larger, the kingdom of God. Revelations gives it a city name: “new Jerusalem” (12:2).
The church itself is not the kingdom of God, and Lord knows it doesn’t work as well as the “new Jerusalem” that Scripture envisions. Yet within it lie elements of what the kingdom of God will be, and it can be useful to think about the church as a small-scale model of the new Jerusalem yet to come.
If the church is, in any sense, a model of something greater, we might consider why God built such a model. One way to think about this is to consider why model-creating in general is done.
William Klink, physics and astronomy professor at the University of Iowa, says one key reason to create models is to provide an explanation of how things work. He writes, “Models are constructed for cognitive purposes…to enable the modeler to understand why some parts of nature behave the way they do…They have been put together by the modeler and can be changed and controlled in a workable fashion. What distinguishes model-building from speculation is that models must be testable.”
Of course, God doesn’t need to understand how the kingdom of God works. God doesn’t need the church as a model to explain to his own Godself what the kingdom is like. God doesn’t need a small-scale model to see how things work.
But we do.
The church is the church to help us understand what the kingdom of God is like. And if the model tells us anything, it suggests—as does our 1 Corinthians text—that the kingdom of God is comprised of many different parts that must function and operate in synch for the benefit of the whole. The car roadway that I was building with our grandchildren needed all the tracks connected to be fun. If the MUNI, waste management, parks and recreational spaces, PG&E aren’t working together, there’s chaos. If the hands, eyes, arms, legs and brain aren’t working in harmony, there’s eventual death.
Yesterday was an excellent example of our church striving to understand what the kingdom of God is like. Elected church leaders, board and committee members, and the church staff all coming together to function and operate in synch for the benefit of the whole. The Deacons serve as our spiritual caregivers while the CE Board overseas how our people form their faith. The Trustees maintain our church home for all of us to practice our faith in the world. The committees focus on specific tasks on our behalf. We became familiar with the 2010 church calendar of events and activities. We came together to pray, worship, become better acquainted in order to work together in harmony.
The church is designed, in part, to be a model display to the world of what the kingdom of God is and how it works.
Ongoing Modeling
We are the small-scale model church of what the kingdom of God will be. We are never the “Model Church” that claims to be perfect and always right.
When we first set up the model train set, our first time attempt is usually not according to the instructions. We have all the tiny houses, buildings, the city park, park benches and streets laid out, the train tracks running around it. Then, you call the kids over to watch. You start the thing up and then one of the trains derails or a switch doesn’t work right or some rail cars uncouple. The kids want to play but you get frustrated that the whole thing just doesn’t work as you want it to and you give up.
Not God. God doesn’t give up on the small-scale model church.
God keeps working with the church, keeps tinkering with the model, keeps making improvements, keeps hoping that everything—all the parts—will operate as they’re supposed to. God keeps working with us so that as we respond to our calling and spiritual vocation, we might enjoy the blessings of the kingdom of heaven right here on earth.
In the Corinthian church, not everything was in good working order. Paul reminded them of their past when they were pagans and experienced spiritual phenomena, including speaking in unknown tongues. They once believed in idols that did not speak. But when the Spirit of God came, they all received a variety of gifts in not any hierarchical order that may suggest that some are more important than others but that all gifts come from God for the common good.
The Spirit gives to each person as the Spirit so desires. Paul goes on to say that all the gifts individuals bring to the communal worship play an integral role in how the community functions (1 Cor. 12:14-31). Every part of the body is valued and indispensable.
What gifts do you bring to the small-scale model church known as FCBC? Might it be wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues or the interpretation of tongues?
In this New Year called 2010, might you share your gift of counseling and mentoring of youth, teaching children, offering friendship, serving as a comforter for those who are in distress, nurturing our young parents, babysitting in the nursery, teaching English at Friday Night School, engaging in home and foreign missions or anything that God has activated in you? Might it be singing in the choir, changing our burnt out light bulbs, praying for the sick, preparing a meal for someone in need, helping out in the sound room, cooking Sunday morning breakfast, setting up the rooms for programs or anything else that God has activated in you?
These gifts are not for us to enjoy by ourselves. “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
One of the most fundamental concerns that we as human beings have is why are we here? What is the purpose of my life and does it have any meaning at all? I believe that’s the reason why you are here. You are looking for a reason to live. And you suspect that since God created you, God formed you, God, the Modeler took clay and made you that you might also be able to find answers to your search for meaning from God.
This church, a small-scale model of the Kingdom of God gives you a way to think about God and how you can relate to God. God is just too big to get to know by ourselves. So God gave us Jesus Christ, a model of God so that we may know God for ourselves. Christ gave us the church, a small-scale model of the Kingdom of God that is yet to come in fullness but we are already seeing what the Kingdom of God is like by what we do in the life of FCBC.
Leaving the Station
If Christ is the engine of the train known as the church and we are the different rail cars each with a different function—some are storage cars, some are passenger cars, others are flat beds, still others refrigerated cars and there’s of course, is the caboose. If we who are railroad cars are not hooked up with the engine, we will be left behind in the station.
Our church, a small-scale model of the kingdom of God is hooked up to Jesus Christ, our Lord and we pray that you will be on board.
Let us pray.
Dear God, challenge us to work together with the gifts that you have blessed us with to live out your kingdom work here on earth. We want to know you as our Lord and our Creator. Reveal to us your plan for our lives as we participate and serve sacrificially at this small-scale model church known as the First Chinese Baptist Church. We give you praise for your magnificent creation and blessings. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.