Michael Chesko recently spent 2,000 hours constructing Midtown Manhattan.

Well, okay, not actual Midtown, but a nearly perfect scale model of it. Using only an X-Acto knife, a fingernail file and a small rotary Dremel power tool, Chesko turned a pile of balsa wood into a stunningly accurate model of the midsection of skyscraper-packed Manhattan. He modeled not just the tall structures, but every building within the 382 city blocks that make up Midtown. He placed them all in proper proximity to each other on a 35-by-29-inch sheet of wood, using the scale of 3/8 of an inch to equal 100 feet.

When Chesko, who has also made a similar scale model of Lower Manhattan, brought both models to New York City’s Skyscraper Museum several months ago, he was actually seeing New York for the first time. He constructed his models at his Arizona home, using blueprints, old photographs, digital reproductions and satellite images as guides. After seeing the real city, Chesko declared, "If you were to enlarge this model to life size, the largest discrepancies wouldn’t be more than five or six feet."

Why did Chesko do this? It wasn’t for money because no one had commissioned the model. To a degree, it grew out of his hobbies and personal enjoyment, but he also regards the completion of these models as the "culmination of a spiritual journey." He views skyscrapers almost as living beings that have defined the American spirit for a century and continue to mold the people who frequent the buildings’ neighborhoods.

New York isn’t the only city to receive attention from a modeler. In 1957, the Army Corps of Engineers built a scale model of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta. The model included 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 were summarily dropped. The model, however, continued to prove useful for testing the impact of other projects, for charting the direction of possible oil spills and for disaster planning in the event of major storms.

Chicago, Australia’s Sydney and China’s Shanghai all have been modeled as well and have been used for urban planning.

Chesko’s Manhattan models are different from those of San Francisco, Chicago, Sydney and Shanghai, in that his weren’t designed for any practical purpose. They’re primarily a work of art, and, like other kinds of art, they express a spiritual dimension of the artist. No one can say that the models of the other cities aren’t artistic, but their creation was driven not by a spiritual quest but by a realistic need: to test the impact of proposed projects, aid urban planning and help prepare for possible disasters.

Building small-scale models of cities also gives us a way to think about God and how we relate to 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. "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’?" (Isaiah 29:16).

The well-known Jeremiah text is another case in point. "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations."

The image, of course, is of God as Creator but also of God as Modeler, creating us from clay and breathing the breath of life into us — and making us small-scale models 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.

So in a sense, we’re the result of God’s modeling bent, but the example I started with was of modeled cities, not modeled individuals. And in that regard, our reading from 1 Corinthians invites us to think of God as the modeler of a city.

While the apostle Paul never uses that term, he does describe God as constructing the church by giving different people within it different gifts of the Spirit to match "varieties of activities," given "for the common good."

The church itself is not the kingdom of God, and Lord knows it doesn’t work as well as the "New Jerusalem" John envisions in Revelation. 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 that 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 himself what the kingdom is like.

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 text — that the kingdom of God is comprised of many different parts that must function and operate together for the benefit of the whole. If the subways, the sanitation facilities, the parks and recreational spaces, the financial infrastructure — if the hands, eyes, arms, legs and brain — aren’t working in harmony, well, there’s chaos and eventual death.

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.

Ever seen a model train set up in someone’s basement? Let’s say this guy sets up his system and has all the tiny houses, buildings, city park, park benches and streets all laid out, with the train tracks running around it. He invites friends over to watch, starts the thing up and then one of the trains derails or a switch doesn’t work right or some rail cars uncouple. A normal person, if this happened continually, would get so fed up that he just might give up the whole thing and go fishing instead.

Not God. 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.

Thomas Edison, the man credited with the invention of the light bulb, is said to have remarked, "I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give to others."

Perfect inventions for the service of others are precisely the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of God’s people. Because of sin, mankind, God’s most perfect invention, lies useless. In his grace, God sent us his Son who reveals his glory to us. In Holy Baptism, we who were once imperfect are made righteous and perfect in God’s sight through faith, and with that faith comes gifts from the Holy Spirit.

With our sins totally forgiven, filled with unique gifts to serve, we are then ready to bring glory and honor to God. If Edison’s greatest invention was to serve others, we can surely say all the more, turn on the light! Better yet, turn up the light!

Where God is not present, there is no light. Apart from the Spirit, everyone is uninformed, ignorant, of spiritual matters. The Corinthian’s were led astray by their idols. They often went however they were lead. We, too, are led by our sinful natures and evil desires, instead of fearing, loving, and trusting in God above all things. Where God does not dwell, does not speak, there is darkness and decay.

Where God is present, there is understanding and blessing. Possessing the Spirit allows us to say "Jesus is Lord." Possessing the Spirit empowers us to see and proclaim that God’s Son went to the cross to atone for all the sins of the world and then rose from the dead.

The Holy Spirit brightened the hearts and minds of the Corinthians. Their epiphany shows the one true God, working in many different ways yet one and the same God.

Epiphany, by the way, the season we are celebrating now, is a Christian festival, observed beginning on January 6. It commemorates the appearance of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi. The goal and essence of Epiphany is realized in the personal arrival of the Son of God within the heart and mind of the individual.

God’s glory burns brightest when the believer responds to God’s grace. The unique work of the Holy Spirit, personally bringing his gift to each believer, who in turn uses those gifts for the common good – is when they become "a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of your God."

To one is given the message of wisdom, to another faith, to another healing, another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another discerning spirits, to another tongues, to another interpretation of tongues. We were all given the Holy Spirit in our Baptisms. God’s glory shines brightest when we use our gifts for the common good, sharing the Good News of Christ with all people, and proclaiming Jesus as Lord.

Epiphany literally means "shining upon." This is appropriately seen as a season of light. Beginning with the star that lit the way for the Wise Men, the season gives us rays of Christ’s glory, increasing every week. Week after week we see that Jesus is Lord.

We have seen that light; we know that Jesus is our Lord, our Savior from sin and death. Each one of us is given the Spirit to shine that light of Christ on others. We are empowered to be little models and reflections of Christ that the world can see. You are a light. You are an epiphany. Turn up the light. Amen.