Reflections on Mirror Christianity
by Stanley K. Inouye

This message is entitled Reflections on Mirror Christianity. That's M-I-R-R-O-R, as in the thing over the bathroom sink which we hate to look into when we first get up in the morning.

This message is about one specific mirror—its creation, shattering and restoration. It's the story of our creation, the introduction of cultural difference, and Christ's coming to bring us back to complete unity. We will look at that story by considering three related lessons from Scripture: (1) Jesus' role in creation, (2) the Genesis account of the Tower of Babel, and (3) Christ's entry into human history in the form of a man. Through consideration of these three lessons, we can develop a biblical rationale for Christian cross-cultural interdependence.

The phrase “unity in the midst of diversity” is now heard often in Christian circles. We will explore the biblical basis for that perspective, using the analogy of a mirror. Hopefully, in the process, we will uncover some new insights to reflect upon.

When we look at ourselves in a mirror, what do we expect to see? We expect to see ourselves. We may look different at times, but we expect to see a reflection of what we look like. The purpose of a mirror is to represent accurately whatever is in front of it.

We live with mirrors all around us. And we are often the objects in front of them. As egocentric human beings, we expect to be mirrored. However, have we thought much about being a mirror ourselves? Or have we considered how the culture to which we belong is part of a mirror, which at one time was complete and uncracked, created to reflect the image of God?

We will begin by examining the idea that we were created to reflect the image of God and perhaps gain new insight into a familiar truth in God’s Word. John 1:1-3 reads: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (NIV).

John refers to something as “the Word.” This “Word” was somehow distinct from God in that the Word could be “with” God. And yet, it was the same as God, equal to, identical in essence to God, one with him—God himself.

We further learn that this Word was not an “it,” not a concept, idea or dream God had of what he wanted to create. The “Word” was neither some heavenly, transcendent cloud or gas nor some amorphous, earthly, pre-organic goo. John tells us that the “it” was a “him,’ a person. And that this “him” was the person through whom God created everything and everybody.

And that person referred to as “the Word,” who was there in the beginning and molded our very being, is Jesus. Jesus is our creator. He made us.

Now let us look at the creation account in the first chapter of Genesis. Inter- estingly, Genesis 1:1 starts in the same way as John 1:1: “In the beginning . . . .” The first verse of Genesis 1 then goes on to clearly establish the biblical view that the creation was the specific intention of God. It says that in the beginning, “God created.” Each of the six days marked a new and major creative act of his. And each creative act was hallmarked by the words, “And God said . . . .”

Relating this phrase, “And God said,” to the concept of Jesus as “the Word” in John 1:1 and following, we might see Christ's role and creative work being expressed in the word, “said.” Once all of God, the Godhead, decided to make something, Jesus then acted. Jesus can be seen as the active verb. When God “said,” Jesus created.

Certainly all the members of the Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—were involved in the creation. Their involvement is reflected in Genesis 1:26: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness . . . .’”

Notice the “us” in what God said. Who is the “us”? The Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The verse, “In our image, in our likeness,” indicates that there is a pluralness—an us-ness, an our-ness, or a we-ness—about God. Human-kind was created collectively to reflect that we-ness.

Here, in Genesis, we envisioned the way God created us as being like a mirror. Often we interpret these portions of Scripture individualistically. We see each individual, each of us, as being created fully in God's image and likeness. We were each created to be a mirror, each possessing the capacity to reflect completely our Creator.

But, looking at it from a different perspective, we can begin to see that God created humankind as a collection of individuals, each individual being able to only partially reflect the image of God. He created us all together to be like a giant mirror, with each person only a small portion of it. And it is only when those individual pieces of the mirror, each of us, are faithful to reflect that unique portion of God which only we can, cohesively and together, that all of God is reflected.

And so, all of the Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—was involved in our creation. But it was the Son's unique role to do the shaping. Jesus, the Son, shaped us in “the image of God.”

And the image of God is Jesus himself, as Colossians 1:15-16 tells us: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created . . . all things were created by him and for him” (NIV).

In the beginning, Jesus created us in the image of God and then later became a human being himself in the same form, the image of God. So we can safely say, “the image of God,” Jesus, created us in his very own “image.”

The Colossians passage also says, “(f)or in him (Jesus) all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell” (RSV). In comparison, Ephesians 4:13 talks about the fullness of Christ, as opposed to the fullness of God—how we are to be built up “until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (NIV).

How does the “fullness of God” referred to in the Colossians passage relate to the “fullness of Christ” in the verse from Ephesians? The fullness of God dwelt bodily in the one Jesus, but it is impossible for all the fullness of God to dwell in any of us, individually, in the same way as it did in Christ. The fullness of God which was in the one Christ, can only be realized and expressed through the building up and edifying of all of the individual parts of Christ's body. In other words, we, who are believers, can only partially experience and reflect God's and Christ's fullness on our own. We cannot be whole, alone. We cannot understand or serve God fully, alone. Only together can we possess, experience and reflect God's fullness and, therefore, fully reflect the image of God and that of Christ. Collectively, we are something like a full-length mirror. That mirror is the body of Christ.

We usually think of the body of Christ as a New Testament analogy. But in a very real sense, the idea of the body of Christ can be found in Genesis.

In Genesis 11:1-9 we have that portion of Scripture which recounts the Tower of Babel incident. It begins: “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech . . . .” (NIV).

What this means is that at that time, there was only one world culture. These people decided to centralize their power by building a massive city, one capital city for the whole of humankind. And in the midst of that world capital would be a mammoth tower that would reach to the heavens. The stated purpose of all this was that they “may make a name for (them)selves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” This tower was intended to be a monument similar to all the monuments we now have in all the capital cities throughout the world. This gigantic monument was to symbolize the tremendous power of a united humanity. Indeed, humankind is powerful when united, even without God. And that is exactly the kind of power that they were trying to immortalize using the man-made building materials of brick and mortar instead of the natural elements of rock and tar. Scripture says that they were trying to make a “name for themselves,” an identity which was apart from God. They, who were created to reflect the image of God as a mirror, were now saying to their very source of being, “God, we have no need of you!” This tower was their giant exclamation point.

The Lord knew the power humankind could possess if they were unified. He intended it to be so. But that power was to be a reflection of his power, utilized for his purposes and to bring glory to his name. But this was not the case here. So the Lord said,

If as one people speaking the same language1 they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us2 go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other (Genesis 11:6,7, NIV).

And as a result, it goes on to say,

. . . the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth (Genesis 11:8,9, NIV).

And thus, the myriad of cultures in the world was born.

Before this, the one great culture of humankind was as one global-sized mirror, reflecting the image of its creator. But then, the mirror was shattered, the broken fragments strewn to the ends of the earth—each piece, partial, isolated from one another, jagged-edged, dirty and distorted; each piece, a different culture of the world today; each piece separated from its source of being and meaning in life. And as Jim Sire, former Editor of InterVarsity Press, puts it, “A mirror without anything to reflect is emptiness itself.”

Each culture of the world is an equally valid and yet equally unbalanced, incomplete, fogged and distorted fragment of the much larger mirror we collectively were meant to be.

We may tend to feel our piece of the mirror is perhaps bigger, better or more important than the other pieces. And yet, each of us, each culture, is but one broken piece, one fragment of that shattered mirror. In the beginning, we were meant to be the mirror of God, reflecting his image which is also the image of Christ. That image is the body of Christ. But look at us now—scattered, lost and imperfect.

And so, about two thousand years ago, Christ came. Our Lord's purpose for coming may be best understood from his high priestly prayer for us contained in John 17. In verse 23, Jesus prayed: “Father, . . . May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (NIV).

Christ's purpose for coming was to mend the mirror. He came to put the pieces back together—to even eliminate the cracks—to bring us back, as the Scripture has said, “to complete unity.” He came so that we might once again, as we did upon our crea-tion, together reflect the total image of our creator who was Christ himself. He came so that we might reflect his body (“the body of Christ”) in which dwelt all the fullness of God.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if this complete unity was a reality and not just a possibility? What if we could report the following: “As we survey Christendom today, it is so evident that Christ's prayer, his desire and will, are coming true. The mirror has been mended. The cracks, the divisions, have been eliminated. Believers from every culture and walk of life are joined together as one, working in symphonic harmony, with a resultant composite power that is overwhelming to the world. And the world is being convicted that this unprecedented unity could not be possible but for Christ and his love.” But that's not what's happening. Why isn’t it?

There seem to be three primary problems. The first problem is our natural, human tendency to define belonging as sameness. We construct rather complex sets of criteria for membership in the groups to which we belong. Basically the criteria generally describe who we are. The people most welcome to join our group are those who are most like us. We exclude people who are different from us. We are threatened by them. We respond with suspicion and defensiveness when we are approached by them.

The same tendency has pervaded the Christian church from the first century until now. We have found ourselves judging one another according to our theological interpretations, our ecclesiastical traditions and our particular ministry practices. We believe we have the right to determine who belongs and who doesn't.

That wrong assumption is the very reason the Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12, goes to such lengths to establish the fundamental basis for membership in Christ's body, the church. According to Paul, the only absolutely essential and non-negotiable characteristic of membership in the body of Christ is whether we are inhabited by the Spirit of Christ. And this characteristic is not something we are born with, or something we achieve or attain. Rather, it is something that happens to us, something that is given to us. We are the ones chosen, not the ones doing the choosing. Paul puts it this way in verses 12 through 14:

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free3—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Now the body is not made up of one part but of many (NIV).

It seems that Paul is saying that beyond this one essential way in which we are the same, the church is best characterized by difference, not similarity. And this difference constitutes the very reason for our belonging—not the opposite, which is our natural human tendency. Our differences are to be seen as they are, in fact as gifts from God. In other words, our differences originated with God. They have a God-ordained purpose within the body of Christ, as parts of the mirror humankind was meant to be. We should welcome our differences and thank God for them. We should not overlook, avoid, tolerate, or passively accept our differences. We should accept one another not in spite of our differences, but because of our differences. We should nurture our differences so that we have the most to contribute to one another. And yet, we don't.

The second problem related to our inability to demonstrate unity to the world has to do with those of us who are minority Christians—we who are the fewer in number, the poorer, and the less powerful. We tend to measure ourselves according to what the Christian majority reflects or promotes as the standard of what makes someone truly Christian. Because we or our church fail to fit neatly into that majority mold, we assume that we are the ones who don't match up. Therefore, we judge ourselves and our churches to be inferior, even to the point of questioning the legitimacy of our own faith and walk. We may then feel that we are only colorful ethnic clothing which the body puts on, but not really part of the body itself.

This is exactly what Paul was pointing out when he wrote, in 1 Corinthians 12:15: “If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body . . .’”(NIV).

However, Paul goes on to say that the foot, for that reason, does not cease to be part of the body. In other words, just because we don't see ourselves or want to see ourselves as part of the body, as we are defining it or as it is being defined for us, we are, nevertheless, still part of the body. We are still part of the same body if we share the same Spirit, whether we like it or whether they like it or not. If we are Christ's, we are stuck with each other.

Using the mirror analogy, we're still a part of the same mirror, and only together can we make the mirror complete. It is our responsibility as a piece of the mirror to fulfill our God-ordained function as part of the whole. We can't do that if we minority Christians see ourselves as inferior Christians, or if we question the legitimacy of the majority's Christianity, or if we refuse to recognize that minority and majority belong to each other. Too often, we think we don't have anything worth contributing, and so we don't. And as a consequence, we don't allow our majority Christian counterpart to become different from what they are. Everything majority Christianity is, remains all that “Christianity” seems to be.

The minority Christian is as much at fault as the majority Christian. Their problem is the same. They both define belonging as sameness, seeing themselves as a complete whole and not an incomplete part, and therefore not contributing to each other or working together with each other as they ought.

The third problem which prevents the unity which Christ desires of his church has to do with the Christian majority. This problem is reflected in 1 Corinthians 12:21, where it says, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don't need you!’” Minorities already know they have needs. They might not accept help and may even say “I don't need you!” but they know they have needs, needs which are difficult for them to meet themselves.

Majority Christians, however, are far less likely to realize and acknowledge that they have needs which they cannot meet themselves. They tend to think that they do not need help from minority Christians. They think, “We are the needed and they are the needful. What need have we of them, apart from God's blessing for helping them? What can they give us that we need so desperately?”

But the majority Christian has just as much of a need for what the minority Christian has to offer as the minority has a need for what the majority has to offer. 1 Corinthians 12:22 says, “On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (NIV).They might not have the same needs but they do have equal need for each other to meet different needs they cannot meet themselves.

Do we ever think that what the poor and powerless minority Christian has to offer the rich and powerful majority Christian might be worth more than what the majority Christian has to offer the minority Christian? The majority Christian can give money and resources. The minority Christian can give lessons in needing and depending—two very essential ingredients for a dynamic walk with God. How does a rich man learn how to pass through the eye of a needle? From someone who is earthly poor but spiritually rich.

And there are so many other ways we need each other and can give to one another. Remember the mirror analogy? As pieces of that mirror, each is capable of only partially understanding and reflecting God. If we are to be able to expand our understanding of God beyond our limitations and reflect him more fully, we must gain insight from each other and join together in our worship, our service and our witness.

There is no doubt that the mirror which we call the body of Christ, has been shattered and scattered in this world. The body of Christ today, culturally speaking, is a bunch of randomly scattered, disconnected parts. The parts are disproportionate in size. Some are big and growing fatter. Others are skin and bones, barely surviving. Still others are bruised and beaten. The remainder are diseased and dying. Some parts are even missing. One of those parts, the Japanese and those of other Asian cultures, for all intents and purposes, is missing.

The question we must ask ourselves now is, “What must we do to get the body back together again, to bring the mirror back to wholeness?” The answer has to do with understanding our roles in the restoration process. 1 Corinthians 12:24-25 helps us to understand those roles: “. . . But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other” (NIV).

Perhaps this is beginning to happen. Much of the dynamic growth and development in the church today, whether here in the United States or around the world, is occurring among cultures and in countries where Christianity has not been historically dominant. Indeed, it appears as though God is giving greater honor to those parts which have lacked it so that they may be added and combined with those who have been a part for a long time. The Lord is working in a special way to nurture and grow the parts that have been small, weak and even missing, so they will not shrink back, but be able to confidently contribute to those members of the body who have traditionally been large, strong and have contributed so much in the past. All this is so each part will be able to make its unique contribution to the others and the whole body, developing an equal appreciation and concern for each other in the process.

This is what it seems the Lord wants to do in our lives and among us, our church, and in the Japanese American and Asian American community. His Spirit seems to be indicating that he wants to work in an extraordinary way, if we allow him, to help us develop our own uniqueness, whether in our understanding of his Word, our worship, our work, or our witness. It is not an end in itself, but is so our relationship with him might grow more deeply, our lives might become more healthy and whole, that many of the 97% in our community who have yet to receive Christ might do so. And, it is so that in fulfillment of our Lord’s priestly prayer in John 17, we might assume our unique role and responsibility to prove to the world by our unity with Christians of every culture and country that Jesus was sent from the heavenly Father and is Lord.

The Lord seems to be on the move in our community in an awesome way to reach the unreached. He wants to do it through us and our churches. The ultimate goal is the fulfillment of Ephesians 4:12-13, “. . . that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (NIV). In other words, the goal is that the mirror the body of Christ was meant to be, might once again be made complete, clearly reflecting to the world the image of our creator, Jesus Christ, in all his glory, power and love. Perhaps the Lord is speaking to us in Isaiah 43:19 which reads: “For I am about to do a brand new thing. See I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness for my people to come home” (NLT).

Do we perceive it? We can rejoice that the Lord is, indeed, making a pathway to come home for those we love, our family and friends, and others in our community, for whom the Lord died and loves—a pathway to their Heavenly Father and ours.

Thank God! Amen.

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