The Transfiguration Collage

The Transfiguration Collage

Collage, from the French: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together" is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music and literature too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole.

Max Ernst, a pioneer of surrealism, once wrote, “What is collage? It is something like the alchemy of the visual image. The miracle of the total transfiguration of beings and objects with or without modification of their physical or anatomical aspect.” He went on to write that the most noble conquest of collage is “the irrational.” And he was tempted to see in collage, “the exploitation of the chance meeting of two distant realities on an unfamiliar plane.”

The scene in Matthew 17:1–8 (also depicted in Mark 9:2–8, Luke 9:28–36) is, even by New Testament standards, often described by scholars as unusual and surreal. We call it The Transfiguration of Jesus. The story teller blends imagery and personages from such disparate Biblical eras as Moses in the Exodus and Wilderness narratives, who delivers the terms of the covenant; Elijah, the first of a series of prophets who challenge the faithfulness of God’s people in obeying the commands of the covenant, and particularly challenge and chastise the civil and religious authorities in Jerusalem for their misdeeds; Jesus and three of his first four disciples, whom he has just told that they must pick up their crosses and follow him [Matthew 16:24-28]; the pillar of cloud from the wilderness sojourn; a mountain, often the site for teaching and close encounters with the Holy, the Divine, the Ground of all Being, and a reminder of Sinai where Moses receives the commands that are to shape the moral life of the community of God’s people. It is an alchemy of visual and narrative images across more than a thousand years that become totally transfigured both with and without “modification of their physical or anatomical aspect.”

It would be fair, in the words of Max Ernst, to call this passage a collage as it very much is a “chance meeting of two, (or in this case more), distant realities on an unfamiliar plane with some modifications: Jesus’s face shines like the Sun, and his clothes become “dazzling white.” He is talking with Moses and Elijah, two figures with no graves and no description of their dying. As disorienting as it may still be to us some two thousand years later, try to imagine the psychic impact it must have had on the witnesses, Peter, James and John – who not very long before had spent their days on a lake called the Sea of Galilee fishing and mending their nets.

Peter, who in a sense represents any of us who attempt to make sense out of this unexpected and surreal vision, starts babbling about setting up some temporary dwellings like the tents in which God’s people lived in for forty years as they were being shaped and formed as Israel, those who live with and strive with God – one for Moses, one for Elijah and one for Jesus. His impulse seems to be to settle in, to somehow render this alchemical transfiguring moment a continuing reality. Let’s not return to the brokenness of the world, but remain here in the presence of the Light of the World and these great icons past and present. It is clear that Matthew sees Peter’s offer as a trivial, ludicrous outburst: typical of any such religious talk that is often ill-timed, diversionary and even divisive. Peter is interrupted as a cloud covers the mountain top, as it had at Sinai, and by the same voice heard at Jesus’s baptism, repeating what had been said then: “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased!” But this time with the added admonishment, “Listen to him!” And just as suddenly, the disciples fall to the ground in fear and trembling. This may be the moment of real understanding of what he had told them six days before: that he would suffer and die in Jerusalem, be raised from the dead, and that they must pick up their cross and follow him with similar lives of self-sacrifice and compassionate service to the needs of others – all others without qualification.

That’s when it happens. “Jesus does what he has done to the leper, to Peter’s mother-in-law, and to the two blind men: he touches them. Then he speaks words of reassurance. It is another

of the countless vignettes in the scriptures of incredible grace shown to disoriented, fumbling followers, of divine patience with impatient, confused disciples.” [Texts For Preaching:Year A, Brueggmann, et al, p172] “Get up and do not be afraid,” he says. Literally the text reads, “Be raised.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

Confirming: Jesus is connected to the long past and is the future of God’s people; he is God’s Son, God’s Beloved; if he is friends with Moses and Elijah he can be trusted – so listen to him and do what he says and what he himself does. Then, pointing to his resurrection he says, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” And perhaps now they remember that six days earlier he had promised that he would return in glory and that those who follow in his Way will be repaid “for what has been done.” Be raised, he says, for you are my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased. This is what we are to hear. This is why we are to “listen to him.”  We are to be beloved, and to belove others – all others.

Then he leads them back down from the mountain to begin the life he has been teaching and living himself – A life of reconciliation. A life of repairing the world – what the rabbis call, Tikkun Olam; to repair a broken world and to heal all the broken people therein.

This season of Epiphany begins with the voice from heaven: You are my my Son, my Beloved, with you I am well pleased. And the season ends with the voice from the cloud: This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him. Belove him as I belove you. Belove others as he has beloved you. This collage of images, narratives, and visual and auditory appearances is meant to offer us words of comfort and reassurance in disorienting and even fearful times. The temptation to simply fall to the ground, cover our eyes and ears, and cower in fear as daily disasters, outrages, revelations and attempts to divide us seem to be coming from all directions, is all too real. The temptation, like Peter’s, is to withdraw. Or, like all three disciples, to fall to the ground and be fearful. Or, even worse, get angry.

These are the times, however, when we need to allow Jesus to touch us. To remember that in difficult times throughout the past, figures like Moses, Elijah, John the Baptizer and Jesus have touched God’s people with strong challenges, but also with words of healing, reassurance, and comfort. When we listen to him, he says, “Be raised and do not be afraid.” Be reassured, be patient and compassionate with one another. Accept your belovedness and like me, belove others, all others. This is the cross I want you, I need you, to carry – the cross of belovedness, compassion and a continuation of our common task to repair this tired and broken world.

A collage not only transfigures the beings and objects it displays in new, and surprising array, but has the power to bring about “the miracle of the total transfiguration” of the viewer, the witness, as well. This collage called The Transfiguration of Jesus calls us to be totally transfigured; to become a new whole; to stick together! Be raised; do not be afraid; listen to him!