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!
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