Allegory, Fantasy, and “Reality”
AM Psalm 61, 62 • PM Psalm 68:1-20 (21-23) 24-36
Eccles. 8:14-9:10 • Gal. 4:21-31 • Matt. 15:29-39
Knowing how Abraham exiled his firstborn son Ishmael and second wife Hagar, I’m hesitant to celebrate with Paul a Christian identity as the “child of the free woman”. Paul’s quote in Galatians—“Drive out the slave and her child; for the child of the slave will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman”—is in fact Sarah’s command to Abraham in Genesis 21, tweaked to a divine imperative. (Interestingly, God assures an uneasy Abraham of Ishmael’s survival and destined nationhood, but only when Hagar begs God not to make her watch her son die does he re-affirm the promise he made to her when she was first pregnant.)
Others’ failures to conform to our concept of “reality” can be an unwelcome reminder that we are not the protagonists of existence. With dark-laced humor the monstrous protagonist of a famous novel complains of his first wife’s sudden change in demeanor as “out of keeping with the stock character she was supposed to impersonate.” She announces her intent to leave him for another man and, blindsided by her independence of thought, he quickly plots violence and is just as quickly thwarted—she escapes minutes later, but is succeeded by the central victim of the story whose Independence Day is not so soon accomplished. The substitution of her reality with his fantasy results is one of the most tragic tales of non-empathy ever recorded in fiction.
Sarah, apparently barren, gave Hagar to Abraham, but discarded her as soon as she was blessed with Isaac. Sarah could not see beyond her warped vision of God’s promise to empathize with Hagar’s vulnerability. Paul’s allegory in turn is a fictionalization that obscures Hagar’s real pain and mistreatment. Whether in epistles, fancy prose, or our lives, suffering often hides behind the story we or someone else wants to tell.
Written by Kathryn Haydon
Kathryn holds a doctorate in Plant Science from the University of Arkansas and currently lives in St. Louis where she works as a food and plant scientist. She shares a happy, book-filled home with her husband Nathan and their cats Ollie and Adair. You can Google the quote but can you find what else the sailor has hidden?