“Methinks she (he) doth protest too much”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Friday, July 8, 2022
Psalm 17 (Forward, p. 71) CEV p. 562
Whenever I hear someone loudly and vehemently exclaim how innocent they are of any wrong-doing, I cannot help but think of the character, Queen Gertrude, in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet that uttered the above words. She was talking about someone claiming to be innocent and without fault.
To me, there are very few, if any, people on earth—or who have ever lived on earth—who can honestly and fully even approximate the claim to be innocent and without fault. The bereaved and woefully harassed Job of Old Testament fame may have come close—at least by the historical record and his own admission—but who knows the secrets of his heart, his innermost being?
That is why I am more than a bit skeptical and suspicious when I read David’s claims as spelled out in today’s psalm. Really, to be honest, they are quite ‘over the top’:
“I am innocent, Lord! Won’t you listen as I pray and beg for help? I am honest! Please hear my prayer. Only you can say that I am innocent because only your eyes can see the truth” (verses 1-2);
“You know my heart, and even during the night you have tested me and found me innocent. I have made up my mind never to tell a lie. I don’t do like others. I obey your teachings and am not cruel. I have followed you without ever stumbling” (verses 3-5);
“I am innocent, Lord, and I will see your face! When I awake, all I want is to see you as you are” (verse 15).
But, what is the point of David’s claims, his protestations of innocence? It appears to be a justification for asking for God’s help. In other words, he is saying, “seeing as I am such a good guy, you really should be helping me.” And, underlying that assertion there seems to be a widespread belief, both in Old Testament and New Testament times, that God does not hear or listen to sinners. Psalm 66: 18 says this explicitly, “If my thoughts had been sinful, he would have refused to hear me” and elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures we hear of God listening to the prayers of the obedient and the faithful (Psalms 34:15, 145:19) and refusing to even hear the prayers of the wicked (Proverbs 15:29).
This idea is echoed in the New Testament. Here we read of the blind man whom Jesus healed saying, in response to the Jewish authorities who were questioning him with regards to the identity of the man who had effected this healing: “We know that God does not listen to sinner, but He does listen to the one who worships Him and does His will” (John 9:31).
And yet all through the Scriptures we read of God responding to the prayers of those who are less than perfect, people who certainly are sinful in one way or another: the people of Nineveh for instance (Jonah 3:5-10), or Hagar for her son Ishmael (Genesis 21:14-19), or King Ahab (1 Kings 21:27-29), or the Syro-Phoenician woman for her demon-possessed daughter (Mark 7:24-30) or the Roman centurion, Cornelius in Acts 10. Certainly—this is incredibly good news—we do know that God listens to the prayers of sinners—which is all of us (see Romans 3:23).
However, in saying this, all those who know and trust in Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord have extra grounds for hope and relief. In Jesus we now have free and boundless access to the throne of grace (Ephesians 3:12; Hebrews 10:19-22). Where we could never hope to approach God on the basis of our own merits, we can now plead the merits of Jesus Christ. He has opened the way for us in a way that we could never have, and so, regardless of our status as sinners, we know that we can freely come to God with our prayers. And so we no longer have to claim our innocence, or ‘protest too much.’ Thanks be to God.
Forward notes: “Weigh my heart, summon me by night, melt me down; you will find no impurity in me” (verse 3).
“A priest once told me this story. Imagine that your heart is a home, he said, a house full of rooms. Imagine that your heart is a home, and Jesus is coming to visit.
“You’re going to want to clean the place up, get your heart ready to present to the Lord. But what about all that mess? Anything that’s ugly or embarrassing or confusing or scary…you’re going to want to put it away. You can bundle up every bit of sin and shame and hide them away in the basement. When Jesus comes, you can show him your heart, clean and bright and open and ready to receive him. ‘Thank you,’ Jesus will say. ‘Now, take me to the basement.’
“This image from Psalm 17 is of radical openness to God searching our innermost beings, that he could even melt us down like silver or gold. It reminds me of that basement. The room in us that we want to keep shut at all costs is where God most longs to go. Who knows what treasures God might find in us if we truly offered our whole hearts?”
MOVING FORWARD: “What’s in your basement? Invite God in there today.”