Human glory is a precarious resting place. One hundred words of praise and admiration can easily lose their might with a single word of criticism. Suddenly, the thrill and the safety promised by adulation are gone. This may be true during an observation at work where you are told five positive things and one that needs improvement. Often, the five positive things are forgotten, and we fixate on the one negative thing.
Today’s psalm reminds us that our glory comes not from ourselves. “In God is my safety and my glory.” Thank God for that! What an exhausting, scary and restless life we would live if we needed to prove our worth and dignity, and if our glory were the only goal!
Unfortunately, there are many of us who still fall for this trap of proving our worth and goodness through what we do, what we have, and what others say about us.
This is the mindset of the Pharisees and scribes in today’s gospel. Jesus is doing all things right, and they cannot stand him for it. They are consumed by envy and insecurity at what Jesus can do, seeing it as an assault to their human glory and a confirmation of Jesus’ glory.
What they fail to see, however, is that the glory that Jesus possesses flows from the Father. Everything comes from him. Everything returns to him.
In those instances, in which we are tempted by the falsehood of human glory, may we repeat the words of the Psalmist: “In God is my safety and my glory.”