Brief synopsis of the readings: Our first reading comes from the Old Testament Apocryphic book of Wisdom (also called the Wisdom of Solomon). Here the wicked are speaking and are plotting against the “just one” who opposes them because they violate the law. They suggest that if he really is “the son of God” God will protect him. Therefore if they betray him to a shameful death God will intervene. Mark’s Gospel has Jesus and his disciples traveling through Galilee. Again he predicts that he will be handed over and killed but will rise after three days. This time they were afraid to question him. On their arrival in Capernaum Jesus saw that his disciples were arguing over who was the greatest. Jesus then took a child and placed the child in their midst. He then said that whoever “receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.”

For centuries in the United States we used slavery and segregation to keep people of color subservient. They were enslaved to provide cheap labor that was essential in growing the Southern economy and once freed they were kept separate to ensure they wouldn’t gain too much power. But that’s not what proponents claimed: they said it was because people with dark skin were inferior and needed lighter skinned people to care for them. They had a hidden agenda. They insisted they had nothing against people of color “as long as they knew their place.”

I write this because of our first reading. The book of Wisdom was written late, about 100 years before the birth of Jesus, and came out of a time of oppression by the Greeks. Unlike the Romans of Jesus’ time, the Greeks demanded that the Jews worship their gods and even insisted that statues of these pagan gods be placed in the Temple. Some Jews bitterly opposed this desecration and paid a heavy price but other Jews cooperated with the Greeks. They insisted that their cooperation wasn’t violating the commandment against worshiping false gods but were instead doing what they needed to do to preserve their community. Their cowardice was also a hidden agenda.

Having a hidden agenda, keeping our true motives secret, is a dangerous thing. It keeps the truth from others and keeps us from being authentically honest and, frankly, trustworthy. The ones speaking in our first reading are those who are plotting against their own people for calling them out. They were not trustworthy or honest, claiming that whatever they did, God will save the person.

I think this is also what’s happening in our Gospel reading. Jesus probably knew what his followers were talking about and that’s why he called them out. While professing to be wholly devoted to Jesus they were really jockeying for position. A hidden agenda is, ultimately, a deception to gain cooperation from people who wouldn’t otherwise support them.

So in correcting them, why did Jesus hold up a child? If you’re like me you have some residual dread of this scene because you’ve heard a few too many sermons talking about the difference between childish and childlike. Childish bad, childlike good. But that oftentimes becomes a distinction without a difference and most of us walk away without a real understanding of what this tells us.

Perhaps when Jesus embraces this child he is telling us that we should live without hidden agendas or secret motivations. Say what you will about children, they say what they think and (try to) do what they want. That often puts us in difficult positions as we have to explain things that are difficult or not meant for “polite company.”

Children will sometimes ask why the neighbors are getting a divorce or why everyone gets uncomfortable when someone they know identifies as nonbinary. We can call this a lack of discretion or maturity but at the same time we can recognize that they have no motivation other than curiosity. They don’t do it to appear smart or try to embarrass us. They are not trying to deceive us or trick us into a behavior they want. It may make us uncomfortable but their intentions are pure.

We can learn from that. Too often we worry about the wrong things. We may find ourselves so angry as to wish violence on someone but then pray for reconciliation and patience and find that feeling has left us. God will not be angry with our desire because it didn’t turn into action and we shouldn’t worry about it.

But if we concentrate of purity of intention, on living our authentic selves, we can find great peace and joy. Practitioners of 12 Step Spirituality (e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous) speak of rigorous honesty, not just to avoid addiction but to live our best selves. It allows us the opportunity to live in a way where we don’t need to invent cover stories or false alibis they don’t trap us into hoping something goes our way and our hidden agendas aren’t discovered. We don’t have to resort to deceit or manipulation to get what we want.

The fact that children don’t have hidden agendas doesn’t mean that developing them is a sign of maturity. Instead it’s a sign that we think ourselves so clever as to fool the world. That may work for a while but eventually the truth will win out. Ask any of the Watergate conspirators from the 1970s. There’s an old adage that telling the truth is easiest because you never have to remember what you said. If you say the same thing to everyone you don’t have to keep track of anything. Trying to cover up what we’ve said and done has been good for the world of comedy TV but it’s not a good way to live.

Living with purity of intent is not easy. It requires us to sometimes let go of what we want or even what we think is best. The Jews in the first reading were eventually liberated from the Greeks and were allowed to purify their Temple and the children in today’s Gospel received some well deserved praise. In the end it’s the best way to go.