Years ago, my father and a friend would gather up a group to go backpacking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park each spring after tax season. He invited me to go, and I did several times.

Backpacking is more intense than hiking. We’d be out in the woods for 5-6 days and nights straight. And I know I just said it was intense, but we didn’t actually use tents. We each slept on a thin mat in a sleeping bag, either out in the open or under tarps.

The first time I went, I asked a lot of questions and really wanted to prepare.  We’d go in April when it was cold, but there were no bugs. Dad gave me a list built on his years of experience. I got a good pair of boots, good thick socks, a good sleeping bag, a little pad to sleep on, a poncho for rain, and on and on. I added to his list. That first year I packed everything I thought I might need, nice and neatly. But my backpack was pretty full.

We drove up to the mountains. When we got to the trailhead, they started divvying up the food and cooking utensils. My pack was already full.

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A bit more than 500 years before Jesus came to Jerusalem for the Passover festival that would include his crucifixion, a Greek philosopher seeking the mind of God discovered a simple truth. The hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the square root of the sum of the squares of the other two legs. Or, a squared plus b squared equals c squared. For example, if one leg is 3 and the other 4, the square of 3 is 9, the square of 4 is 16, 9 + 16 = 25, the square root of 25 is 5. That formula holds up no matter how long the two right-angle legs are.

I know what you’re thinking. No one told you there would be math. But here’s the thing about the math. We can draw triangles and lines on paper or construct them, but they are at heart ideas. Pythagorean Theorem exists in the mind. Pythagoras didn’t invent the Pythagorean Theorem, he discovered it. It was absolutely true before he discovered it, before there were people or anything else on this planet. It’s true whether or not you remember, forgot or never understood geometry. It will be true long after we are gone. Pythagoras recognized, therefore, that truth has to exist first in a mind, which put him and other philosophers in pursuit of the mind of God.

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We have another challenging parable this morning. Jesus is still in the Temple, still just days before his crucifixion, still confronting the chief priests and Pharisees. We are picking up right where we left off last week.

The main point of the parable is hopefully pretty clear. As we heard from Isaiah, the Lord’s covenant with Israel held this assurance of care and redemption, extending to the promise that he would destroy the shroud of death that is spread over all peoples. He will swallow up death forever.

That’s the wedding banquet to which the chief priests, elders, Pharisees and other leaders were supposed to lead them, including the care of the poor and needy. But they ignored it, made light of it and even went so far as to abuse and even kill the prophets the Lord repeatedly sent to remind and redirect them to this beautiful promise. And so ever since, God has been sending out messengers to anyone and everyone and welcoming those who respond. That leads to us. The Church is the bride of Christ. We are called to this banquet and given this most glorious promise as our heritage. Which is nice.

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