Right here we need to stop and ask ourselves if we heard right. Life in the kingdom of heaven—the reign of God in the world, the mystery of salvation, what it means to be a Christian, the church’s true message—is a party? When Jesus tries to sum up what life with God truly is, he says it’s like a wedding party.

Does that surprise you? If it does, you probably suffer from a hangover of too much Puritanism. The curmudgeonly journalist H.L. Mencken said that Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy. Somehow, some way we have gotten in our heads the notion that sincerity requires a solemnity. Pursed lips, sour pusses, furrowed brows, feet frozen to the music all round us: it’s a picture of a humorless police force, a cabal of killjoys. But Jesus says it’s like a party. The dance floor is open, the punch is spiked, the roast beef is rare, the moon is full, and nobody turns into a pumpkin at midnight. You want to please the king? Honor his son by coming to the party and having a good time. You want to know God’s pleasure? Come to the party of salvation in the name of Jesus and obey the command to enjoy yourself in the presence of God forever.

So that’s the good news. And the good news is the first word of God and the last word of God. In between we have to sort through all sorts of responses to it that try to turn it into bad news. It’s hard to believe, but there are enemies of good news in the world. Unbelievably, some of them are enemies of THE good news, and some of them are in the church itself!

But back to the parable. The king sends word first to the usual crowd of royal friends that he is throwing this wedding party and their presence is requested. Well, “requested” is a little deceiving. In the time of Jesus, a social event like this would not have been like it is with us. We get an invitation to a wedding, and we check our schedule to make sure we are free. If we have planned to visit Aunt Mabel in the Poconos that weekend, we send our regrets with no harm done. But in Jesus’ day, such a man as the king and such a thing as a wedding for his son would trump all else. Not to go to that party would be an enormous insult to the king; it would shame him publicly and challenge his authority. These A-listers would prove unworthy of their invitations.

Lauren Weisberger has just published a follow-up novel to her first book about the fashion industry, The Devil Wears Prada. This one exposes the New York public relations industry, which throws parties in order to create settings to report on the goings-on of A-listers in their gossip columns. Everyone Worth Knowing is about the beautiful people who get invited to all these parties and the people that throw the parties in order to use the A-listers to feed the prurient interests of the public for their profit. They know that everyone wants to be invited to parties like these and that most of us don’t qualify. We are left to read about the lives of people we envy who get to have all the fun at parties we will never get into.

Well, how do you get on God’s A-list? Jesus’ parable tells us. Turns out you don’t have to be a somebody; you just have to be anybody! Everyone gets invited to the party of salvation.

Now, wait a minute, George, you say. That isn’t what the parable says. It says that the A-listers are invited first, and everybody else gets in only when they decline on the RSVP card. Well, technically, yes, you’re right, but I would say that is simply Jesus’ sticking the fork into the religious A-listers of his day and ours to show that God doesn’t operate the way the world does. God wants the room to be filled, and God doesn’t divide up the world the way we do. Everybody turns out to be on the guest list in the end, even if it seems to take a while for some to get their invitations. Did you hear what the king told his slaves? Go into the streets and gather up anyone you find there—good and bad alike.

Good and bad alike? Now there’s the key. The world is divided into two categories: those who think of themselves as good and therefore deserving an invitation but think their status allows them to set the terms for their own joy; and the bad, who can’t believe they’ve gotten an invitation and can’t wait to get there.

Jesus was scolded by the A-listers of his day for hanging out with D-listers. Tax collectors and prostitutes will go into the kingdom before you, Jesus tells the Jewish leaders, who are really the ones that turn down the king’s invitation in the parable. Sinners go into the kingdom—they get into the party—precisely because they accept God’s terms. God calls and they answer. God invites and they accept. Period. It’s all about God’s grace, not our worthiness. We prove ourselves unworthy only by rejecting God’s acceptance of us. In other words, God calls everyone to the party. The invitation is not in question. God is not a PR firm that throws parties only for the beautiful people in order to make everyone else jealous. The good news Jesus brings to us is that YOU are included in God’s plans for heaven. The only way you can miss it is by rejecting God’s invitation, thereby dissing the Son of God by throwing your own party instead. The rule of the gospel is inclusion by God, exclusion only by yourself.

So why would anyone want to turn down God’s party? Well, it’s usually because we don’t like the fact that it’s God’s party and that God can set the terms for a good time. Joy is always conditional, but we want it to be unconditional like God’s love. It is what it is, though. Some things in life are like that, don’t you know?! You can’t make them otherwise just because you want to. God is a tyrant about that. You have to come to the party to share in God’s joy. If you search for joy on your own terms, you will end up in despair. This is the difference between heaven and hell.

Any of you here this morning who are putting off accepting God’s call to come to the party of salvation, be warned. You will get what you want. If you decide to run off to your farm or ranch or lake house, to throw yourself into your business, or to field your wild oats while you are young because you figure you can make a better time of things for yourself, well and good. But then you’ll have to live with that decision, and Jesus’ parable tells us that you will have to die with it, too. God is unbending about the conditions for eternal joy. It has to come through God’s free gift and not your own ingenuity.

Now, that should be good news, and if the parable stopped there, we would all feel so much better. We can accept the invitation of God’s grace, enter the party of salvation in the name of the Son, and be home scot-free. But that isn’t the end of it. We have this nasty bit about the king wandering the wedding hall, making sure the guests are having a good time, when he stumbles upon a man not wearing a wedding robe. He throws him out into what can only be described as hell. Then Jesus says, For many are called, but few are chosen.

What could this mean? Well, in its original context the parable is saying that the Jewish leaders to whom the revelation of God had come first were effectively rejecting the Father by rejecting the Son. So the call went out to others—Gentiles like you and me. Of course, many Jews also accepted Jesus then, just as many Gentiles rejected him. But the point is that God wants the hall of heaven filled to the brim. God wants a big party, not a tea party. God wants a spacious crowded heaven, not a small cramped one.

But even the church that thinks it’s in has to beware lest the king toss us out. The wedding robe signifies what every guest is expected to wear in the heavenly hall. Does this mean that you can’t wear shorts in heaven? No, it means you can’t come up short on grace once you have begun with it. It means God expects you to do more than get in the door; God expects you hit the dance floor. The robe represents the continuing condition of living in God’s good graces. Not to wear it can only mean that you have said you wanted to live by God’s grace but then you reverted to your own rules. The Christian life is one of continuous transformation by God’s grace, not a one-time decision that then allows you to do what you want.

Showing up is important, but finishing rightly is what counts in the end. Rosie Ruiz lives in marathoning infamy. She showed up for the start of the Boston Marathon in 1980. She received her number and started the race. Two hours, 31 minutes and 56 seconds later, she was the first woman to cross the finish line. She was given the victor’s medal. Then it dawned on race officials: nobody saw her running. Some spectators came forward and said they had seen her jump into the race from the crowd with about a half-mile to go. She was exposed for the fraud she was, her medal was revoked, and she is now the poster girl for sports charlatans.

This is what happens to some people who start out the journey of faith but later want to take shortcuts. They want to avoid the condition of God that they be faithful. They want to evade the conditioning necessary to experience the joy that comes through obedience, because they would have salvation be easy. Salvation is free, but it is not cheap. It is gracious but strict. Eternal joy requires putting on the wedding robe of discipleship and keeping it on. But the burden is not heavy, because the principle of grace is this: what God requires, God provides. You don’t have to bring your own robe to the party. You just have to go into the hall closet and put one on. It’s all grace, from beginning to end.

But ending in grace requires that you continue in it. The idea that many are called but few are chosen is odd-sounding, since it seems everyone is called and only one is booted out. But chosenness here means endurance. God doesn’t choose some to save and some to damn. You can only damn yourself, because God is only in the salvation business. Which is why God finally scrutinizes the invited guests to weed out the damned fools. God doesn’t want the few spoiling the fun for the many.

So are you in or out? It’s really up to you, you know. As far as God is concerned, you’re in. You’re an A-lister to begin with. Will you finish that way? Again, it’s up to you.