Again, speaking to the Pharisees, Jesus tells another parable about a wedding banquet. It is similar to a prior parable about a feast that is hosted.
In it, a king has a wedding banquet for his son. He invites many friends who either blow off the invitation or even beat up the messenger who told them they were invited. This enrages the king who has them beaten. Finally, he invites the general public to fill up the hall. Up to now, the details of the parable parallel that of another banquet parable. The main difference is that the messenger is treated harshly.
However, the king notices a loan person who is not wearing wedding clothes. The king orders the man thrown outside, to the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Jesus ended the parable by saying "many are invited, but few are chosen". This seems to be the closes we get to a parable, but it is vague itself.
Unlike the other parables with the Pharisees, this one is not interpreted by Jesus, not even to his own disciples. However, it comes right after two other parables about the Pharisees, so we can assume the parable is about the Pharisees as well.
Based on that, we can assume that the Pharisees are the invited guests who do not attend, but rather mistreat the by messenger who gave the invitation. This is in alignment with the parable of the vineyard that immediately preceded this parable.
The man taken away for got wearing wedding clothes was unprepared for what the banquet was about. He is dealt with In similar fashion who declined the invitation. In other words, this man tried to enter the banquet without paying honor to the king or the king's son, and that got him kicked out.
I prefer to interpret parables on their own terms without importing anything beyond the immediate context. But I think now is a good time to import something we find later on. Jumping ahead to the writings of the Apostle Paul, we get the idea that a relationship with Christ is like one of a marriage. Christ married the church and those in the church. If we import that idea into this parable, this man in the parable wanted to enter the banquet, but did not want to marry Christ.
The result of that was he is thrown out "to the darkness", where he weeps and gnashes his teeth. Christ used similar words to describe hell on other occasions, so this seems to be a reference to hell. It is (will be) dark and characteristic of sorrow. Still, there is no indication distinguishing between an afterlife or the present life.
Finally, the ending of the parable is interesting - many invited, but few chosen. This is a nebulous phrase and the term "chosen" seems particularly strange and having no bearing on the parable. Many are "invited" seems to be a general reference to an invitation to both the king's friends as well as the general public.
Under a Calvinistic/ Predestination interpretation, one might think that the "chosen" refers to some predestination concept. That does not satisfy me as I think it stands in contrast to the rest of the parable. The invitation went out to all and some people chose to accept the invitation, some did not.
So, in that terms, "are chosen" could just be a reference that they choose to accept the invitation.
Regardless, it is a strange stand alone statement that is hard to interpret without other details.
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