The Cost of Joy

Over the past several weeks, our series Stories That Confront has taken us through some of Jesus’ most unsettling parables. These are not comfortable stories. They shake us by the shoulders and say, “Wake up. Think about what you’re doing.”

We’ve heard about the laborers in the vineyard, where those who worked all day were angry not because they were mistreated, but because the master was generous to others. We’ve heard about two sons — one who said the right thing but didn’t act, and another who initially refused but later obeyed. We’ve heard about tenants who treated the master’s vineyard as if it were their own and attacked those who came to collect what was rightfully his.

Each of these parables exposes a different form of pride, resistance, or misplaced trust. But this final one, the parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22, gets to the heart of the matter. Because at the center of the Christian life is grace. And grace, for all its beauty, is often the hardest thing to accept.

The question this story presses on us is simple but searching: will you receive the grace of God as a gift, or will you cling to your own control?

When the King Isn’t the King

Jesus tells of a king who prepares a wedding feast for his son. He sends out invitations, but the invited guests refuse to come. They have farms to tend, businesses to run, things to do. The king’s invitation becomes just another item on a long to-do list — something they can safely ignore.

In the first century, refusing a royal invitation was not just rude. It was rebellion. When a king calls you to a banquet, it’s not optional. It’s more like when your parents say, “Would you take out the trash?” They may phrase it as a question, but you know what it means.

The same is true with God. His invitation is freely given, but what we do with it has consequences.

That’s what Jesus is confronting in the religious leaders of His day. Many of them were deeply religious people who believed in God, yet lived as though He was absent. They were what we might call “functional atheists” — people who believe in theory but live as though God has no say in their lives.

And it’s not just them. It’s us, too. We can pray and read Scripture and go to church, yet still run our days and decisions as though the King isn’t really King. 

C.S. Lewis said it memorably in The Great Divorce: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock, it is opened.”

The King has prepared a feast of joy, but to enter, you must heed His invitation. As Jesus said in John 8:31–32, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” The only “if” in God’s invitation is whether we are willing to come.

When the Gift Is Too Much

After the king destroys those who rejected his invitation, he sends his servants into the streets to gather everyone they can find — “both bad and good,” the text says — and fills the hall. The king will not have an empty banquet.

That’s a picture of grace. God wants His house full. He wants a hall filled with laughter and music and people robed in beauty and joy.

But then something strange happens. As the king walks among the guests, he notices one man who isn’t wearing a wedding garment. In that culture, the host often provided garments for guests to wear, a sign of honor and inclusion. To refuse it was to reject the king’s generosity.

So, the man who came in his own clothes — who refused to wear what the king provided — is thrown out.

It’s a hard image, but a revealing one. Because the second way we miss the feast is when we can’t bear to receive the king’s grace.

Isaiah 61:10 paints the picture this way: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; He has covered me with the robe of righteousness.”

That’s the wedding garment — the righteousness of Christ freely given. To refuse it is to say, “I’ll come, but on my own terms.” It’s pride disguised as self-respect.

And that kind of pride is the one thing that can’t survive at the feast.

The Humiliation of Grace

Grace is beautiful, but it’s also humbling. It erases the ledger instead of balancing it. It says, “You are invited without deserving it. You are clothed in a way you could never clothe yourself.”

That’s hard for anyone who likes to be in control.

C.S. Lewis put it this way in Mere Christianity: “A man who still thinks that, by being good, he can earn God’s approval, is still imagining he is his own master. He wants to bargain with God instead of accepting a free gift.”

That’s the man without the garment. He’s at the feast but not in the joy. He’s surrounded by celebration but still trying to prove his worth. So, he cannot remain at the feast.

We don’t just need to be forgiven. We need to be okay being forgiven. Self-sufficiency is the enemy of joy.

The Childlike Way

That’s why Jesus said, “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall not enter it.” Children know how to receive gifts. They don’t calculate or negotiate. They just receive with joy.

As adults, we tend to lose that ability. We want to earn, to repay, to deserve. But faith is the leap of joy that simply says, “Thank you.”

That’s the posture of grace.

The Invitation to the Feast Still Stands

Joy has a cost, but it’s not money or effort — it’s humility. The cost of your redemption has already been paid by Christ on the cross. The cost of joy to you is surrender. It’s letting go of the need to be your own king and allowing yourself to be loved.

The good news is that the feast still stands. The invitation is still open. The garment is still ready.

If you’re reading this, you are being extended the King’s invitation again. Let go of the need to earn your place. Let go of the idea that you have to be enough. Relax and receive the gift.

There should be no more joyful and relaxing place on earth than the church, because every person here is here by grace.

Don’t miss the feast. Don’t kill the joy. Let yourself be clothed in Christ.

The cost of joy is humility. The result of joy is peace.