Just about the time I begin to get comfortable in the Gospels, familiar with the arrangement of the furniture and the views from the windows, invariably there comes along a story like this one, and I trip over it like an unexpected coffee table. Who put that in here? I am not even sure at what point this parable took a turn from guesthouse to funhouse, but it did. It started with an invitation to a wedding! And who doesn’t love weddings?

Evidently there are some folks who do not love weddings. That seems to have been the case with the A-list guests, invited by a king to a grand wedding party for his son. We might suppose that the rich and famous would be eager to be there, but no! The preferred invitees refuse to come. The king, who should be outraged, graciously invites the guests again, this time with the detail that beef is on the menu. But this invite is met with an even worse result: some ignore the summons; others, annoyed by the interruption, I suppose, manhandle the messengers and kill them, to show their defiance of the king’s kind offer.

Unlike another of Jesus’ parables, in which the king proves astonishingly merciful, this king has had enough. The food growing cold on the table, he sends out his army to punish the A-list guests, and invites B-list, C-list, D- and F-list guests, everybody, right in the midst of their lives, taking the kids to the skating rink, getting their oil changed, watching The Price Is Right while eating Cheese Puffs, everybody, invited right then to come to the party. And come they do.

We’ve learned by now that this is just like God. We’ve heard such parables before, and we know that Good News awaits everybody in the Kingdom banquet. It’s very inclusive, it’s open and there’s a seat for everybody, and frankly we Methodists grin like possums to hear such a story. “That’s what God is like, alright!”, we say. God’s love is given to each and to all, if only they will come and get it.

If only the parable ended there. But it turns out there may be more to this particular party than just showing up. There is the matter of dress. Not long ago Lisa and I received a wedding invitation from an old friend of mine – well, as old as my childhood friends are, anyway. After marveling at the engraved stationery, Lisa happened to read the fine print at the bottom. ‘Formal Attire is respectfully advised,’ she read. I thought she said “Formula Tires.” Formal attire? You know, not a whole lot of church chili cook-offs are black-tie-and-tails occasions. So here I am, hoping rental tuxes come in extra stout.

Jesus’ parable goes on to show us that one of the guests has no proper wedding attire. (Maybe this was the guy out changing his oil?) Now how he could have managed to find a suitable tux on the spur-of-the-moment is beyond me. Why in heaven’s name does this inclusive, inviting king get so bent out of shape about this poor guy’s attire? Honestly, it seems like a real mood killer at a wedding reception.

What do you make of this? Could it be that there are some very serious RSVP’s, some called-for responses for those invited to this particular king’s banquet? Is that a word that we Methodists are willing to hear? Evidently, it had better be. Because the host of the great banquet is moving around the table, and his eyes are upon us. There’s the discomfort. I know it. I began to read this parable a bit differently when I connected it, all at once, with a recurring dream I’d been having – and sometimes still have. In the dream, which is more of a nightmare, I have not been attending a class I am registered for; I have been putting off dropping it for some reason, and now it’s too late. I have the books on the shelf, but it’s some kind of math and I have no hope of getting it because the end of the semester is upon me. I rush in to take the final exam so that I will not flunk the course entirely.

I have in mind to speak to the professor about the misunderstanding, but the exam is underway and it’s clearly too late for that, too. So I sit down with that terrible envelope in hand. It’s not the impossibility of the exam, though that’s bad enough. It’s the way the way they’re all looking at me, as if seeing me for the first time – one who does not belong there.

Has anyone here ever had that dream? Or have I confessed too much of my own gnawing insecurity? I think I may not be the only one to have had a dream somewhat like that. Because there are many of us who live in constant fear of being exposed, of being found woefully unprepared for the test, outed as an imposter, a person who really shouldn’t be here, after all. Maybe you know what I am talking about, you who seem to have it all together, you with your wheels shiny and windows clean, but on the inside you’re a wreck, your oil hasn’t been changed in eight months, and you’re just praying nobody looks in the trunk, where you keep stuffing the mess. My dream is a nightmare, alright, but this one is real, this living with a barely-passable disguise, a veneer of confidence that we hope no one will see through like a hastily-stapled hemline or a dress-shoe touched up with magic marker. That should be good enough to get me by, we say to ourselves. God help me if they ever really looked closely.

But God is the Master of the Banquet. And as I said God is moving about the room, with a terrible, searching gaze that sees the me beneath the mask, sees the you beneath the delicately-woven disguise you’ve been depending on, and now the moment we always knew would come, has come. The Master has paused behind our seat, and now every eye in the house is upon us.

Is there any good news in the Parable of the Exposed Imposter? Is there any blessing for us, for we who tell someone to have a blessed day, then go out and drive like barely-repressed homicidal maniacs, who speak words of pity for those who have no food, but then go home and stuff our ballooning faces, we who tell a friend in pain that we’ll pray for her, but just never quite manage to do it?

I do think there is grace in the moment of exposure. I think there is, because I know my nightmare rather well by now, and I’ve noticed something about it: I repeat only the painful part over and over again, waking up before the gut-wrenching relief that follows the discovery, when someone has at last seen me for who I truly am. There is something to be said for that moment, that wrenching-free of the mask and casting out, like a demon, the gnawing fear of being exposed. Blessed is the One who cannot be fooled, Who sees us as we have become, and also as we may become. Blessed also are those who feel at last sunlight on their true face. That’s the grace that makes recovery worth it. Because at least it’s real.

I realize this is a sobering parable: the improperly-dressed guest of the story is bound and thrown out into darkness. Clearly, we have to do more than just show up among God’s people – we have to lead lives transformed by grace, responding to God’s invitation and encouraging others to do the same. We must not settle for any watered-down, pretty-good-news gospel that does not demand the exposure of whatever is ugly or false within us, the difficult and sometimes painful work of confessing and repenting and receiving God’s power to change us, to make us who we were intended to be.

Even so, at the end of the day I think we may just be found naked at the Kingdom banquet. That sounds pretty bad, I realize. But right before the dancing starts, when we hear, “Friend, how did you get in here without clothes?,” at least we’ll know somebody has finally seen us, the real you, the real me, and it will mean at least we left our costumes behind. In that instant, painful and intense, we’ll be ready at last to know what joy truly is, when we feel a hand on our shoulder.

“Yes, Dad, I’ve got this one covered, too” the voice in our ear will say. And we’ll turn, and he’ll say to us, “I have a garment with your name on it, fitted just for you. Now put it on, because it’s time to dance.”

Thanks be to God.