Does 'Many are invited, few are chosen' (Matt 22:14) mean that God saves only a few?
A straight-forward answer would be No.  The parable of the wedding banquet (Matt 22:1-14), to which the verse belongs, informs us that the wedding hall was filled with guests (vs.10).  The parallel passage in Luke 14:15-24 also has the Master telling his servant that he wants the house to be full (vs.23).

But I'm jumping a little ahead of myself...;>)

In its 1st-century Palestine setting, the parable in Matt 22:1-14 is one of many which Jesus told to declare that God was going to bring about His kingdom - freshly redefined from what Israel's leaders have been telling her - and that those who failed to heed his warnings would find themselves excluded.  Wright states in Jesus & the Victory of God (JVG therein), pg.327-328:

"Jesus was announcing that Israel's god was establishing his kingdom in a way which would leave the self-appointed guardians of Israel's tradition outside.  Israel was being redefined; to be outside that company when the true god acted would mean total ruin...

"(This theme) emerges powerfully from the parables.  The seed was growing in secret, and when it was ripe the sickle would be put in, because the time of harvest had arrived (Mk 4:26-29).  The weeds would be gathered by the angels at the close of the present age, and bound and burned (Matt 13:24-30, 36-43).  The net would drag in fish of every kind, which would then be separated (Matt 13:47-50).  Those who refused the invitation would be like murderers who killed the messengers sent to them with invitations to a wedding feast: the king would send his troops and deal severely with them.  At the banquet, those who insisted on the best seats would be humiliated; those who refused the invitation would be replaced with others; those who were not ready, or worthy, would be excluded (Lk 14:8-11; Matt 22:1-14)."

Non-entry to the inaugurated reign of God will be in direct defiance of Jesus' words and agenda.  The parable then, like many others, speaks primarily to those groups who seek to bring in God's kingdom through their own means (e.g. the Pharisees).  It warns them that their actions are an afront to God and run counter to His true aims.

Some salient points of the parable (Matt 22:2-7) bring this out:

Jesus is likening some religious cum revolutionary groups in Israel - those who most fervently held themselves to be the true people of God - as disloyal and murderous renegades who scorn God's invitation to His heavenly banquet.  Instead, as the parable shows, the ones who finally attend the wedding are those believed, by the aforementioned religious groups, not to qualify i.e. almost anyone(!), good and bad.  In Lk 14:21 Jesus explicitly includes the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame, all of whom were considered outcasts of Israel.

The shock-value involved would be akin to someone today telling church leaders that they're about to be excluded from God's kingdom and they stand less of a chance to enter than the average 'non-religious' person on the street and even drug addicts and prisoners.

Continuing (Matt 22:11-13), He then mentions that during the banquet the king notices this dude who wasn't dressed for the occasion.  When the guy fails to response to the king's question as to how he got past security without his wedding garment, the guy then gets thrown hand- and leg-bound into the darkness.

This should mean that though the invitation of God into His kingdom is for all, it is not without standards nor to be taken for granted or treated with disrespect. We simply cannot expect to come into God's presence with unsurrendered hearts or remain there on our own selfish terms.  So, Wright (JVG pg.287):

"What Jesus was demanding, and by implication offering...was the new heart promised as part of the new covenant...He was carrying through the entire kingdom-agenda... inaugurating the kingdom by calling men and women to follow him, to discover how to be the true Israel, and to become the people whom YHWH would vindicate when he finally acted.

"(As for Matt 22:11-14), the man without the wedding garment seems to be someone who claims to belong to Jesus' people but who has not realized that following Jesus means receiving the new heart which alone qualifies one to sit at the table in the messianic banquet"

Grace no doubt comes free, but it far from cheap.

How then does (22:14) 'many are invited; few are chosen' tie-in with all this?  We've suggested that it makes no sense to say that God is hereby portrayed as choosing only a few for salvation, as the parable itself shows the king inviting more and more people, especially those whom the 'elites' of the community deemed unworthy of the king's presence.

John Sanders proposes a solution:

"Many commentators suggest that this was a proverbial saying in Jesus' day...Jesus is turning this proverbial saying on its head and throwing it back at those who thought they would assuredly be at the messianic banquet.

"The religious authorities had long been invited to participate in the messiahship of Jesus, but ehy have refused. Thus Jesus takes a saying by which the religious authorities ruled themselves in and everyone else out, and applies it to them - saying, in effect, that the religious establishment is not among the elect but the sinners are!  The Pharisees had been called but are not chosen because they refuse divine grace." (What About Those Who Have Never Heard?, pg.32)

This proposal would fit well with Jesus' theme judgment and warning upon those who refuse his redefinition of God's kingdom and how to be part of it.  According to Sanders, Jesus is proclaiming the exact opposite of what groups like the Pharisees were saying, putting them on the outside and everyone else on the inside.

Alternatively, the garment issue may suggest that the visible church may also be seen as a 'mixed' community, one which consistst of those who love God and have given their lives to Him, and those who KNOWINGLY leave God out of their hearts and couldn't care less about His lordship over their lives.  It is this latter group which will be 'sifted' out at the end, for they were never children of God in the first place and have showed no real desire to become so.  In this sense, they will not be 'chosen'.

Note:  This is VERY DIFFERENT from the Calvinistic distinction of an 'elect' and 'non-elect' group of people (an issue which is totally independent of human choices).  We are now talking about people who have never loved God at all and never tried to do so, yet deem it proper to write 'Christian' in the 'Religion' section of forms they fill up.

To sum up, I think the parable's main purpose was more to warn/rebuke the cheif priests and Pharisees, and less to give a trailer for who 'makes it' to heaven.  EVEN LESS can it be used to teach that God has decreed that only a small elect be saved, with the majority of the human race condemned.

(I'm still pondering this, esp. how we get from 'what-Jesus-intended-for-1st-century-Israel' to 'what-Christ'-wants-to-teach-His-Church-today', but this is my take for now... *smile*)
 

AL

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