Everyone knows that this coming Friday, 31 October, is Halloween. But for Lutherans 31 October is special for a different reason. We call it Reformation Day, because it was on 31 October 1517 that Martin Luther protested against wrong practices in the church by publishing 95 Theses (or short statements) against Indulgences.
Luther said it was wrong to teach that people could buy their way into heaven by purchasing certificates of indulgence. The only way we are saved is by grace through faith – by trusting not in our own righteousness, but in the righteousness that is given as a gift through the forgiveness we have in Jesus. Today’s Gospel reading is a picture-story of this great truth. Two people went up to the temple to pray. The one who went home all right with God (justified) was not the one who trusted in his own righteousness, but the one who cried out, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner!’
