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When Martin Luther lay dying, he was asked, "Reverend Father, are you ready to die trusting in your Lord Jesus Christ and to confess the doctrine which you have taught in his name?" "Yes!," he replied. Shortly afterward, a stroke deprived him of the power of speech. But following his death, a piece of paper was found on his person which contained what are usually thought of as his last words. They also, in many ways, sum up a great deal of his theology: "We are beggars. This is true."

Beggars. People utterly dependent on the generosity of Another. People without resources of their own.  People whose plea is for mercy, not for justice; whose prayer is not, "Lord, I thank You that I am not as others are," but rather "God, be merciful to me, a sinner," uttered in the painful awareness that the Christian in himself is exactly as others are, and no better.

Yet Christians still presume to look down our noses at people who differ from us merely in being more poorly informed. In our own pride, we scorn the pride of those who seek justice rather than mercy. We, who know that we are liberated by the grace of God and the merits of Jesus from having to rely on our own worthiness act as if we somehow were better than people who seek safety in an imaginary merit of their own only because they think it's the only safety available to them.

I do not suggest that we treat public sin as an evangelism technique, nor do I advocate, as some do, that we treat either our own sin or that of unbelievers as a matter of indifference. But I do wonder whether the most effective evangelism technique of all might not be to admit to being the moral disasters we know ourselves to be, point out that this is exactly what the Christian faith would predict, and ask invite unbelievers to be equally honest.

Strange that a religion which at its heart is about a corruption which all of humanity shares and offers a solution in the merits of Another should be so wrapped up in portraying its adherents as somehow "good" and others as "bad." It would seem more to the point to cop a plea to the accusation the Law levels at all of us, and not only admit but emphasize the fact that we, too, are beggars.

As D.T. Niles put it so well, evangelism is finally nothing more or less than one beggar telling another where bread is to be found. But to do that, Beggar Number One has to admit that he, too, is hungry, and without any other resource.