A few years ago archaeologists at a dig in the biblical city of Eshtemoa dug up 62 pounds of 15th century jewelry. The gems and silver, taken separately, are worth about $7000. But the jewelry, the combination of the silver and the gems, has an estimated worth of over five million dollars!

Do you know where the jewelry was found? It was buried about 18 inches beneath the dirt floor of a cottage that has been continuously inhabited for 500 years. People had been living within reach of a treasure, but for centuries they did not know that it was there. How many people are living ignorantly in Eshtemoa today? How many are living right on top of the greatest treasure that has ever existed, and yet they cannot see it? The church of today isn't that different from the synagogue the Pharisees loved and tried to protect. What started out as the body of Christ has quite contentedly taken on the form of a political body, with power structures and, sadly, power struggles no different from the world in which it lives. And we still have the nerve to say, "Let's keep politics out of the church?"