‘Ecclesiolatry’: A focus on Church ‘things,’ not Christ, cannot stand

With the words “Follow me,” Jesus invited the Apostles and the whole Church into a personal relationship with him. The nascent Church was the center of Christ’s attention. It could remain his Church, however, only if it focused on him. A self-absorbed Church dogged by “ecclesiolatry” (my word for the impassioned raising of Church-related “things” over the Christ who inspires them) could never have lasted beyond its founding. Jesus didn’t give his disciples any policy and procedures manual beyond his words. He simply brought them into his inner circle, where they could watch, learn and imitate what they saw.

In the Gospels, we see Christ building the Church on healings and exorcisms, prophecy and teaching. But then things become difficult. As it turned out, the Twelve weren’t called as an advance team for a campaign of miracles and good times, but rather to the cross — as are we.

After his resurrection, Jesus warned Peter that he would eventually find himself being led “where you do not want to go” (Jn 21:18). Christ knew that feeding sheep and tending lambs wasn’t as easy or bucolic as it looked. He wanted the fisherman to know that the privilege of becoming a shepherd would cost Peter everything, for “A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (Jn 10:11).

Sometimes I wonder how many of us fully appreciate that the call our bishops and priests answer is the same call Peter and the other Apostles received. To lead the people of God was never an invitation to power and prestige, public accolade, wealth or influence. It was always more of a call to heal and preach.

But Christ doesn’t call only clergy and religious. He challenges all of us to total immersion in the grace of our baptisms — to live with our bodies in this world but our hearts focused completely on the next. As St. Paul reminds us, “Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Rom 6:3). That’s a difficult, often painful proposition — one we cannot answer on our own power. The invitation to follow Jesus (the way, truth and life) demands that we depart from our own way, give up our own opinions and preferences and lay down our earthly lives for the sake of eternal life. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in “The Cost of Discipleship,” “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” The Greek word for witness — “martyr” — makes this clear.