Not only do we elevate some Episcopalians over others, we elevate Episcopalians over other Christians, and we elevate Christians over non-Christians. Meanwhile, Jesus is worrying about injustice and unemployment, oppression and misery, education and healing, kindness and justice in the capital city. We get into thinking the topic of religion is religion rather than life, that Jesus is interested in the diocese rather than the city. Sometimes I think we just don't know any better. It's a lot harder to engage life truly than it is to carry out an instruction in a religious or theological manual.
Religion becomes a mask for our powerlessness.
We call it maturity, but it's really a form of immaturity. We call it adulthood, but it's really a form of childishness. These two events must really have shaken Jesus. First, he had shared secretly with his longest term students the true challenging nature of his mission, only to find them uncomprehending and uninterested. Then he had discovered that their primary interest in his teaching seemed to be in which one of them had higher status than the other.