Jockeying For Position In the Snow

A few months ago I was driving through a massive snow storm early one morning and noted an interesting phenomenon.

We all seemed to be travelling at an extremely consistent speed. We didn't have spurts of high speed nor momentary backups that took us down to a crawling pace.

We just seemed, all of us cars, to be puttering along through the driving snow at a pretty steady pace of maybe 40 mph or so.

This puzzled me, because there was no obvious cause for this regularity that I could see. In fact, during the whole time I saw cars jockeying for position successfully, making their way past me and on into the distance beyond my field of vision in the driving snow.

I'm not proud of the fact, but I got a bit jealous of those faster cars. In fact, I was tempted to join them.

I nearly did.

The pack I was in was going 40 mph or so, but 45 or 50 mph sounded pretty good to me right about then. I had things to do, places to be...

Sooner sounded good.

I have more than my share of stupid moments, but on this day I turned my back on such thoughts. Lane changing in these conditions simply couldn't be justified. Not to add just a few mph to my travel pace. I had family at home and reasons to not put my life on the line for the sake of shaving a few minutes off my travel time.

So there I was, plugging along, when suddenly through the swirling snow a new vista broke into my line of vision. I began to realize that there were snow plows ahead of me. They had been too far ahead for me to see at first, but now they were visible. There were 3 or 4 of them - as many plows as lanes.

And they were next to each other.

I began to reflect on the logical implications of this arrangement and found myself chuckling in my thoughts at the tragic comedy being played out in front of the hood of my car.

Chicago had been knocked flat with snow, and it was quite literally impossible to get around the plows. Not even the wildest lawbreaker would ever venture out of the lanes through six inches of snow at high speed to go around a plow. Not successfully, at any rate. Never.

So every car on that freeway had an upper limit, as it were. NOBODY was going to get past those plows.

Yet here we had a surprising number of enterprising drivers doing what they did to get past me in the first place: driving dangerously.

These yahoos were literally one slip away from disastrous end, and by their very actions dramatically improving their odds of meeting it.

For what?

It occurred to me that it was all a bit like life.

If we relax behind the plows, the drive will be smoother. We'll likely exit peacefully too.

Or we can we make the journey stressful and dangerous for both ourselves and those around us.

And for all that trouble? We'll never pass the plows ahead of us.

We're pretty stupid, us humans.

Matthew 6:25-34
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Needing Nehemiah

I try to keep my head down, but the stuff comes at me anyway.

I blogged recently about Ezra, so this one had to be Nehemiah.

I am stunned. Haven't been so angry about a school issue in a long time, if ever. Quite frankly, I think three images tells the story.

My daughter came home today with a homework assignment. The below two images are the front and back side of the assignment.

Then I did my homework.

Enough said?

Maybe not! And that alone speaks volumes for our time.

But for those puzzled by my outrage, here's the decoder ring.

Followers of any and all of three main world faiths (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) consider it sheer anathema to worship ancestors. Idolatrous in all the worst meanings to create a literal shrine with an altar upon which to place (for worship) anything at all.

I suppose I have to note that some wings of Christianity support the veneration of saints and prayers given to them. But that's not worship, and in any case this is not a practice I am keen on.

Even more to the point, the box is not a neutral object.

It's a Butsudan - a Buddhist altar!

My child has been asked (IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL) to create an altar suitable for another religion.

And place a photo of someone she reveres on/in it.

I haven't worked out yet how to respond to this, but will be doing so soon. (I don't have a lot of time. This assignment is due on Friday!)

One thing is sure. Nehemiah would not have put up with this.

I will seek to react as Daniel did, responding with tact and grace.

Daniel 2:14
When Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact.

But God help us, we need some Nehemiahs in our midst.

Nehemiah 13:25
I rebuked them and called curses down on them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath in God’s name and said: “You are not to give your daughters in marriage to their sons, nor are you to take their daughters in marriage for your sons or for yourselves.

I'm tempted to chuckle. No, no desire here to go out and beat people up. I don't want to pull anyone's hair out. And we live in a pluralistic society. Christianity was in any case born a minority religion.

No, I don't want to implement Nehemiah's reforms in our world. I want to see his zeal in God's church. When Christianity was born, its stated goal was not to overthrown the Romans and impose Christian ethics on an unwilling world. The goal was to build the church of Jesus Christ, one willing soul at a time.

The day may come when homework assignments like this will seem ordinary and tame. To the world.

But why on earth does the church not recognize that this is not acceptable stuff for our children?

For a little while longer, we have a say in the matter. We live in a democracy. While we have a say, we should speak. And when we no longer have a say (and that day is surely coming), we should withdraw.

But we do neither. We assimilate.

When will the church wake up and recognize that we have married our surrounding culture no less than Nehemiah's people had married the culture surrounding them.

Nehemiah woke the Israelites up.

Can we wake up?

Jesus asked at one point what happens when salt loses its flavoring.

We're finding out.

Finding out right now.

Saving Ms. Banks

Spoiler alert: a few plot twists revealed here.

My wife and I took two young ones to watch Saving Mr. Banks a few days ago. Boy, was that a mistake. The movie was totally inappropriate for children. It is, through and through, an adult film. I wouldn't even particularly want my older two kids to have seen it.

That said, I thought it was a wonderful movie. Just sad we dragged our kids through it.

In the movie, we watched P. L. Travers (author of Mary Poppins) go back and forth with the folks at Disney over whether and how the book would be presented on screen.

The movie takes its title from the idea that the author (at first subconsciously, then more overtly) was trying to save her father's memory. In short, she wanted, if only in the movie, a happy ending for her father.

The author's real father died when she was young. He was apparently a washed up alcoholic demoted from bank manager to bank clerk before influenza brought his life to an early end.

Redeeming the memory of Mr. Banks will take hard work.

That work paid off, however, as we all remember Mr. Banks as a man who came around. He goes and flies a kite with his kids, and gets his job back to boot.

After seeing movies like these, I tend to head off to Wikipedia to get a glimpse of the real story behind what I saw on screen.

It was a sobering read.

The movie present P. L. Travers as a very difficult woman, to be sure. But it also showed her coming around. Getting softer. Connecting with her limo driver.

Unfortunately, this appears to be a very sanitized version of what really happened. The author appears to have been every bit as difficult as the movie implied.

Minus the redemptive parts.

The whole story is in Wikipedia, but suffice to say that the article ends with this chilling comment: "According to her grandchildren, Travers died loving no one and with no one loving her."

If Mary Poppins is (on a deeper level) about saving Mr. Banks, then it must also be said that Saving Mr. Banks is really about saving "Ms. Banks".

For me, that's sad on two levels.

Firstly, it makes the movie less meaningful to me. Fiction has its place in our lives. But something is lost when a story you hoped was true turns out to be... well.... so much fiction.

It's even more sad on a second level. I now grieve for P. L. Travers.

She was a real person.

And she never actually got saved.

Envying Ezra

Spoiler alert: this blog reveals plot details from "The Fault In Our Stars" and also includes frequent use of a vulgar term.

"These books are not condoning or encouraging sex and vulgarity -- they are providing a voice and context for a particular experience of the characters."

That is the reply that almost haunts me most. (More on that shortly.)

These words came in response to a blog which I posted to a local "Patch" community website. (We used to gather at the soda bar, I suppose, or the post office. Now you post a blog to Patch.)

Heaven knows the link will go stale eventually. In anticipation of that day, I'll note here that in the blog I lamented the fact that an extremely popular book among middle-school children these days is available in our local public middle-school library.

I allowed this book to enter my house and even began to read it aloud to my daughter — but abandoned the project after I realized that there was no good ending to this book. We plowed a furrow through a lot of profanity and dubious material before I realized that things were getting worse, not better. This book was not taking me or my daughter anywhere I wanted either of us to go.

That's not to say I avoid all of life's ugliness. No, what I'm saying is that I need to know it's worth the effort. I don't engage with dark themes for kicks. I do so for the sake of the good. Where is God in this story? What's the redemptive thread in this?

Speaking of that word, a favorite line of mine from the memorable movie The Shawshank Redemption is that the main character "crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side."

This book and that movie have shit in common. The movie portrays a redemption of sorts, however. The book just portrays young teens behaving badly.

Notably, in this book young teens...
• have sex,
• engage in lewd, profane and bawdy conversation,
• engage in a celebrated act of revenge vandalism, and
• joke about exchanging porn without parents noticing.

That's rough stuff any day of the week, but I might (maybe) put up with it if we came out clean on the other end.

But we don't. We just come out smelling like the shit we just read. Strong words, but have a look...

Is this appropriate for a sixth-grader?

Or how about this eulogy given in a church sanctuary:

The fact that the church was empty except for the three kids doesn't change the stunning lack of respect for holy space.

Good stuff for a sixth grader?

There are no adverse consequences to any of these deplorable scenes: they are just part of the story. Never lamented. Sometimes celebrated. The characters just keep plowing, behaving badly right up through the end of the book. Nobody grows. No epiphany moments. Perhaps the fact that they have cancer is supposed to somehow make me overlook their lamentable antics, but if that was the plan, it didn't work for me.

The book has nothing - I repeat, nothing - redemptive about it.... Unless dying of cancer is redemptive all by itself. (But it isn't.) Unless romance in and of itself is redemptive in every flavor under the sun. (Including the variety where two young teens have sex together within two months of their first meeting.)

So I blogged about how this stuff is totally inappropriate reading for eleven year old kids and subjected myself to a community response that, in terms of comments, came down on the side of condemnation. Condemnation of me, that is.

The reply at the top of this reflection captured the sentiment.

Fans of the book's presence in a children's library would have us believe that it does not actually encourage bad behaviors. It's just an opportunity to experience life from a different set of eyes.

My short response is to say: Our children? Through these eyes?

My longer response is to say that the American public (large swathes of it self-proclaimed church-attending Christians) can be aptly compared to a smoothly functioning toilet. It has been discovered that our wide American mouths swallow a lot of shit. So people with shit to sell keep dropping by to put more in.

And we defend the fact that we eat the shit we're sold, protesting that it doesn't always taste good. "We don't celebrate the taste," the line goes. "We experience it."

I prefere St. Paul's approach to the matter:

Ephesians 5:3-12 (excerpted)
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving....
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light...
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

(There's admittedly a bit of irony here. I am freely using the word shit here and describing what disobedient kids are doing in secret. Hmmm. but Paul did say we should expose them, and he did use the Greek equivalent of shit once in holy scriptures. A strong word at the right moment can be usefully employed to wake up dozing readers.)

The most haunting part of this experience for me, however, was not the response from my community, which was predictable, if tragic.

No, what haunts me most is the feedback from church acquaintances:
• The college kid who told my daughter that she really liked the book
• The woman who told my wife she very much enjoyed the book
• Others who disparage the book privately, but say nothing publicly

The blog did get forwarded on Facebook quite a bit (more than 50 times) but that takes only a second, and only your friends see it.

Replying to the blog publicly takes time and involves public exposure. It was largely only my detractors who had time for that kind of effort.

I've been reading my way through the Old Testament slowly over the past few years, and I happen (if anything in life is a coincidence) to be reading through Ezra and Nehemiah right now. Thus the blog title.

I envy Ezra. And Nehemiah. They saw that the Israelites were assimilating with local pagan culture, called attention to the situation, and the Israelites responded. Quickly. Repentance and change.

Such has not been my experience.

I live in an area some refer to as "the Christian Mecca". On this topic, at least, I believe more could be expected from a city on a hill.

Jesus asked at one point what happens when salt loses its flavoring.

We're finding out.

Finding out right now.

We Don't Know What We Owe

"Very well," the court clerk replied, "would you like to pay in denarii, knuts, sickles or galleons?"

I was at the local courthouse, and things weren't going smoothly.

The problem wasn't with the speeding ticket, which I did not contest. The problem was with the fine: 300 talents.

I told the clerk I didn't know what a talent is and certainly didn't have any. Her reply only made things worse. Four more currencies I didn't recognize.

It began to dawn upon me that I had no idea what I owed.

Yes, this scenario is fabricated, however all five currencies have meaning. Three are from Harry Potter. The average kid can line them up in order of value pretty easily.

Students of the Bible will recognize the other two and likewise be able to line them up in order of value.

But if you're a student of neither Harry Potter nor the Bible, all five currencies sound like something from Dr. Seuss.

So where am I going with this?

In church as we entered the season of Lent, the following parable was read aloud twice.

Luke 7:36-50
When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

It was on the second hearing that I began to listen.

(Sometimes repetition is not boring. Sometimes it wakes you up.)

I put myself into the story and tried to empathize with each player. What Jesus said was obviously true. The one forgiven much will love much.

All well and good, but my mind began to move once I admitted to myself that the one who "loves little" in this parable does so with good cause.

I still remember where I was standing fifteen years ago when a woman's voice over the phone forgave with one stroke a massive amount of school debt that I legally owed a former employer.

But I cannot say how often a store clerk has forgiven me a penny or two on some purchase. Nobody cares about pennies. I've forgotten before I get home.

It's hardly a crime that the one forgiven little "loves little."

So, Jesus, what do we do with this?

My mind wandered to St. Paul, a man responsible for the murder of innocent Christians. Forgiven much.

What about me? My thoughts drifted to The Parable of the Prodigal.

Luke 15:11-32
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

Jesus ends the parable with an unspoken question hanging in the air.

"And you?"

Jesus told the parable to "righteous" Pharisees. Men who, like their fellow Pharisee Simon, felt that it was beneath their dignity to hang out with "Sinners" (with a capital S).

In the Parable of the Prodigal, the younger brother is obviously not too wise, but he's been forgiven much. He may well love much. We don't know.

But Jesus ends the parable with the spotlight on the elder brother, so that's where our focus should be too. He's in a dangerous spot. Why?

He, like the Pharisees, has been comparing himself to his brother. As a result he thinks he's been well-nigh perfect. He's mistaken.

If I owe 50 dollars, I know what I owe. And it's a lot less than 500 dollars.

If I owe 50 talents, I'm not sure what I owe, but it's a lot less than 500 talents.

But if I owe [???] units of [???], how great is my debt?

Now I'm lost.

But that, my friends, is where we stand. We, along with the Pharisees and the elder brother, do not know what we owe.

God has not shown us the exact pricing for our various sins, many of which we fail to notice or remember. (Notice that the older brother claims to have never disobeyed his father. Really?)

And as for the currency, sin debts are paid by means of innocent blood. I don't have any of that. Do you?

So we face an unquantified debt denominated in a currency we don't possess. Friends, our position is tenuous. What shall we do?

Here's a bad idea. Do what the Pharisees did. Estimate by means of comparison! "Well, I haven't murdered. I haven't committed any felony offences like that fellow there... I guess I'm close to square?"

No. It's the other way around. When we compare ourselves to others, we only add to our sins.

Oops. So those who think themselves safest are perhaps in the greatest peril?

Perhaps? Perhaps?? Jesus repeatedly takes pains to state that this is in fact the case. The surcharge for smug self-righteousness is high. We don't know what we owe, but because of our judgmental attitude it's a lot more than we think.

Are we listening to Jesus? If we are, we will respond by loving much.

A great debt we cannot even measure nor rank has been paid on our behalf by the blood of an innocent man who owed us nothing — a man who, oh-by-the-way, hates ingratitude.

If we are not listening, what Jesus said to the Pharisees applies to us.

Matthew 21:31b
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.

I almost ended the blog with that verse, but we've seen it before. Repetition can lull. So let's restate it twice.

"It's better to know you owe a lot and be sorry than to think you owe very little and be smug."

"It's better to accept forgiveness for 500 terrible sins than to haughtily downplay 50 subtle sins. The surcharge for a haughty attitude in the courts of heaven is death."

[Reality check: My wife works as an interpreter in court. She occasionally comes home with a story about how a minor traffic violation turned into a trip to the clinker when the arrogant defendant hacked off the judge.]

Why is it we simply won't listen? We hear it, but we don't internalize it.

We are Pharisees.

Jesus keeps throwing it in our face, but we won't listen.

So Jesus repeats himself.

Over. And. Over. Again.

Luke 18:9-14
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

This is the most repetitive blog I've ever written.

And that's saying something.

It's intentional.

I did a word count. Half of this blog is Jesus talking.

Anything Jesus feels it necessary to say many times?

Is something we need to hear many times.

The hope is that we start to listen.

Jesus Interrogates Pilate and Accuses His Accusors

The Book of Common Prayer reading for today seems a bit odd, seeing as Lent has not begun yet. We seem a few steps ahead of the process. Having said that, perhaps this is appropriate, because in this passage Jesus seems in a sense to be a few steps ahead, too.

Here's the passage:

John 18:28-38
Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”
“If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.”
Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”
But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected. This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.
Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
“Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him."

The thing that first struck me this morning as I read this passage was that Jesus ignores Pilate's first question.

"Are you the king of the Jews?"

That's not a toughie, as they say. But Jesus responds to Pilate with a question of his own. The interrogated becomes the interrogator.

So that was odd, and I wondered if Jesus leaves Pilate's question unanswered.

Oddly enough, he does not.

Jesus answers Pilate's first question, but only after he has set the terms and tenor of the conversation to his own liking.

The question Jesus returns to Pilate is also a simple question.

"Is that your own idea, or did others talk to you about me?"

A simple question, but a profound one. Said another way, Jesus is asking Pilate who he has been listening to. Hold that thought!

Pilate picks up pretty quickly on the fact that Jesus has turned the tables on him, so he gives a retort and tries to get the interrogation pointed in the right direction again.

"What is it you have done?"

Another simple question! But once again Jesus doesn't answer it. Not yet, at any rate. Instead, he answers Pilate's first question! "Yes," Jesus assures Pilate in so many words, "I am a King."

Give Pilate credit, because he's tracking with Jesus quite well. He recognizes this as the answer to his first question.

"You are a king, then!"

But Pilate's elation (perhaps feeling briefly that he had regained control of the interview?) is short-lived. Jesus continues to guide the interrogation effortlessly.

And here is where a pattern began to take shape for me. Jesus answers Pilate's first question, but not immediately. So also with the second.

"What is it you has done?" Pilate had asked. Now Jesus, according to his own timing, returns to answer this question, and does so emphatically.

"...the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."

But here's where the interrogation is revealed to be what it really is.

Pilate is not interrogating Jesus. He's not in control. Pilate is just along for the ride.

The action is with Jesus, who is doing three things.
1) Testifying to the truth.
2) Accusing his accusers.
3) Interrogating his interrogator.

That's what it all comes down to, when you boil it down.

Jesus does with Pilate what he's been doing with everyone else. Pointing to himself. Claiming his rightful place. Testifying to the truth. Everything else is just off-flow from that.
1) I'm the truth.
2) The people outside opposing me are opposed to the truth.
3) And you, Pilate? Are you for the truth?

The part that, for me, makes it clear that Jesus has done this all quite intentionally is this: Jesus asked the key question at the start of the conversation, and then made sure that the conversation ended with his explanation of why that first question was so important.

Opening question? "Who have you been listening to?"

Closing assertion? "Everyone on the side of the truth listens to me."

At this point, Pilate throws in the towel. "What is truth?" he retorts. (In other words, "I don't want to be interrogated anymore.")

The interrogation is finished. Pilate leaves.

But Jesus the interrogator remains, and as was the case with several parables Jesus told, a question lingers in the air long after the dust has settled.

A question that reaches out from the text 2,000 years later.

A question each reader must answer.

A question I must answer.

Who am I listening to?