Today we are reading John 18:28-40 - Jesus has been brought to the Roman authority by the religious authorities, and *all* the authorities mostly seem eager to make this situation go away. The story made us wonder - Why is it so very hard to speak what is true? How can it be that the intersection of religion and political power in this story seems to make it even harder? We might think that in a criminal case, one would focus on establishing the facts. And that in a religious system, getting to the truth of things would be first and foremost on everyone’s mind. But in this story, this is not what's true, and we can only wish this bore no resemblance to the world we know.