In the background of today's Gospel is the Scripture where God says, when making humans: "Let us make mankind in our own image." (Gen 1: 26) Jesus asks those trying to trap him over taxes: "Whose head is this, and whose title." (Mtt 22: 20) His riposte to his antagonists: "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mtt 22: 21) means that the money belongs to the emperor while everything else, which bears the stamp of the triune Creator (as St Augustine would put it the vestigia Trinitatis) belongs to God. Of late the New Zealand government, along with others around the world, has seen fit to extend its power beyond that of taxes to "redefine" marriage. From where do they get their authority? Time will tell as to whether the "emperor" indeed has the power to change the nature of the human person: "But from the beginning of creation 'God made them male and female' " (Mk 10: 6) or whether, on this occasion as on others, the emperor has no clothes.
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