Issues concerning women, gender function, and hierarchical balance are dragging conversations that are not stopping anytime soon.

But no matter what defense either gender has against their role and dignity, there is this lingering question:

“Are women really the agency, have they always been the agency… or the victims?”

It was during the late hours of a Saturday morning, and I was seated in a congregation under a message the preacher had titled “The Second Wedding.”

It was a wedding service, and the choir had just finished their ministration before the guest speaker took the podium.

He spoke about the possibilities of miracles and how God was still in the business of liberating His people and turning lives around.

On account of his title, he was also talking about our preparation for the second wedding, which he had announced as good news — the wedding of Christ and the Church, also known as the rapture.

His message was hitting targets.

People had somber looks on their faces, including me, as we honestly reconsidered and reflected on the way we had been leading our lives not thinking of where we are going at the end of the day.

So many things were said, but there was a statement that did not really stand out to me in the intensity of the repentance atmosphere until later, when I had a conversation with my friend.

I picked out something from that statement afterward.

What was the statement?

He was trying to explain something, not necessarily justify himself, but he said one thing he liked about us Pentecostals was that we followed what Mary had already told us to do.

He referenced the place in the Bible where Jesus attended a wedding ceremony and the wine finished, and He performed His first miracle by turning water into wine.

Mary gave instructions to the people there, saying:

“Whatever He tells you to do, do it.”

And they obeyed, and there were results.

He then went further to say that Catholics still hold on so dearly to Mary and serve her, even though Mary is already an “expired envelope” that God used to send a letter to the world, which was Jesus.

Mary, according to his metaphor, was the envelope, while Jesus was the letter.

He said the Pentecostals had collected the letter and discarded the envelope, but Catholics still choose to hold on so much to an empty envelope.

The envelope was no longer important once you had gotten the letter, which is Jesus.

You get what he was trying to say, right?

He explained that Mary herself had already told us to do whatever Jesus asks us to do and to follow Him.

So what exactly were they still holding on to Mary for?

And the church concurred.

Some interjected with:

“Ride on, sir.”

Others simply listened in agreement.

I didn’t say anything.

I was more focused on the message itself, so nothing really registered in my head to be wrong with that statement or point of view until later, when I was discussing with my friend after the whole ceremony had ended.

One thing led to another, and we arrived at that same topic of what had been preached during the service.

She expressed her displeasure deeply.

She said she had been following the message attentively and genuinely liked it until he made that statement.

Immediately he referred to Mary as an expired envelope, nothing else he said sat well with her anymore.

She lost touch with the rest of the message completely.

Before joining the church, she had been of Catholic background, and her parents still attend the Catholic Church, so you could understand where her unease was coming from.

She explained that Catholics do not worship Mary; they simply give her the respect due to her as the mother of our Savior.

Then she said something that stayed with me.

She said if Mary had been a man, such a statement would probably never have been thrown around so casually.

Then she moved the conversation away from Mary entirely.

She said:

“Let us even leave Mary, she’s too far. Let us come down to our mothers.”

That the same man who made that statement — if somebody referred to his own mother as an expired envelope after giving birth to him because he had now become the focus — how would he feel?

Not to even speak of the mother of our Savior.

It was blatant disrespect, especially considering that Mary herself was called:

“Blessed amongst women.”

She ranted on and on while I listened attentively without having much to say because, honestly, if she had not pointed it out, I probably would have forgotten that such a statement was even made in the first place.

But that conversation revealed something deeper to me.

It revealed how women’s roles sometimes tend to get minimized once their “function” is done.

Some statements that seem powerful, meaningful, persuasive, or even spiritually profound may actually contain some of the most dehumanizing implications underneath them.

And with how almost everybody — or perhaps maybe I just did not notice otherwise — seemed completely comfortable with that statement, I realized something even more unsettling:

Sometimes we may not even know when we have begin to disregard honor for women.

And oh, I almost forgot.

The preacher had also mentioned that Jesus referred to Mary as:

“This woman.”

But my friend responded almost immediately:

“Okay, and even if Jesus referred to her as ‘this woman,’ so what?”

She explained that even we ourselves jokingly call our parents or older relatives by names sometimes without intending disrespect.

Mary is the mother of mothers.

If so many influential and historical women and men are worthy of honor, then Mary should receive nothing less.

And no woman whose life carried Light should ever be reduced to an “expired envelope.”

She is not a discarded vessel because women have never merely been vessels at all.

Women have always possessed agency.

Full stop should visit this pattern of women being respected only as long as they are serving a role, then sidelined or spoken about dismissively later.

Princess Ella ⚜️