Last Sunday before church, my 14-year-old son was complaining about needing to arrive at church 25 minutes early to prepare for the sacrament (alone). Apparently, he is often the only Teacher who arrives early, and he’s tired of being the one to shoulder the majority of this task.
This sounded like a valid complaint to me. I asked my husband why this was happening, and he said a couple other Teachers may arrive 5 minutes before the start of the meeting, but they just don’t often get there early enough to help much.
I said, “How about getting the young women to help? I imagine a couple of them could get there early and help prepare things?” My husband told me that the Church Handbook of Instructions (see section 18.9.2) clearly states that priesthood holders need to be the ones who both pass and prepare the sacrament.
I knew that was the case, but hearing him say it still filled me with annoyance. This policy, which keeps females away from preparing or passing the sacrament, is not scriptural. Sam Brunson covers this issue well in his great posts on this subject here and here.
There’s even historical precedent for girls and women preparing the sacrament. Brunson touches on this as well in his first post, but I thought I’d highlight a couple of other anecdotes from historical sources that give us insight into how women used to participate in the administration of this ordinance.
From William Hartley’s “From Men to Boys: LDS Aaronic Priesthood Offices, 1829-1996” in My Fellow Servants: Essays on the History of the Priesthood:
“Annette Steeneck Huntington recalled that during the 1930s in Emigration Stake, the ‘young girls in MIA … filled the water cups in the kitchen and placed the bread on the trays. We then prepared the Sacrament table with the cloth and trays on it. It was a wonderful privilege I shall always remember.” P. 70
“Women and custodians usually prepared the sacrament table, so it did not appear on a list of priesthood duties until 1933. … Women also baked the sacrament bread in many wards. Kate Coreless of Salt Lake City’s Fourth Ward took care of the sacrament table for a quarter century after 1906. She crocheted the cloth, polished the silver trays, baked and sliced the bread, and set the sacrament table.” P. 70
Clearly, as many have pointed out before, this tradition of having boys prepare and pass the sacrament is simply that – tradition. It’s not doctrinal. It’s not scriptural. And there’s even historical precedent for females to be involved if you go back a few generations. There’s simply no reason for girls to not help with this task. Very small inroads appear to be made on this front as some wards are having girls bring trays to nursing mothers in mothers’ rooms. Recently, I heard rumors that certain wards in the U.S. were experimenting with having women serve as clerks. (This has been happening for some time in Hong Kong, according to Stacilee Ford’s excellent article in Decolonizing Mormonism, “Sister Acts: Relief Society and Flexible Citizenship in Hong Kong.”) I’m glad to see that there may be some movement afoot to examine these gender exclusions and think seriously about the ways our tradition needlessly shuts out women from participating in certain ways.
But I’m not going to even try to justify these arbitrary exclusions to my annoyed son, who would appreciate some (male or female) help on Sunday mornings. I certainly won’t be justifying it to my 12-year old daughter. It’s time to rethink these policies. Young people are increasingly likely to see these inequities. It’s time to make these easy changes – and then get to the real business of tackling the harder ones.
18 Responses
Amen. Such an easy change, yet it hold such symbolic importance.
Yes, exactly. Are girls and women fully human or are they not? If they are, it’s time to stop these arbitrary exclusions.
You know, I bet if you allowed your daughter to help him, the horrified powers that be would pressure other young men to go help. And if he continues to be the only young man who shows up, no one will be there to notice and object.
I bet you’re right that the powers that be would stop that in a jiffy — by any means possible, including they themselves helping him. 🙂
My only children are 18-yr-old twin sons. I doubt either of them will stay active in the church, mostly due to the sexism, homophobia, and racism in it. They also wanted help as deacons, teachers, and priests and were as mad as I was at the absurd impossibility of letting the YW help. The church as an institution values sexism more than it values keeping its youth.
I think you’re right that the higher ups might not be fully understanding how arbitrary and absurd it looks when they prevent female participation in things like this. The church is bleeding young people now — maybe that will motivate them to keep on looking for easy changes like this.
Well, that’s for sure. Another practice that has plenty of historical precedence within Mormonism as well as scriptural teachings about healing being a (non-gendered) gift of the Spirit.
Having girls pass the sacrament just makes official what they already do informally: they hold the tray and pass it to the person next to them in the pew. The fact that young women have helped with the prepario
What is it with this policy?? Is it about unclean girl germs touching the tray? It is about the boyish act of standing up while holding the tray for others to receive the emblems?
These formalities should be broken apart for the arbitrary, outdated, and unfair exclusionary policies that they are.
I’m guessing that the policy is rooted in the idea that the church needs to suck young men in early and make them feel needed. If they have tasks like this that others (women) can’t do, then they have additional pressure to show up. But that’s outdated thinking. Young women are leaving the church in droves — they recognize the arbitrary inequities. And it’s not making my son feel special or happy to serve.
Look how useful your son is! No one can do, excuse me, is allowed to do, what he does! It appears to me that the only purpose of restricting young women from this assignment is to make young men feel special and important. And maybe also to make young women think young men are special and important (certainly more special and important than young women, since there is no need for girls to be present for the meeting to go forward). Your son doesn’t feel special and important? Just overworked and annoyed? Weird. Huh. How does your daughter feel about it? Oh wait. I just remembered, no one cares.
Yup. I think this policy is indeed rooted in the idea of making young men feel special and important, but it’s just making my son feel resentful.
I’ve been thinking about this post a lot. I’m the only female in my home, prepared the sacrament each week during Covid, and loved passing it to my sons. I definitely think women and girls should be able to prepare, pass, and should also be able to bless the sacrament. My concern is this- if YW prepared the sacrament and YM blessed the sacrament, would it turn into a “women do the cleaning/prep jobs while the men do the ‘real’ important job” issue?
I share your concern there. I would want sacrament preparation to be a shared responsibility between the YM and the YW.
Good point. Maybe it is also time for young women to do the ‘real important job’ as well. Then young women and young men can truly learn to work together.
How dare you quote William Hartley on this. He was a devout member of the church. And had a strong opinion on the priesthood. That the way to church does it is the right way. Women don’t hold the priesthood. So therefore cannot perform priesthood ordinance. They have access to the powers of the priesthood but don’t actually hold it. So they can’t help in sacrament. Bill was a historian, he told history. And a lot happened in history. Especially as they were figuring out the priesthood, including women baptizing. But as they learned of the doctrine and received revelation things changed. He would be disappointed that you even suggested this doctrinal change. Signed -His Grandson.
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