One of the questions Cynthia and Susan hear most often comes from mothers who write, “My daughter is asking when it will be her turn to pass the sacrament…what should I say?” They took this question to listeners and in Episode 142, voices from the ALSSI community share answers. It’s a broad conversation about women and priesthood featuring a diversity of ideas, experiences, and perspectives. 

Notes & Quotes:
Opening thoughts, written and read by Laura Hunter:

Today, I watched a woman serve the communion tray to my grown son. 
9 years ago, I watched that same son serve the sacrament at our ward for the first time. 
My then 9 year old daughter asked me,”Why don’t girls get to pass the sacrament?”
My heart caught in my throat. 

I choked out the well rehearsed excuse,”Women get to partner with God in bringing life into the world.
Men get to partner with him by holding the priesthood.” 

Her eyes narrowed and her brow furrowed as she continued coloring in her New Testament themed coloring book. I wondered if she bought it. I wasn’t sure I did. 

Communion, or the sacrament, has been such a beautiful and symbolic part of my walk with Christ my entire life. I remember  watching my dad, who was a deacon at our local Church of Christ, walking through the aisles of the sanctuary with the special silver trays. 

I remember being so thankful when I was finally baptized by my father at the precious age of 9 and was allowed to take broken pieces of circular saltine- like crackers and tiny cups of juice from the men who carried it to the congregants. I took the emblems and I gave my heart to Jesus. I never stopped to wonder why my mother didn’t pass the trays.

As a teenager, I received communion from other men at my Bible Church. These men were sometimes dressed more casually, but they were men all the same. Never did a woman hand me a tray carrying the symbols of the body of Christ. 

I’d like to think I wondered WHY only men could serve communion when I was a girl. 
But I simply accepted the role of women in the culture that surrounded me. 
In fact, I embraced it. I soaked in Paul’s words that a woman should submit to her husband. 
I had given my heart to Jesus and his book said this is the way: Women submit.
I mean, isn’t that what His book said?
 
I never even thought to ask why I couldn’t pass communion.  Women have our role, Men have theirs. 

Over a decade later, I was baptized again. This time, by another man. The man who would later become my husband. Everywhere, every time I approached God through ordinance or ceremony or ritual, I found a man in between us. Always a man. 

Years later, now the mother of one son and five daughters, I listened as another daughter asked me why girls can’t pass the sacrament. 

My heart ached.
But this time, I was armed with years and years of reading under my belt. 

I had read of Mary Magdalene, “apostle to the apostles” and of the apostle Junia. 

I had read of Thecla, who baptized herself and preached alongside Paul. I had read of women in the early church who were ordained to the priesthood and who blessed and administered to the sick. 

I answered,
“Well, honey, this church doesn’t allow women to pass the sacrament, but some churches do. I hope one day you’ll be able to do it, too.” 

And when the same, normally meek child asked if I could baptize her, I answered, 

“Well baby, this church doesn’t allow women to baptize, but some churches do. I think it will be so special to have Daddy baptize you. He baptized me, too, you know!?”

I can honestly say that until a year or two ago, I was not the least bit uncomfortable with men doing the blessing and the leading and the preaching and the decision making and the baptizing, because it’s really all I had ever known. 

But I hope it will feel uncomfortable for my daughters. I hope they will see women baptizing and serving communion and preaching and hope they will press for women’s voices to be heard everywhere that decisions are being made.

Today, I watched a woman serve communion to my adult son. There was no fanfare. She wore jeans and a beige sweater. There were no priestly robes, collars or white shirts.

 No one asked me why.

But there we sat, taking the emblems of Christ‘s body and blood. Remembering the life so purely given for us. There was no difference when a woman handed us the tray. No loss of heavenly power or significance. 

I took the cracker and the juice and gave my heart to Jesus. Again. And my heart was full. 

Next week, we will sit in the pews at our ward. Young boys will serve us the sacrament trays. But my daughters will know: It is not always so.
— Laura Hunter