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Sacrament pecking order

If you frequently attend a Latter-day Saint sacrament meeting — the faith’s main worship service — you probably notice that a man on the stand gets Communion (the bread and then the water) first.

And, yes, it’s always a man, given that women are not ordained. It’s often the congregation’s lay bishop. Sometimes it’s another male leader.

That’s by prescription.

“The presiding leader receives [the sacrament] first,” the General Handbook instructs, “after which there is no set order.”

It’s a policy/tradition — it doesn’t appear to be explicitly scriptural — that Times and Seasons blogger Stephen Cranney wouldn’t mind seeing fade away.

“I get the point in trying to honor leadership, but we already have plenty of formal leadership-honoring in our culture without using ordinances to further differentiate,” Cranney writes. “This isn’t a huge thing, and the Old Ship Zion will still be fine if this rule (or tradition, or whatever it is) stays.”

His post drew dozens of comments. Among them:

• “Amen on this. With changing cultural mores, this sends a jarring signal to anyone paying attention.”

• “It’s definitely unnecessary, yet it persists. Maybe it isn’t a huge thing. But maybe it’s a symptom of a huge thing?”

• “Scriptural patterns show Jesus administering the sacrament first to his 12 [apostles], and then to others.”

• “Jesus didn’t give the bread to the 12 first because they were presiding. He was presiding.”

What do you think?

Latest ‘Mormon Land’ podcast: ‘Mom cried, and Dad went silent’

Latter-day Saint composer Michael McLean of “Forgotten Carols” fame and his singer son, Jeff McLean, who is gay, share their story of healing and hope after years of distance and dissonance.

Listen to the podcast.

Around the world

• It’s time to revive “practice hymns” in Sunday worship services, especially given the 82 new songs added to the church’s evolving hymnbook.

So argues By Common Consent blogger Sam Brunson.

He wants a return to the time several decades ago when members consciously and conscientiously took time during their slate of Sunday meetings to learn the words and music to sacred music.

“If we’re serious about the new hymnbook, serious that the song of the heart is a prayer unto the Lord, then we need to be serious about giving ourselves the time to actually learn the hymns,” Brunson writes. “We need to actually practice them, as congregations, on a regular basis.”

• A unanimous Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that church leaders were not obligated to report child sex abuse under the state’s clergy confidentiality exemption, Religion News Service reported.

Angela Walker, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests advocacy group, expressed concern about the decision, fearing that predators could use a “confessional loophole to escape justice.”

Learn more about this high-profile abuse case in our “Mormon Land” podcast with the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who investigated it.

• August marks the changing of the guard in many top church leadership posts.

A new Primary General Presidency, who lead the faith’s children worldwide, steps in, led by Rosemary Chibota, the first African to head up a churchwide organization.

Hong Kong native Benjamin M.Z. Tai, meanwhile, becomes the newest member of the Presidency of the Seventy.

• With wildfires raging around Bordeaux, France, the church has opened up a chapel to evacuees and helped to shuttle water to firefighters on the front lines.

Some 200 Latter-day Saints have been displaced, according to a news release, and have found refuge at the Lormont meetinghouse and the homes of fellow members.

“Having lived much of my life in one of the hardest-hit regions of France, the destruction caused by these fires is deeply personal to me and to many members of my family,” apostle Gérald Caussé wrote on social media. “We pray for the families who have suffered loss, for those who have been displaced, and for the courageous first responders who continue to serve with remarkable faith and selflessness.”

• Latter-day Saints united with other faith communities last month to “pray for Peru” as part of the South American nation’s Independence Day celebrations.

The interfaith participants, a news release reports, prayed for families, the nation, democracy, justice, children, Indigenous peoples, public safety and other issues in Peru.

• The church plans to build a fourth meetinghouse in the Kansas City metropolitan area north of the Missouri River.

Expected to be finished next year, the church would feature a chapel with 27 pews, offices, meeting rooms, a small kitchen and a basketball/volleyball court, The Kansas City Star reports.

From The Tribune

• Two unlikely monuments, separated by 4,000 miles and half an ocean, honor the same 410 Mormon pioneers.

• Which Latter-day Saints in the world are the most devout? A survey offers clues.

• The Temple Square mission is gone. Will the rotating missionaries there still don flags on their nameplates?

• Salt Lake City seeks to protect a park with a Joseph Smith sphinx.

• Religion News Service columnist Jana Riess says younger women are leaving the church because of the three P’s: politics, purity culture and powerlessness.

• A Latter-day Saint artist aims to capture the nuances of her faith in a graphic novel about missionaries struggling with faith, identity and mental health.

• Sunstone attendees remember poet Carol Lynn Pearson.