"Sister" as a Priesthood Office
Maybe this is just me. But I am deeply attached to the idea that I don’t need to be ordained to have access to God’s power and authority, to act with priesthood. I want to see The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lean into that more.
I want to see the idea of power separated from priesthood exclusively, rather than priesthood from gender. That’s what this idea represents to me. I think this lays the ground work for a more respectful and meaningful way forward in our relationship with LGBTQ+ members, men who never serve in leadership positions, as well as other religious people outside of our own faith. It acknowledges the sacredness in all people by virtue of their place in the human family, which we all possess from birth. Especially in the ways it challenges us to see God in others outside of our own.
So the corollary to that being that Brother, not Elder, would be the most important title a man has in the Church. It gives recognition to the holiness in what men do when they’re not in a position where they would officiate in ordinances or serve in leadership. I’ve often wondered at the general malaise I’ve witnessed from just about every Elders Quorum I’ve ever seen, and I think this is part of it. They don’t know what it means to use and wield divine power and authority outside of presiding and performing ordinances, which means they view everything outside of those realms as being without that power and authority. They don’t know what it means to see the power and authority of God in caregiving tasks, rather than administrative ones. So when they’re helping someone move, or doing yardwork for someone, or cleaning the building, or (fellas, you need this one) making treats for their lessons, they don’t see the divine influence or intervention when they do those tasks. Those tasks are relegated to women because they allegedly don’t need priesthood to do them. But at the same time, “women do it better” because they can take a simple caregiving task and make it into a holy thing in a way they’ve never been able to replicate. They reason that it comes to women through their gender, rather than the power of God. Caregiving is woman’s domain because it doesn’t require priesthood, but ask any of them what good priesthood leadership looks like and they will inevitably describe a caregiver.
Sisters do nothing that is necessarily connected to their gender because love is not a gendered experience. Brothers can do it equally as well when they’re allowed and care enough. And one of the worst consequences of the divide between Elders Quorum and Relief Society is how it deprives caregiving from men, not just administration from women. While women pass around sign up sheets for meal assignments, drives, service projects, and what to bring for various parties and activities, men rarely get to participate. I remember in my last ward, the idea of passing around the dinner calendar for the missionaries in Elders Quorum was some kind of new revelation. Why? Is it really such an alien notion that priesthood has a necessary connection to caregiving? That those with priesthood and no one to care for because we’ve outsourced all those tasks to the Relief Society could be the reason men are unmotivated and checked out at church?
Men allegedly have all the priesthood, but women do all the messy and exhausting work of taking care of others in the unit? But we don’t consider what women do powerful, inspired, or prophetic enough to call what they do “priesthood,” even though the ward would cease to function without them? Why? The same efficient and engaged caregiving that would make men model priesthood holders ceases to be priesthood when women are doing it? God forbid.
Caregiving is included in the first lessons women learn in life because it’s what being a Sister is. I’m the eldest sister of one sister in my family, and this wasn’t something I was taught. It’s a position I decided upon for myself from the moment my sister was born. Sisters take care of each other. Sisters love. Sisters teach. Sisters share what they have. They keep everyone safe. They make sure everyone is fed, clothed, healthy, and happy. They stop fights. They help with chores. Sisters stand in for their parents when their parents aren’t at home. What is any divine authority but the same familial trust that is placed in the hands of women from their earliest years in almost every family structure that exists?
My lived experience of wielding power at church has always looked like the caregiving of a Sister, and I’ve been called the same thing the entire time. When I served my mission, when I’ve worked in my callings, when I’ve shared my testimony, taught lessons, spoken in church, performed in assignments, served in the temple, and in any other function I will ever have, no matter where it is in the church hierarchy, I am always a Sister. That’s who I’ve been since before I was married. That’s who I am to the Church now that I’m married, even though I don’t have children. Wherever I go and whomever is with me, the title of Sister goes with me.
Sister, to me, is a priesthood office. To the extent that I operate at all in God’s name and with divine power, I do it as a Sister. And even if I were ordained, I don’t think that would change. That’s still what I would be called.
Women in the Church have complex feelings about ordination. Do we need it? Do we want it? What would we get from it if we had it? There are women who have said for years they don’t feel like they need it and wouldn’t welcome it if it’s was offered to them. They perform the work they do just fine without it. They don’t want any additional responsibilities, just recognition for how much they’re already doing. And some, perhaps, would find the potential of administrative leadership over an entire ward or stake to be intimidating and overwhelming. They want to lower their odds of it ever happening to them. But is that not what women in church leadership ultimately experience? Caring for women and children has always meant caring for families. Caring for families means administering to the entire unit. This is what women in leadership already do. But for some reason, we’ve accepted the conditioning that the work we do is lesser in power and importance—to the point of titling it differently—because women are doing it.
I wonder how much of that feeling in women comes from the recognition that so many men in the Church are unprepared to do the caregiving tasks we’ve been doing for so long. If it all fell to them, would we end up doing everything when the learned incompetence kicks in? Women don’t want that. I think that’s the biggest reason many of them push back against ordination. And my question for many to consider is: are they wrong? And if they’re not, what are we doing with that recognition? If the idea of ordaining women would create such an unacceptable power imbalance because of how much women are already doing, what are men going to do to start pulling their equal share of the caregiving weight? And when are they going to do it?
Complimentarianism is the issue here, which isn’t the same thing as gender being the problem. Genders, like emotions, are morally neutral. It’s what we do with them that’s the problem. Sequestering skills and tasks by gender means none of us get to fully develop as people. Getting rid of the sequestering of skills and abilities is the only viable way towards non-gendered ordination, if it ever happens. But even if we don’t ever have a more universal form of ordination, the Church would be a more pleasant space for everyone if we created more of a cultural expectation of everyone pulling their own weight, and letting them do that independent of their gender.
I’ve had one truly phenomenal home teacher/ministering brother in almost 18 years of church experience. After my husband had a serious accident in our car, he picked it up from the scene of the accident and cleaned all of my husband’s blood out of the upholstery. I never even had to see it in that state. I never even had to leave the hospital for any of that. In the worst experience of my life, he took care of something I had no idea how to handle. It was done without me having to ask for it, in coordination with everyone else who watched over us and came to see us in that experience. When I think of a man using his priesthood for good, that’s what I think of. It’s not just the blessing of healing my husband got in the hospital. It’s the caregiving to discern a person’s genuine need and showing up to fill it exactly the way they need it done. That’s a spiritual practice, not just a practical one.
Caregiving is priesthood. Priesthood is caregiving. And if Brothers are priesthood holders when they are caregivers, then so are Sisters. If ordinances are the pearls on a necklace, and all the caregiving in between them is the strand, let’s get rid of every notion of one being more important than the other. It’s all priesthood, and ordination isn’t necessary for so much of it to be acceptable and pleasing to God. All of it together is necessary, and it would be incomplete without the offering that each person makes, no matter what their gender is. And rather than saying this is a post-gender perspective, it’s simply a human one. Much of what I’ve said is inseparable from my experience as a woman in the Church, but it’s not exclusive or unique to women. I’m part of a community that includes all genders, whether the Church likes it or not, and we’re all essential.
Every human in the Church is essential to God’s plan. And I think we should be more open to and honest about the implications of what that truly means. We’re all caregivers with care and service that only we individually can give. God won’t always be able to raise up another in our stead if we bow out and stop showing up. There is love only we can give and we will have every power on earth and in heaven at our disposal to give it if we ask for it, no matter who we are.
So go show divine love to someone today that could move mountains. Even if that person is yourself. You have the power of God, regardless of ordination status. Go see what miracles you can do with it.
I’ve had one truly phenomenal home teacher/ministering brother in almost 18 years of church experience. After my husband had a serious accident in our car, he picked it up from the scene of the accident and cleaned all of my husband’s blood out of the upholstery. I never even had to see it in that state. I never even had to leave the hospital for any of that. In the worst experience of my life, he took care of something I had no idea how to handle. It was done without me having to ask for it, in coordination with everyone else who watched over us and came to see us in that experience. When I think of a man using his priesthood for good, that’s what I think of. It’s not just the blessing of healing my husband got in the hospital. It’s the caregiving to discern a person’s genuine need and showing up to fill it exactly the way they need it done. That’s a spiritual practice, not just a practical one.
Caregiving is priesthood. Priesthood is caregiving. And if Brothers are priesthood holders when they are caregivers, then so are Sisters. If ordinances are the pearls on a necklace, and all the caregiving in between them is the strand, let’s get rid of every notion of one being more important than the other. It’s all priesthood, and ordination isn’t necessary for so much of it to be acceptable and pleasing to God. All of it together is necessary, and it would be incomplete without the offering that each person makes, no matter what their gender is. And rather than saying this is a post-gender perspective, it’s simply a human one. Much of what I’ve said is inseparable from my experience as a woman in the Church, but it’s not exclusive or unique to women. I’m part of a community that includes all genders, whether the Church likes it or not, and we’re all essential.
Every human in the Church is essential to God’s plan. And I think we should be more open to and honest about the implications of what that truly means. We’re all caregivers with care and service that only we individually can give. God won’t always be able to raise up another in our stead if we bow out and stop showing up. There is love only we can give and we will have every power on earth and in heaven at our disposal to give it if we ask for it, no matter who we are.
So go show divine love to someone today that could move mountains. Even if that person is yourself. You have the power of God, regardless of ordination status. Go see what miracles you can do with it.
