“People to meet in heaven: Phoebe”
Romans 16:1-2
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
David Wallechinsky, born in February of 1948, is an author, historian, and television commentator. He’s also the founder and editor-in-chief of a consumer watchdog group called, “allgov.com”.
But back in 1973, when he was only twenty-five years old, he got fed up with almanacs that simply recited bare facts. And he wondered--why couldn’t someone write a book that told the true stories of history? In other words, what’s the story behind the story? So a couple of years later, he published a book called, The People’s Almanac, which soon became a best-seller.
But there was one chapter in particular that stood out most of all--a collection of lists. So he wondered again—why not write a book of lists? So over the next two years, with a little help from his father and sister, he wrote, The People’s Almanac Presents the Book of Lists. And that too became a best-seller.
And in that book, (as well as the four other books that followed), he assembled lists of all kinds like, “Worst places to hitchhike,” (Salt Lake City, Utah is on the top of that list!), and “The seven best presidents in United States history,” “Seven people who died laughing,” and “The ten most defeated nations in history.”
As one author put it, it’s a treasure trove of completely useless information.
The Bible is full of lists too. Think of the Ten Commandments—“You shall have no other gods before Me,” ”You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” and “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” In the books of Genesis, Matthew, and Luke, you’ll find genealogies--“so-and-so, who begat so-and-so, who begat so-and-so”--a list that never seems to end! The Old Testament book of Numbers lists Israel’s fighting men (that’s a reason the book is called “Numbers”), and the New Testament lists the twelve apostles.
Now I certainly don’t mean to seem harsh or unkind, but those passages typically aren’t our favorites. Give us a good story about David and Goliath or the feeding of the five thousand, but give us a list, and we just might fall asleep.
But there’s a reason those lists are here in this sacred Book. There’s something our Lord means to teach us.
So it is in the words of Romans chapter 16. If you would, please turn in your Bibles to page 1209, and you’ll see what I mean. I’ll start where it says, “Personal Greetings,” at chapter 16, verse 1.
“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.”
And if you’d glance a little further into this chapter, you’d find quite a few more. In verse 6, Paul wrote, “Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you.” In verse 7, “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners.” In verse 8, “Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord.” And verse 9, “Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys.” Read a little further, and you’ll see the list goes on and on.
It seems that as Paul was concluding his letter to the church in Rome, he wanted to take a moment to thank all those who had encouraged him, and to encourage them in their walk with the Lord.
As he said in verse 20: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”
So what does this long list of names tell us? It tells us that Paul was a real “people person.” And while the church often depended on him, he also depended on them—for prayer, for encouragement, and for support. He couldn’t do what he did without them. Yes, Paul was concerned with the truth, but he was also concerned with the people to whom that truth was written.
Also if I could say, it’s important to note that Paul hadn’t even been to the church in Rome! In fact, he was writing this letter from the city of Corinth, about 850 miles away. So let me ask--how many of us could write to a church some 850 miles away, a place where we’ve never been, and mention some twenty-nine different names?
Yet that’s exactly what the apostle Paul did for the church in the city of Rome.
And it all starts here in chapter 16, verse 1: “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchrae.”
Now those words are few, but they tell us quite a lot! Notice first of all that little word, “sister.” “I commend to you our sister Phoebe.”
You know, that’s something we often forget! Yes, we are fellow members of Faith Lutheran Church. This is the place in which we gather for worship, fellowship, and prayer. It’s our church home.
But not only are we fellow members of Faith, we’re also fellow members of the body of Christ, members of His redeemed family, brothers and sisters in Christ.
So what does that mean? It means we’re called not only to believe. We’re also called to belong. Seated beside you and or in the next pew isn’t simply some friend or neighbor that you see once or twice a week. He’s your brother and she’s your sister in Christ.
And since we’re part of a family here at Faith, we have responsibilities toward each other. We love as brothers and sisters, we encourage as brothers and sisters, and we forgive as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Maybe that’s what Paul wanted us to learn when he added that little word—“I commend to you our sister Phoebe.”
And if we’re going to meet her in heaven, and I’m sure we will, we also should learn something about her name—Phoebe.
It’s not a Hebrew name. Rather, it’s a Greek name, a form of the name Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon. It means, “bright” and “pure,” like “phobos,” the Greek word for “light.”
So what does that tell us? It tells us that Phoebe probably wasn’t raised in a Christian home, or even in a Jewish home. After all, her parents named her after the Greek goddess of the moon!
But somehow, by the grace of God, not only did she become a believer, a sister in Christ, she also became, as Paul wrote in verse 1, “a servant of the church at Cenchreae.” By her words and actions and deep devotion, she cared for the needs of others and shared the love of Christ.
And that’s something else we should learn from Phoebe. As fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, we should ask, how can we, just like Phoebe, care for others and share the love of Christ?
And there’s more. Look at verse 2. Paul writes, “That you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.”
What does that tell us? It tells us, believe it or not, that she was probably carrying this very letter to the church in Rome.
You see, unless you were an emperor or one of his officials or friends, there was no post office, no UPS, and no Federal Express. The common person had no way to send letters to family or friends. So if you wanted to mail anything anywhere, you had to send someone else.
So apparently, we guess, Phoebe must have had some business, some reason, to go to the city of Rome, so Paul asked her to deliver it to them. That’s why he wrote of her, (and of no one else!), “Welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints.”
Think about it. She carried, in her hand, the original hand-written copy of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, what Luther once called, “The chief part of the New Testament and the purest Gospel, which not only deserves to be known by heart by a Christian word for word, but to be studied daily as the daily bread of the soul.” And he said, “It can never be read or studied too much and too well; and the more one deals with it, the better it tastes and the more precious it becomes.”
It’s the greatest theological work anyone has ever written.
Just think of the words she held in her hand, words like these in chapter 1: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Or the words in chapter 3: “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Or the words of chapter 6: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
So how thankful we are for the apostle Paul! And how thankful we are for our dear sister in Christ, Phoebe!
Back in 1946, the United States Army unveiled ENIAC, an Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. It was one of the very first general-purpose computers ever made.
And it was big—really big. It weighed thirty tons and filled an entire room. It used so much power, people said that whenever it was on, lights in Philadelphia dimmed. The press called it the “Giant Brain.”
And in its day, it was fast. It could calculate in minutes, what humans could do in hours.
And who got all the credit? Two men named John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. They were the brains behind the brain.
But have you ever heard of Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Meltzer, Fran Bilas, or Ruth Lichterman? I’m sure you haven’t, and you probably never will. But they were the six women behind the scenes who programmed it, who made it work. ENIAC couldn’t have been ENIAC without them.
And so it for us. Not many of us are like Jonah who preached to a whole city and the whole city repented. Not many of us are like Paul who shared the gospel with entire cities, towns, and villages. And not many of us can be like Peter whose one sermon helped three thousand people to believe.
But we can be a Phoebe, carrying the message of salvation, sharing the love of Christ.
We thank You, dear Father, for the great gifts You give, for Your Word and Sacraments, for life and salvation. Help us, in our time and place, to be the church You’ve called us to be, as we share the love of Christ. In His name we pray. Amen