August 23, 2026 - Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Holy Hands: Road

Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
1 Corinthians 12:12-31 
Romans 15:14-21, 16:1-2

Have you ever had someone hand you something and say, “Can you make sure this gets to them?” Maybe it was a letter. Maybe it was a package. Maybe it was a set of keys. Maybe it was something small and ordinary that didn't look particularly important. But the moment someone puts it in your hands, something changes. It isn't yours, exactly. But it has become your responsibility. You have been trusted with it. And so you carry it a little differently. You make sure you don't lose it. You make sure it gets where it is supposed to go. You make sure nothing happens to it along the way. Because someone has entrusted something to you. There is something beautiful about that kind of trust.

One of my dear friends who lives in Scotland wanted to crochet a stuffed animal for my daughter. So Mairi made it, and then she gave it to my sister when she visited her in London. My sister then gave it to my brother when she visited him in Boston. My brother gave it to Phoebe when he visited last week. From Scotland to London to Boston to St. Louis, this stuffed animal was made with love and carried with responsibility to get from Mairi’s hands into Phoebe’s hands. Well, in her mouth…

Hands can do so much. They can build, hug, pray, soothe – but they can also carry. Our sermon series, Holy Hands, comes to an end as we encounter Holy Hands that were on the road carrying the Gospel as represented in the Letter to the Romans. Paul entrusted a woman named Phoebe with authority, responsibility, and leadership as he gave her the letter he wrote to the church in Rome and asked her to deliver it.

Throughout these weeks, we have been looking at the stories of three women in the New Testament, Mary Magdalene, Priscilla, and Phoebe, and asking what their lives can teach us about the ways God uses ordinary people to carry the good news of Jesus into the world.

We began with Mary Magdalene. Mary went to the tomb expecting to care for a dead body, and instead she became the first person sent to announce that Jesus was alive. She carried the news of resurrection. Then we met Priscilla. Priscilla reminds us that the gospel isn't carried only from pulpits or sanctuaries. Sometimes it is carried across a table, in a home, through a conversation, from one person to another. She carried faith into the ordinary spaces of life. And now we come to Phoebe. And Phoebe gives us one more image of what it means to have holy hands.

Phoebe was someone who was trusted to carry something. At the end of Paul's letter to the Romans, Paul writes: “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae…” And then he asks the church in Rome to welcome her, help her, and receive her as someone who has been a faithful servant of the church.

Paul doesn't tell us very much about Phoebe. We don't know how old she was. We don't know exactly what her life looked like day to day. There is a book called Finding Phoebe written by Susan E. Hylen that tries to discern who Phoebe was by parsing through what roles and social status women had in New Testament times. The author writes, “Who was Phoebe, and what did she do? What was involved in being a deacon or benefactor? She obviously traveled a long way from Cenchrae (near Corinth in Greece) to Rome. And she is sufficiently important for Paul to include her in his letter. But these two verses [in Romans 16] are the only time she’s mentioned. What sort of role did Phoebe have, either at her home church or during her travels to Rome? Wouldn’t it be interesting to know more about her?”

When we named our daughter Phoebe, many of you asked where the name came from. As I said, “It’s from the Bible!” there were many confused looks. And I completely understand. The sixteenth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans lists name after name after name. By the time you get to the end of the theologically rich book, I wouldn’t blame you if you skimmed through the names. Phoebe doesn’t have a unique story for us to remember and share. She is mentioned once – but those two verses tell us so much.

Paul tells us that she is a deacon, a servant leader in the life of the church. He tells us that she is a patron, someone who is a benefactor of and advocate for the church. But perhaps most importantly, Paul tells us that he trusts Phoebe. He has entrusted her to carry his words, his letter, his theological masterpiece to the church in Rome.

Her delivering this letter was not simply asking her to deliver mail and drop it off at the church, turn around, and go home. Paul asked Phoebe to deliver this letter, and in so doing, she was charged with reading it, preaching it, and interpreting it for the church in Rome. Phoebe’s holy hands carried a letter that contained the Gospel that needed to be shared as Christianity was spreading its wings further west.

In Romans 15, Paul summarizes and explains his ministry and his plans, shedding light on the significance of the letter Phoebe is carrying. Paul longs to share the Gospel with the world. He says, “For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ.”

Paul is not just writing theology to share with a church he has never visited. Rather, Paul is pouring out his heart and his passion for Christ to share the Gospel and spread the love of Christ. This letter is all about creating community, practicing generosity, and inviting Christians who have received something from one another to give something back. And right in the middle of all of that, there is Phoebe.

From Mary to Priscilla to Paul to Phoebe, we see a movement of the Gospel that has been carried in hands and passed on to one another. Mary carried the news of the resurrection to the disciples. Priscilla carried the gospel into her home and helped raise up leaders to go and share the good news. Paul carried the gospel across the Mediterranean, bringing it to Europe for the first time. Phoebe carries Paul’s letter to Rome. The Roman church received this letter, and eventually we see generations of Christians receiving the gospel. We are here today because somebody kept carrying the Gospel.

Liz read for us a passage from another of Paul’s letters, from First Corinthians. In this passage, Paul describes the Body of Christ and names that there are different parts of the body – all important, different, and essential. The Body of Christ is the image for the church reminding us that every member of the body has a role to play. As we see in this passage, the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you.” The body is charged to work together.

The three women we have studied these past few weeks have shown us the importance of doing their part in carrying the gospel. Mary Magdalene, Priscilla, and Phoebe all had a part to play in sharing, spreading, and carrying the Gospel. None of them had to do everything on their own. What they needed to do – and what they did – was faithfully carry what God placed in their hands.

Phoebe’s calling was not Paul's calling. Her hands were not Paul's hands. But the work of God needed her hands. And the same is true for us. You don't have to have someone else's gifts. You don't have to have someone else's confidence. You don't have to have someone else's platform. You simply have to consider, “What has God placed in my hands?”

At the beginning of this sermon, I asked you to imagine someone placing something in your hands and saying, “Can you make sure this gets to them?” That is, in some ways, the story of the church. Someone handed the faith to us. Someone carried it far enough for it to reach us. Someone taught us, welcomed us, prayed for us. Someone showed us what the love of Christ looked like. Someone placed something holy into our hands. And now it is our turn. Not all of us will carry the same thing. Not all of us will carry it in the same way. But all of us have a part. Because we are one body, with many members, many gifts, many hands.

The question is not whether we have something to carry. The question is whether we are willing to carry what God has entrusted to us. The gospel has come this far because holy hands have carried it. May it go farther because of ours.

Thanks be to God. Amen.