John 15: 26-27; 16:4b-15 Acts 2: 1-21

When Great Uncle Dudley Kinsell died in 1955, my first wife Bev and I were still newlyweds. I was in graduate school at Stanford, and we drove over to his funeral in Carmel. Uncle Dudley was on her side of the family. It was an impressive funeral, but we didn't get a chance to spend much time with Aunt Ethel. Back at Stanford, I wrote a letter to her, telling her how much I wished that I had had a chance to get to know Uncle Dudley.

Although Dudley was a retired justice of the Supreme Court of California, he had lived to a great age, and, his death went relatively unnoticed. Aunt Ethel and Uncle Dudley had had no children. I think she was lonely, and she appreciated receiving my letter. Not long afterward, she invited us to pay her a visit at her cottage on the beach at Carmel. Actually, I think "summoned" might be a better word than invited, because she was a very regal person, and you could tell that she expected us to appear. We went, of course, and we had a pleasant lunch together. Just as we were about to leave, she invited us into Uncle Dudley's study and showed us a banjo clock that had been made in Boston in 1854. She told me that Uncle Dudley had loved it and that it had been in the family a long time.

"Your letter meant a great deal to me, Wayne," she said. "And I am giving you the banjo clock to take care of for the family."

I thought she should have given it to Bev because Dudley was really her great uncle and because she was a lot better at keeping things than I was, but I accepted the gift with thanks, knowing that the clock had a special meaning for Aunt Ethel, being childless and all, and that parting with it must have been difficult. That afternoon, we took it back to our one-bedroom apartment in Stanford's married student housing. Married student housing at Stanford had been a military hospital barracks in World War II, and it had deteriorated into a kind of intellectual slum. The clock was the finest thing on our ward. I watched over it carefully, and I have watched over it ever since. It has traveled with the family to the University of Wisconsin, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Texas. With LaVonne's blessing, it hangs today in a place of honor in our living room at 10407 Skyflower Drive.

As Aunt Ethel wished, I have kept the banjo clock for the family. Every Friday night for 48 years I have wound it faithfully. Well, sometimes I have missed, and it has stopped, but it has always started up again. It has been a faithful companion, keeping time to within a minute or two a month. Last summer I noticed that its tick was getting louder than its tock - a bad sign for clocks - and I had a clock doctor make a house call. He said it was a valuable timepiece, and he insisted on taking it to his shop for proper diagnosis and treatment. A month later, he returned it along with a bill for $500. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps we had both been cleaned, but it looked good. It had been refurbished and oiled, and its ticks and tocks were nicely in tune again. It was as good as new.

"Remember to look at it again in another twenty years," the clock man said.

As I grow older, I find that I am increasingly irritated with people who give me tasks to do when I'm unlikely to be around to do them. I must have frowned at his words. Looking thoughtfully at my gray hair, he amended his recommendation.

"Well, just put a note in it, reminding the next owner when to do it," he said tactfully. After he left, and after I stopped grumping, I put a card inside the case saying, "Please clean me in 2022."

What is it about the banjo clock that appeals to me? A lot of things, I suppose. It's handsome, to be sure, about three feet tall, big for a banjo clock, made of mahogany. It looks -- well - distinguished. It still has its original face, with the hours marked in Roman numerals, not Arabic. In addition to an hour and a minute hand, it has a little hand that goes round and round in a circle marking the seconds. It is powered by a 10-pound iron weight. I wind the clock with a brass key, dark with age, but bright where faithful fingers have touched it for nearly 150 years. I'm the only one in the family who gets to wind the clock.

Inside the case, the name of each owner is recorded on a blue card. In our home library, I have a book about Waldoboro, Maine, where Bev's Moravian ancestors settled before the American Revolution. The book mentions that the clock hung in the home of one of those ancestors until Uncle Dudley arrived in the 1920s, bought it right off the wall, and took it home to California. I'm not sure what it is about the banjo clock that intrigues me most. Like the banjo it resembles, it has a cheerful, optimistic look about it. Comedian Steve Martin says that no one can play a sad song on a banjo. It just can't be done. No matter how gloomy a song is, if you play it on a banjo it comes out sounding like "Camptown race track five miles long, doo-dah, doo-dah." The banjo clock has that same quality. It's never blue or depressed. It just keeps on doing what its maker intended it to do, tick-tocking away the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years, and decades of the family it serves.

That may be it. I like its faithfulness. I like its ability to endure. When I sit and look at it, it always reminds me of the church. Specifically, it always makes me think of that phrase in the baptism liturgy that says:

The church is of God, and will be preserved to the end of time, for the conduct of worship and the due administration of God's Word and Sacraments, the maintenance of Christian fellowship and discipline, the edification of believers, and the conversion of the world. All of every age and station stand in need of the means of grace which it alone supplies.

The church is of God and will be preserved to the end of time. Don't you like that phrase? I do. It's comforting. It's reassuring. It tells us that even if all else fails, the church will still be there. That's true. But on this Day of Pentecost, I think it is appropriate for us to remember that the church has not always been so settled and so enduring as it is today.

In the days immediately following the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus the future of the church appeared to be very much in doubt. Romans like Pontius Pilate simply washed their hands and forgot about Jesus. Many non-Roman followers simply disappeared, fading back into their ordinary lives. The disciples did not fade, but some of them wavered. Those days had been confusing and upsetting and fearful. Many people had seen the risen Lord. Mary Magdalen had seen him at the tomb. Others had seen him on the Road to Emmaus. Peter and James and John had seen him when they went back fishing on the Sea of Galilee. Still others had seen him in that momentous meeting in the upper room. Reports of sightings were scattered here there and everywhere. But what did they mean? Jesus, their leader, their Lord, was gone. He wasn't in his tomb, but he wasn't with them either. His followers were confused and broken-hearted, trying their best to make sense out of everything that had happened, trying to remember everything that he had taught them, everything that he had said, everything that he had wanted them to do.

They remembered especially his words about the Advocate or Comforter or Spirit of Truth that he had promised to send to them: In John's gospel we read: "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you." What did Jesus mean when he promised to send an Advocate? Where was the promised Advocate? Where was the Comforter? Where was the Spirit of Truth? No one seemed to know. And then on the fiftieth day after Easter, the morning of the Jewish harvest festival of Pentecost dawned.

People from all the known world were in Jerusalem for the celebration when suddenly a wind sprang up, sweeping through the city like a Blue Norther in Texas, blowing everything every which way! Tongues of fire appeared above the heads of the disciples. Suddenly everybody - even those from foreign lands -- could understand the speech of the disciples.

On the fiftieth day, the Day of Pentecost, the promised Comforter arrived at last. The promised Spirit of Truth came to the disciples, and all at once they were no longer dazed and confused. They were no longer broken hearted. They were no longer afraid. An enormous change came over them. On the morning of Pentecost they understood at last who they were and who Jesus was and what his life had meant to them and what it could mean to others. They knew that what had happened in Jerusalem fifty days earlier was neither transitory, nor ephemeral. It was permanent and real. On the Day of Pentecost the disciples of Jesus knew that they were witnessing the birth of a church that was of God and would be preserved to the end of time.

Peter, that big fisherman who in the gospel accounts never seemed to get anything right, now got everything right. In his direct and common way, he stood up and addressed the crowd. In what he said, you can still hear the rough fisherman talking, but if you listen closely, you can also clearly hear the great man, powerful and certain, that he had become. In Luke's account in the Book of Acts we read: "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'

Yes, Peter and the others who stood beside him on that long ago Pentecost were finally clear about what had happened. They all understood. And each one was busy deciding where he would go to spread the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some would stay in Jerusalem. But others, including Paul who would come later, would carry the gospel throughout the world.

Nearly two thousand years have passed since that first day of Pentecost, and the church, like my old banjo clock, is still joyously ticking away, doing what its maker intended it to do. It is quite true that the church has needed some adjusting from time to time. As the world grew larger, the church needed new words to express itself, and it found those words. As the world grew more complex, the church organized itself to deal with those complexities. When the church needed reformation, it found a way to reform itself. It learned to deal with issues that could not have been imagined on the morning of its birth. To this day, the church continues to struggle with some of those issues. And yet, the spirit of that morning of Pentecost remains alive. The church has managed to keep on ticking through the seconds, the minutes, the hours, the days, the months, the years, the decades, and the centuries. With a little cleaning now and them, and some new oil in the gears, the church has managed to endure.

In our family, Uncle Dudley's banjo clock is a symbol of continuity, endurance and tradition. The children and grandchildren regard it as my clock, and they don't mess with it, but it really is theirs. I have kept it for them. Sometimes I wonder how long it will last. Will it last till 2022 when it will need to be oiled again? Will it last a hundred years after that? Perhaps it will, but, realistically, probably not. One day a granddaughter or a great granddaughter will run into it. Or a grandson or a great grandson will accidentally smack it with a baseball bat. Or a hurricane will blow through town, and it will be gone. That is the way of things. That is what happens to things. To endure, the banjo clock will need great good fortune and other careful keepers. Aunt Ethel knew that, and I know that. I'll have to decide who will get the job when LaVonne and I are no longer available. Hmmm. Whom should I choose among all those children and grandchildren to get and keep the banjo clock for the family? Hmmm. Maybe I should leave that for LaVonne to decide!

The point is that we all know how to keep and appreciate things. But what about the church?

We can be grateful, I think, that the church is in a lot better shape than that old banjo clock. God picked some good first keepers when he sent the wind blowing through Jerusalem that morning. The disciples became the church. And we - we are the church now, aren't we? We have been given the church to take care of for the family of God. We are its keepers for our time. At least we can be. The wind of Pentecost, the wind of the Spirit of Truth, still blows. It still seeks faithful human hearts where it can lodge and grow. Will it find yours? Will it find mine? If we are true and open and loving, it will. If we are willing to accept it, it will. I am certain that the Spirit of Truth can find you, and it can find me this morning. I am certain that we, like the disciples, can become the church that is of God and will be preserved to the end of time. That's the meaning and the miracle of The Day of Pentecost. Let it be so for all of us. Let it be, Dear Lord, let it be.