Acts 1:6-14
What is the Holy Spirit? It is mysterious, uncontained, uncontrolled. Though Christian orthodoxy declares the Spirit a coequal member of the Trinity, one with God, far less ink (and blood) has been spilled to define and defend the Holy Spirit.
I am struck here by these simple instructions from Jesus: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that God has set by God’s own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses… to the ends of the earth.”
What is this Holy Spirit we have been given? It gives us power. It travels with us. It wills us to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. It draws our eyes from the skies towards the earth.
I take immense comfort in the unknowability and invisibility of the Spirit. So much of our work takes place out of sight. Whether it is organizing in the depths of maximum security prisons, the confidential work of transformative justice that can never come to light, or just the boredom of meetings and Zoom calls and everything else that makes the movement turn. But nevertheless the Spirit is at work. Especially when we cannot see it or feel it.
The “abolition spirit” (borrowing from Joshua Dubler and Vincent Lloyd) is not contained by one faith, in fact it is the remaking of faith traditions in the crucible of struggle. We do not have to look to heaven to find God’s Spirit, we turn our eyes to the earth and to each other. The Holy Spirit of abolition and transformation does not ask for our comprehension, just our acting in power and our witnessing to the truth.
Rev. Jay Bergen is a pastor at Germantown Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, and a volunteer organizer with the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (CADBI), a campaign fighting to end life sentences and heal communities across Pennsylvania.