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“Come on Up”: Sermon by the Rev. Mike Kinman 7/5/2026

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Sermon on July 5, 2026
“Come on Up“
By: The Rev. Mike Kinman

https://churchofstmartin.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026_07_05_Pentecost6sermon.mp3


Hear the Gospel according to Bruce Springsteen

Can’t see nothing in front of me

Can’t see nothing coming up behind

Make my way through this darkness

I can’t feel nothing but this chain that binds me

Lost track of how far I’ve gone

How far I’ve gone, how high I’ve climbed

On my back’s a sixty-pound stone

On my shoulder, a half-mile line

Come on up for the rising

Come on up, lay your hands in mine

Come on up for the rising

Come on up for the rising tonight.

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Just a few days after the September 11 attacks, with planes still grounded and our nation still trembling, Bruce Springsteen was driving near the Jersey Shore when a stranger recognized him at a stoplight.

The man rolled down his window and simply said:

“Bruce, we need you.”

Those four words stayed with him. For nearly 20 years, Bruce Springsteen had grabbed a microphone and, as he once put it “judged the distance between the American reality and the American dream.”

And now, at a moment where that distance was coming under the harshest spotlight of a reality we had long tried to deny. And in the years since we have tried desperately to drown out with force and fear. The Boss knew what was being asked of him.

Not to write an anthem of empty patriotism but to help we the people use music to help us make sense of our mourning.

And so, Springsteen wrote The Rising.

The Rising is written from the perspective of a New York City firefighter, climbing one of the towers that September morning.

He cannot see through the smoke. 

He is carrying tanks and hoses, equipment almost too heavy to bear.

“I can’t feel nothing but this chain that binds me,” he sings.

And yet as he climbs into the darkness knowing he might never return, what propels each step up, each step forward is knowing that someone he has never met, someone he may in fact never get to, is reaching out their hand in search of his. 

Wanting a chance at life, or at least not to die alone.

I can’t feel nothing but this chain that binds me, Bruce sings, giving voice to what our hearts still sing far too often nearly 25 years later.

I can’t feel nothing but this chain that binds me. 

About 40 miles north of where Bruce and that driver had that brief encounter, the Statue of Liberty stood looking over the smoking mausoleum that used to be the World Trade Center, and when she first heard The Boss sing those words, I have to believe she smiled and nodded knowingly.

You see, Lady Liberty was no stranger to chains.

If you don’t know they are there, you’ve probably missed them.

My whole life, I missed them too… until yesterday.

You see, they are hidden.

Hidden in the folds of sheets of copper robe.

Hidden 300 feet above where visitors tread to pay homage and take selfies.

Hidden by the glare of the torch, the crown, the tablet—even the poem attached to the base.

They are the chains.

The broken chains at the feet of the Statue of Liberty.

I never knew the chains were there, until yesterday when I read a piece by my friend, the Rev. Traci Blackmon.

And yet, as Traci writes:

They are there.

Cast in iron.

Broken.

Beneath her feet.

I had to know more. 

Here’s what I learned. 

The Statue of Liberty was born in the imagination of Édouard René de Laboulaye, one of Europe’s leading experts on the U.S. Constitution. Having lived through the authoritarian rule of Napoleon III, he admired the separation of powers, freedom of speech and representative democracy that the United States embodied. 

At the same time, Laboulaye, a strong abolitionist, believed that we had contradicted our own founding ideals through slavery.  At the end of the Civil War, between Congress’ approving the 13th amendment, which abolished slavery in most cases, and its ratification by the states, Laboulaye was at a dinner in France where he first proposed creating a monument to celebrate what he thought was about to be the fullness of American liberty.

At that dinner was sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, and together they conceived of a monument that was not merely a celebration of independence, but a celebration of liberty made more complete through emancipation. 

At first, the broken chains were a prime feature. The initial drawings had Lady Liberty holding them in her left hand, centering that message of abolition and emancipation.

And then the design was circulated among potential donors and those tasked with fundraising.

A statue celebrating liberty and independence, they could support that, especially because France had played such a key role in the American Revolution. 

But a statue celebrating the abolition of slavery, well that was “too divisive.” It might upset potential donors and pro-slavery Americans still stinging from defeat. 

Seems some kinds of freedom just weren’t ready for prime time.

And so, in a tale as old as time, donors’ discomfort won the day, and the chains were moved to Lady Liberty’s feet. 

But then Bartholdi, noting the impact of those too afraid to proclaim emancipation and liberty for all too boldly, made a subtle artistic choice.

While Lady Liberty’s right foot has stepped over the broken chains, the left foot remains behind the shackles, heel up, prepared to make the step forward but still not ready to make the full commitment.

Liberty is a work in progress, not an accomplished feat.

As we gather 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the song remains the same.

Bartholdi’s message was subtle but clear.

It is not enough to break the chains. 

We have to step out of them.

For 160 years, we have been waiting for the courage to take that final step. 

For 160 years, our fear of the financial consequences of true equality in a land whose economy was founded on and has never fully transitioned out of dependence on free labor tortured out of black bodies has kept that foot where it is.

Sometimes it has fallen back, sometimes it raises up poised to leave the ground. 

For 160 years, we have been waiting for the fulfillment of that initial proclamation of emancipation.

And for 160 years, we have been wondering where that foot might land if we do.

And for longer than that, in this morning’s Gospel, Jesus has been bidding us to take that step … and letting us know what it can look like if we do.

160 years is a long time to be stuck.

And being stuck is nothing new.

Jesus preached about it nearly 2,000 years ago.

Jesus said to the crowd, “To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’

To what will I compare this generation, Jesus says to us:

It is like middle schoolers at their first dance, clinging to the walls, longing to find a partner to move to the music but unable to conquer the chorus of classmate ridicule they imagine might follow, even though they all are secretly wishing to do the same thing.

To what will I compare this generation, Jesus says to us:

It is like a freshman sitting by themselves in the cafeteria, devastated by loneliness and trying hard not to let it show, as their classmates walk by silently feeling bad for them but afraid if they sit down, they will be ostracized, too.

These scenarios play out in different ways throughout our lives. It is the human struggle between desire and fear. 

Our most profoundly meaningful experiences of humanity are those moments where we truly celebrate and truly mourn. Together. 

When the deep desires to dance and grieve bind us to each other. 

And yet one of the starkest ironies of life in our culture is that we keep ourselves from those deepest, most emancipating desires because we are unable to break the shackles of our fear.

The fear of what others might think.

The fear of how others might react.

The fear of what we might lose too often is greater than the hope of what we might become. 

We played the flute for you, and you did not dance.

We wailed and you did not mourn.

It’s not because our hearts didn’t want to.

It’s because we were afraid.

It’s because we are afraid.

Our hearts long to not just to hear but to sing like Song of Solomon

“Arise, my love, my fair one,

and come away;

for now the winter is past,

the rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth;

the time of singing has come,

and the voice of the turtledove

is heard in our land.

The fig tree puts forth its figs,

and the vines are in blossom;

they give forth fragrance.

Arise, my love, my fair one,

and come away.”

For nearly 3,000 years those words have echoed in our ears and our hearts, a song of God’s longing for us, a song of our longing for each other. 

Because there is a song deep inside us, no matter how intricately we forge the chains on ourselves and each other.

There is a song deep inside us, no matter how tall the walls we build to separate ourselves from each other.

There is a song deep inside us, a song that refuses to be silenced no matter how loudly our fear tries to drown it out. 

Be with me. 

Dance with me.

Cry with me.

Come on up, lay your hands in mine.

Be greater than my fear, and I will try to be greater than yours.

Cross onto my side of the gymnasium, lay your hands in mine and whisper in my ear

“Arise, my love, and come away.”

Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

It is not enough to break the chains. 

We have to step out of them.

And yet, it is not enough even to step out of the chains, against all logic that comes from our deep experiences of the trauma of enslaving and the trauma of being enslaved, our true emancipation comes not only when we break the chains

Not only when we step over the chains.

But when we put our hands in each other’s, and together we rise.

It is not enough even to step out of the shackles of slavery but .. against all logic and in the face of all that fear tells us, to allow ourselves to be bound again.

But this time not in slavery, but in dancing and in mourning and in everything that makes us most human when we do it together.

Doesn’t that make your tired heart yearn even a little bit? 

Yeah, tired. 

Are you tired?

I’m tired. 

And I wonder if you might be, too.

Because everywhere I go, I see it in people’s eyes. 

And I see it in my own.

We are so tired.

So tired of being afraid.

So tired from being afraid.

So tired from gazing across that dance floor, from sitting alone and from being afraid to be the first one to take that empty seat at the nearly empty table.

250 years after declaring our independence and 160 years after the best emancipation we have been able to muster, we still have not stepped out of those chains, and we are so tired sometimes we feel whether we do or don’t we just might collapse anyway.

And Jesus looks on us with compassion and repeats the words this morning that he has been saying for nearly 2,000 years.

Arise, my love, and come away.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

The image of a yoke is powerful. It is not the chains that shackle enslaved people from the Middle Passage to the Trail of Tears to the buses leading from ICE detention centers to deportation flights. 

It is not the chains that keep us separated from each other in increasingly segregated neighborhoods choosing our news and our facts and whispering lies about the other that stoke our fears. 

Any farmer then would have known a yoke is an instrument of weight distribution.

A yoke does not imprison, it binds us together so our burdens are equally borne. 

A yoke does not measure one person full and another person as 3/5 of a human being but enforces true justice and equity.

A yoke says no matter what burden you are carrying or I am carrying we refuse to let anyone carry it alone. 

A yoke says if you want to cry, I will hold you and weep with you.

A yoke says if you want to dance, I will join you on that gymnasium floor.

A yoke says I will lift you as I climb and you will catch me when I fall.

Jesus says, I know you’re tired. 

I’m tired, too.

And here’s the good news.

Arise, my love, and come away.

We don’t have to keep fighting.

We don’t have to keep fearing.

We don’t have to keep building walls and passing legislation declaring who is in and who is out.

We don’t have to keep maximizing profits for the few by denying the humanity of the many.

It doesn’t have to be this way. 

After 160 years, after 250 years, after 2,000, 3,000 years and more the song remains the same

“Arise, my love, and come away.”

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Arise. 

It doesn’t take much. 

It doesn’t need to start with a revolution or a grand proclamation.

We don’t need to build a magnificent statue or write a heart-stopping song.

All it takes is a tentative step onto the dance floor or filling up that second space at the lunch table.

Arise.

Step out of the chains and into each other’s arms.

Arise.

Even if we can’t see nothing in front of us 

Can’t see nothing coming up behind.

Arise

Make our way through the darkness, even if we can’t feel nothing but this chain that binds us, even if we’ve lost track of how far we’ve gone, how high we’ve climbed.

Arise. 

Because somewhere up there is an outstretched hand wanting to live .. or at least not wanting to die alone.

Arise

Because our hearts are hungry and our hands are lonely. 

Arise

Because we are ready to dance and we have cried our tears in solitude for way too long. 

Arise

Because this life God gives us is too hard to do by ourselves and too wonderful to keep to ourselves.

Arise

Because in the garden of a thousand sighs, the children are dancing in a sky filled with light.

May I feel your arms around me.

May I feel your blood mix with mine.

Jesus sings,

Arise, 

“A dream of life comes to me

Like a catfish dancing on the end of the line.

“Sky of blackness and sorrow.

Sky of love, sky of tears

Sky of glory and sadness

Sky of mercy, sky of fear

Sky of memory and shadow

Your burning wind fills my arms tonight

Sky of longing and emptiness

Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life

Arise, my love, and come away.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Come on up for the rising

Come on up, lay your hands in mine

Come on up for the rising

Come on up for the rising tonight.

[1] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/wheats-evil-twin-has-been-intoxicating-humans-for-centuries, retrieved on 7-16-26.

[2] Walter J. Burghardt, “Contemplation: A long loving look at the real,” Church, Winter 1989, p. 15.

[3] From The Baptismal Covenant, The Book of Common Prayer 1979, p. 305.

[4] To learn more about the Episcopal Church’s view of Christian nationalism, see the webinar “Essential Conversations: The Sin of Christian Nationalism,” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmNX8mlh2Ps.  See also The Crisis of Christian Nationalism: Report from the House of Bishops Theology Committee (Church Publishing, Inc., 2024).

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