The Gate of Heaven
Jacob wasn’t searching for God—he was running. Yet in an ordinary place in the desert, with nothing but a stone for a pillow, he awakened to an awesome truth that heaven was already near. This sermon invites us to see God’s kingdom not as a distant place, but as the gracious reality already present among us, waiting for us to simply wake up.
The Glimpses of Grace podcast is a ministry of Grace Episcopal Church in Gainesville, Georgia. We are passionate about supporting the spiritual growth of souls, and we hope these sermons and conversations meet you where you are and enrich your soul as we all continue to make meaning in the world today.
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Transcript
I think we’ve probably all done it.
Searched the entire house for a pair of glasses
only to discover they were on your head the whole time?
Spent an embarrassingly long time looking for your phone
while talking on it?
I did this with my church keys just last week.
I recruited help to find keys that were in my bag—
just not exactly where I expected them to be.
Sometimes I wonder if we approach God the same way.
Jacob wasn’t looking for a holy place.
In fact, he was running…
running from his brother,
running from the consequences of actions,
running maybe with little concern about what comes next.
The setting of the sun often brings about pause,
and with just a stone as a pillow,
Jacob falls asleep and dreams.
He dreams of a ladder, a stairway
stretching between heaven and earth,
of angels going up and coming down,
of God speaking with kindness, compassion, generosity.
When Jacob wakes up, he says,
“God is in this place, and I didn’t know it.
This is God’s house. This is the gate of heaven.”
But we know he doesn’t literally find a hidden heaven portal in the desert… he realizes heaven had been closer than he imagined.
No gate was opened by any act of his.
It wasn’t unlocked by believing the right thing.
It wasn’t waiting for him after death.
It was already there.
He woke up to it.
A lot of our modern imagery of heaven is somewhere else.
Somewhere after this life.
Maybe beyond the clouds.
A place we finally reach if we’ve been good,
if we’ve managed to get enough things right.
But Jesus often says strange things like:
the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.
the kingdom of heaven is among you.
God refuses to remain distant, so…
maybe heaven is not primarily a destination.
Maybe heaven is a reality that has always been pressing against this one, waiting for us to awaken to it.
The collect this morning names God as the fountain of all wisdom. Hold that image.
A fountain doesn’t hoard water.
It overflows, it sends forth, it gives, it keeps giving.
A fountain doesn’t gauge levels of thirst,
nor does it decide who deserves a drink.
So, consider Wisdom.
Wisdom may be more than information.
It may be knowing the Source.
Learning how to receive.
Jacob thought he was alone.
But, the fountain was already flowing.
So, to stick with the metaphor, why do we struggle to receive, to drink? Why do we struggle to just let it be?
Our fears, resentments,
stories we run from,
stories we’ve told about ourselves,
stories we write in our heads about other people,
needing to prove ourselves,
to be right, to be good…
they can get in the way.
Our spiritual fears (threats we’ve maybe grown up hearing):
an angry God, punishment, damnation, hellfire.
But the prophets remind us that a goldsmith does not place gold into the fire because he hates it.
An artisan places metal into the fire to refine it,
or glass into the fire to reshape it, mold it.
Maybe we can think of fire as liberating…
freeing from everything that keeps one from becoming what they truly are: beloved.
There is a world of difference between these two images.
Because the psalmist paints a picture of a God who is
gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, full of kindness and truth.
Come to think of it:
Jacob woke up from experiencing the very same qualities in God, exclaiming, “I didn’t know it! But this is the gate of heaven.”
These words matter.
The way we imagine God shapes the way we inhabit the world. If we imagine God as endlessly disappointed,
we learn disappointment.
But if God is gracious, patient, abundant in mercy…
In today’s Gospel we get another parable:
A field, good seed, weeds.
The servants want a quick fix and inquire about pulling the weeds. But the roots have already become intertwined.
A bit like life, where things can feel a bit tangled.
Every one of us carries beauty and brokenness.
Our communities, too.
Within ourselves, wheat and weeds grow together.
And God’s patience is greater than ours,
because God sees what we cannot.
What seems impossible today may indeed bear fruit tomorrow.
Last week, Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese” came to me again. We used it to guide our time together at our last summer Charis circle. It spoke to many of us again.
It begins: “You do not have to be good.”
I don’t think she’s saying goodness doesn’t matter.
But I do think she’s saying belonging comes first.
You do not have to earn the right to exist.
You do not have to trudge through life proving you matter.
Because belonging comes first, you begin as beloved.
God invites us to wake up to the love already surrounding us.
Think of Jacob waking up.
The kingdom is near.
The fountain is flowing.
The fire, refining.
The field, growing.
Jacob said it first:
To come to know that God’s being is beyond our control can be awfully scary, but “how awesome!”
An ordinary room…
with ordinary people…
with stories that are both unique, yet somehow the same…
already, the house of God.
The gate of heaven.
We didn’t build it.
It’s because Christ is here.
Present among us.
Present with us.
Present in the friend and in the stranger.
Present in the bread and at the table.
Perhaps, present in the places we spend our lives running from.
Surely the Lord is in this place.
May our deepest prayer this morning simply be:
Lord, wake us up.
Amen.
Rev. Dr. Brandon Nonnemaker
July 19, 2026