Holy Trinity Silicon Valley - Homilies & Sermons

The Ascension arrives quietly. No trumpets, no fiery chariots, just a cloud, a question, and a commission.
In this sermon on Acts 1, David McGaw sits with the disciples' last conversation with Jesus: Is it now? Are you finally bringing the kingdom back? The answer comes not as correction but as handoff. The kingdom is coming, but it's coming through you. Plural. All of you. Together.
Drawing on N.T. Wright, the Apostle Peter, and a famously misattributed line from St. Francis of Assisi, David reframes witness as something more honest than a street-corner pitch and more costly than a Christian T-shirt. It is the overflow of a life abiding in Christ. It's your particular life, with all its credibility and all its scars that is offered as testimony to the rightful King of the world.
For anyone wondering what the Ascension has to do with Monday morning in Silicon Valley: this is the bridge.
A sermon from Holy Trinity Silicon Valley.
Palo Alto, California. Anglican · ACNA · C4SO.

What does it actually mean to "abide" in Christ, and why does Jesus repeat the word eight times in just four verses?
In this teaching on John 15, we sit with one of the most contemplated passages in all of Scripture, the vine and the branches. Drawing on voices from Augustine to Luther to Calvin, the sermon unpacks what Jesus meant when he called himself the true vine and invited his followers to make their home in him.
The conversation moves through four honest questions. What is this passage really saying? Why is abiding necessary rather than optional? Why do so many of us find it genuinely difficult? And how might we actually move further into life with Christ this week?
Along the way you'll hear reflections on the missional and personal fruit that grows from staying connected to Jesus, the adventure of bold prayer (yes, "ask whatever you wish" really does mean what you think it might), and the quiet promise of Isaiah 30:15, that in rest and repentance is our salvation, and in quietness and trust is our strength.
Whether you're navigating a season of transition, carrying weight you were never meant to solve on your own, or simply drawn to a faith that feels both ancient and alive, this is a teaching worth your time.
Learn more about our community in Palo Alto, and find service times, events, and resources, at https://www.holytrinitysv.org.

Samuel Adams was called "the grand incendiary". He was man whose words were so dangerous the British sent soldiers to silence him. In a culture that prefers spiritual language tame and private, the simple sentence "I follow Christ" remains one of the most subversive things a person can say. A meditation on identity, pressure, and the long arc of faithful witness, from 1 Peter 2.
When pressure rises, we default. To deceit when the truth is costly. To hypocrisy when belonging is on the line. To envy when someone else's story looks lighter than ours. The Apostle Peter knew all three from the inside. He had denied, dissembled, and compared, which is precisely why his letter to the scattered church reads less like a lecture and more like a field manual written by someone who has been there.
This week's teaching walks through 1 Peter 2 and the three identities Peter places in the hands of every believer: a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Not future titles. Present ones. The teaching closes with one of the New Testament's most quietly radical promises; that those who accuse us now may, on the last day, glorify God because of the witness they once resisted.
Holy Trinity is a liturgical Anglican parish (ACNA / C4SO) in Palo Alto, gathering professionals, academics, students, and creatives around historic Christian worship, the sacraments, and the arts. Rooted in tradition. Relevant to today. Learn more and plan a visit at https://www.holytrinitysv.org

In the heart of Silicon Valley, it is easy to believe that if we just had a little more data, we could finally solve our problems and ease our anxieties. We crave knowledge, stress over building massive data centers, and hire consultants and coaches to ensure we are on the right path. But what if the guidance we truly need is not found in acquiring more information, but in choosing who we follow?
In this episode for Good Shepherd Sunday, Rector John Gorin of Holy Trinity Silicon Valley explores what it means to follow Jesus as our shepherd. Drawing from John's Gospel and Psalm 23, Rector Gorin reminds us that while information is necessary for daily life, our ultimate comfort, provision, and soul's refreshment come directly from the Lord.
To find out more about Holy Trinity Silicon Valley:
https://www.holytrinitysv.org
Find on Socials at:
@HolyTrinitySV

Two disciples walk the road to Emmaus, grief-heavy and uncertain. A stranger joins them. It is only when bread is broken at supper that they realize who has been beside them the whole way.
In this sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter, Rector John Gorin traces a thread that runs through Scripture, the modern courtroom, and the ordinary rhythms of our lives: the weight of witness.
Drawing on the eyewitness accounts that ground the resurrection, the ethical tension at the heart of the film Juror #2, and Peter's letter to a scattered early church, Fr. John moves past familiar identity labels to ask a sharper question — beyond calling ourselves Christians, what would it mean to actually live as witnesses of the risen Lord?
The sermon unfolds in three movements:
1. We are called to be witnesses. Not as firsthand observers of an empty tomb, but as those whose lives quietly testify to Christ's presence — sometimes in answered prayers, more often in the steady trust carried through difficult seasons.
2. Witness reorders a life. As it did for the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, and as Fr. John reflects from his own eighteen-year path through Silicon Valley tech into seminary and into ministry.
3. We grow as witnesses through holiness and love. The rhythms Peter names — alert minds, reverent fear, deep love from the heart — are how the Church becomes credible in any age.
Recorded live at Holy Trinity Silicon Valley, an Anglican parish (ACNA / Diocese of C4SO) in Palo Alto, where ancient liturgy meets the questions of our moment.

Deacon Cindy Miller preaches on why the risen Christ's first words to his frightened disciples were "Peace be with you," and why he had to say them more than once. Drawing from John 20, Acts 2, and 1 Peter 1, she traces a thread from that locked upper room through Peter's bold Pentecost sermon to his letter written thirty years later, showing how even those closest to the events needed constant reminding of what they had witnessed.
Cindy shares a moving encounter with a Liberian man at the hospital whose faith was forged through fourteen years of civil war, and reflects on how Scripture, prayer, worship, Eucharist, and Christian community keep the truth of the resurrection in front of us when the world tries to pull it away.
Holy Trinity Silicon Valley is an Anglican church in Palo Alto, CA, and a member of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others (C4SO).
Learn more at holytrinitysv.org

On Good Friday, Deacon Cindy Miller walks us through the final hours of Jesus' life as recorded in John's Gospel, from the cross to the moment the soldiers find he has already died.
What did Jesus mean when he said "It is finished"? Cindy traces the larger arc of Scripture, from Abraham's promise that "the Lord will provide the lamb" to the cross where that promise is fulfilled. In less than twenty-four hours, nearly every form of human sin was committed against Jesus, and he took it all on willingly.
This sermon sits in the tension between apparent hopelessness and the hope Christ offers, reminding us that even on the hardest day of the church calendar, Sunday is coming.

This Easter Sunday, we explore the moment the risen Jesus asks Mary Magdalene a deceptively simple question at the empty tomb: "Who is it that you are looking for?"
From John's Gospel, we walk through Mary's journey from grief to revelation, and consider how that same question speaks to three kinds of people today: those searching for a Jesus they once knew, those waiting for a God who will finally make things right, and those who aren't looking for anyone at all.
What does the resurrection say to each of them? And what happens when we stop looking for a "what" and start looking for a "who"?
Join us as we unpack how Easter morning transforms not just Mary's story, but ours.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.

In a valley that celebrates power, ambition, and agency, Palm Sunday confronts us with something radically different.
Rector John Gorin walks us through Matthew 27, where Jesus stands before Pilate in what can only be described as peak powerlessness: betrayed by a friend, denied by another, facing injustice, and mocked by the crowd. Yet in that moment, Jesus models something our culture rarely teaches us.
Drawing on Isaiah 53, Philippians 2, and 2 Timothy 2, this sermon asks three questions for anyone feeling overwhelmed by circumstances beyond their control: How do I respond? How is God using this in my life? And how do I get through this? Whether you are navigating job insecurity, relational hurt, or simply the weight of a world moving faster than anyone can follow, this message offers an ancient and Christ-centered path through it.
Recorded live at Holy Trinity Silicon Valley Anglican Church, Palo Alto, CA.
Holy Trinity Silicon Valley is a liturgical Anglican church (ACNA/C4SO) located at 3373 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. We gather each Sunday at 10:30 AM for worship rooted in the Book of Common Prayer 2019. Learn more at holytrinitysv.org.

What do you do when God seems late and the situation has already gone past the point of no return? This sermon sits with the hardest question faith asks us to hold: not whether God can bring life from death, but what we do while we wait.
In this final Sunday of Lent before Holy Week, David McGaw explores the painful pause between death and resurrection through the lens of Ezekiel's valley of dry bones and the raising of Lazarus in John 11. Both stories share the same arc: loss, an agonizing wait, and then new life that exceeds anything anyone imagined. But for the people living through it, the wait felt like the end. Whether you're navigating career uncertainty in Silicon Valley, grieving a relationship, or sitting with a dream that seems permanently gone, this message explores what it looks like to speak hope into the driest places of your life and keep showing up when you can't yet see what God is doing.
IN THIS EPISODE
Why the biblical pattern of "death, waiting, then resurrection" matters for people living through seasons of uncertainty and loss right now
What the repeated word "breath" (ruach) in Ezekiel 37 reveals about God's Spirit already being at work before we see results
The overlooked detail in John 11 that suggests Jesus was actively engaged even when it looked like he was doing nothing
How Thomas's quiet, resigned faithfulness ("let us go, that we may die with him") models what courage actually looks like when the outcome is unclear
Why the things God restores in your life are not just for you but become a story that walks others through their own valleys
SCRIPTURE AND LITURGICAL SEASON
Ezekiel 37:1-14 (Valley of Dry Bones) John 11:1-45 (The Raising of Lazarus) Psalm 130 ("Out of the Depths") Romans 8:11 Fifth Sunday in Lent
CONNECT WITH US
https://www.holytrinitysv.org
Join us for worship this Sunday at Holy Trinity Silicon Valley in Palo Alto. Visit holytrinitysv.org for service times and details. Follow @HolyTrinitySV on Instagram and Facebook. As we enter Holy Week, all are welcome to walk with us through the story that changed everything.