Holy Trinity Silicon Valley - Homilies & Sermons

This week we celebrated 250 years as a country, with all the good and the hard parts of that history. But our scriptures point us to a freedom that goes deeper than any nation can offer. The prophet Zechariah calls believers "prisoners of hope," and it's a phrase worth sitting with. Because of who God is, hope never runs out.
In this message by Deacon Cindy Millwer we look at Zechariah 9, Psalm 145, Romans 7, and Matthew 11. David praised God through a very difficult life. Paul was honest about how hard it is to keep sin out of ours. And Jesus offers rest to anyone who is weary and carrying a heavy load. You'll also hear a story from a recent hospital visit, where a woman in terrible pain found real relief the moment she turned to prayer.
To find out more about Holy Trinity Silicon Valley head to:
https://www.holytrinitysv.org

What does it actually cost to follow Jesus, and what do we gain when we do?
In this message from Holy Trinity Silicon Valley, Rector John Gorin turns to Matthew 10:37-39, where Jesus tells his disciples three times that loving family, comfort, or life itself more than him makes us "not worthy" of him. Drawing on the Greek word Axios, the root of our word "axiom," the message explores how worthiness here isn't about personal value, but about alignment: living a life that reflects who Christ is and what he prioritizes.
The teaching confronts two pressures every disciple faces. There is family pressure, where our deepest relationships can pull against our calling, and cultural pressure, where good gifts like reputation, money, and meaningful work quietly become things we grip too tightly. Using a vivid image, the Tahoe casino billboards promising a thrill that always disappoints, Rector Gorin asks an honest question: is there something in your life you've told God, "Anything but that, Lord"?
But the heavy news gives way to good news. The same Lord who calls us to take up our cross is the one who helps us carry it. Through the story of John Mark, the missionary who quit, was written off, and yet went on to author a Gospel, we're reminded that the final word about our worthiness has not yet been written. We serve the God of another chance, who invites us to lose our life for his sake and, in doing so, finally find the life we were made for.
A message on discipleship, sacrifice, and the freedom of holding life's blessings with an open hand.

What happens when following Jesus moves from the joy of the harvest to the hard work of facing real opposition?
Continuing our journey through Matthew's Gospel, this message picks up where Jesus commissions his disciples. He doesn't offer a sugarcoated vision, but speaks honest words about what lies ahead. He sends them out "like sheep among wolves," warning of councils, persecution, and even division within families. It's a sobering shift from the excitement of being sent into the harvest to the genuine cost of the effort.
But Jesus doesn't leave his followers in fear. Three times he says: Do not be afraid. And he gives three reasons why.
This week's teaching explores what that means for us today. It speaks not only to Christians around the world facing high levels of persecution, but also to those of us navigating faith in a culture that's grown more skeptical. What does it look like to live openly as a follower of Jesus in a place like Silicon Valley, where assumptions and "baggage" are already assigned before we say a word? And how does the example of Christ himself, who "for the joy set before him endured the cross," reframe the way we understand opposition?
Drawing on Scripture, history, and the witness of believers like Stephen and Augustine, this message offers a grounded, hopeful reminder. Our circumstances may not change, but the presence of God can transform how we walk through them. Fear gives way to peace when we trust that we are seen, known, and deeply loved.
Join us as we sit with a difficult but freeing truth: the same resurrection power Jesus displayed is the power he extends to us.
A sermon from Holy Trinity Silicon Valley.To find out more about Holy Trinity head to https://www.holytrinitysv.org

We live in the heart of Silicon Valley, a place that is completely obsessed with scaling up, massive innovation, and huge tech launches. It is easy to get caught up in wanting our own lives and careers to have that same kind of massive impact. In this episode, Rev. John Gorin asks a great question. What if the most important startup out there is not the next big tech company, but the one Jesus started two thousand years ago?
Looking at the Gospel of Matthew, Rev. John talks about what it really means to be part of God’s harvest. This is a mission that is not about breaking stock market records. Instead, it is about building a lasting kingdom right where you live and work.
What We Chat About in This Episode
The Valley Mindset vs. The Kingdom Mindset: We look at how our culture defines success and why Jesus offers a completely different way to make our lives matter.
The Ultimate Rescue Mission: Spreading the Gospel is not just about sharing a message. It is about being a real, practical part of God’s rescue plan for a world that often feels overwhelmed and helpless.
Finding Your "Person of Peace": How do you actually share your faith in a busy office or a neighborhood where people might not be interested? Rev. John gives a practical tip on how to pray for and identify the specific people God has already placed in your life.
The "Coin-Operated" Motivation: Rev. John gets honest about his past career in tech sales. He shares how he learned to take that natural drive for results and channel it into something eternal, like helping people find Jesus.
Key Reflection
"What is eternal is what we have been called to do, to be part of this harvest, to just do it where we are called to be. Just be God's harvester where we are."
Rev. John Gorin
If you have ever felt like your Monday through Friday job is totally disconnected from your faith, or if you are wondering how to make a real difference right where you are, this episode is for you. Tune in to get a fresh perspective on a harvest that will never fade or lose its value.

We all know that feeling when our internal "injustice radar" goes off. Maybe it is a terrible call by a referee during a game, a favorite artist getting snubbed at an award show, or a painful personal betrayal that cuts deep. In this episode, Rev. John Gorin talks about our natural instinct to demand justice and explains how Jesus completely flips the script by introducing a radical, life-changing way to handle wrongdoing: mercy.
Drawing from the Gospel of Matthew, Rev. John breaks down what happens when we stop judging everyone around us and start living from a place of real grace.
What We Chat About in This Episode
The Drama of Matthew's Career Change: We take a look at what tax collectors actually did back then (hint: it was basically legal extortion) and why Matthew's sudden choice to drop everything and follow Jesus was so shocking.
Mercy Over Rules: Why did Jesus choose to hang out at a big dinner party with Matthew and his friends? We look at the cultural weight of that dinner and what Jesus really meant when he told the judgmental religious leaders, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice".
Running on Empty (The "Mercy Tank"): Trying to force yourself to be merciful on your own willpower never works. Rev. John explains why our personal mercy tanks are pretty small and how we need to constantly refill them from God's endless supply.
A Reality Check at Home: Rev. John shares an honest story about a major wake-up call from his wife, Vicki, during his busy tech-sales days. It is a great reminder of how easily we can lose patience with the people who matter most and how to course-correct.
Key Reflection
"We can only show mercy to others with what we have received in terms of the mercy of the Lord." — Rev. John Gorin
If you are holding onto a grudge or finding it tough to forgive someone who deeply hurt you, this episode is a friendly invitation to take a step back. Tune in to discover how to move past judgment and bring a little more healing into a broken world.

What if a 500-foot cathedral could teach us more about the Trinity than a theology textbook?
Returning refreshed from travels through Germany, England, and Wales, Rev. John Gorin moves past the ancient debates of the fourth-century church—the arguments over a single Greek word, homoousios—to ask a more personal question: How do we actually experience the Triune God?
His answer takes us inside the Cologne Cathedral.
In this Trinity Sunday message, Rev. Gorin offers a guided tour of how sacred space reveals sacred truth:
God the Father in the cathedral's towering height and the light descending from its highest windows—echoing the first act of creation and reminding us of our smallness before an almighty, loving God.
God the Son in the cross-shaped floor plan and the central aisle leading to the altar, where the bread and cup proclaim a sacrifice that leaves us with no condemnation.
God the Holy Spirit in the easily-missed Pentecost window—a fitting home for the "shy member of the Trinity," the indwelling God who cultivates Christ's likeness in us through patience, peace, and self-control.
Along the way, Rev. Gorin shares an honest reflection on the 4 a.m. anxieties we carry, and the freedom that comes from casting them on the One who already holds the plan.
A meditation on tradition, beauty, and presence—for anyone seeking to know God not just in theory, but in the quiet places of daily life.
Recorded May 31st at Holy Trinity Silicon Valley.

A sound like wind. Tongues like fire. And a question that has shaped the Church for two thousand years: what is all of this for?
On Pentecost Sunday, Deacon Cindy Miller turns to Acts 2 and to Paul's answer in 1 Corinthians 12 to explain that the manifestations of the Spirit are given, he writes, for the common good. Not for spiritual elites. Not gifts to collect. This is power lent for the sake of others.
Cindy traces the line from Mount Sinai to Pentecost with fire from heaven confirming first the Law, then the indwelling Spirit, no longer in a single place but on many. She offers a clear test for discernment (anything the Spirit says to you will be consistent with Scripture, period). And she closes with a story from her years as a hospital chaplain about a nudge, a stranger, and a conversation neither of them had planned.
A sermon for anyone who has wondered whether the Holy Spirit is a doctrine to recite or a presence to recognize.
Holy Trinity Silicon Valley. Palo Alto, California. Anglican · ACNA · C4SO.

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