Greetings Beloved St. Matthew’s,

There is something beautiful about the many ways we come home.

Sometimes “coming home” can be to a place, familiar faces, or a tradition that returns just when we need it. Sometimes it means gathering around a table, hearing a beloved song, or finding ourselves surrounded by people who remember our stories. And sometimes, coming home means discovering that the people and places we love continue to hold us, even as life changes in ways we never would have chosen.

This week marks one year since we returned to our sanctuary after the fires. One whole year of gathering again in this sacred space, hearing familiar prayers, singing together, celebrating new life, grieving our losses, and finding our way forward as a community that shows up. After months of displacement and uncertainty, returning home was a gift. Not because everything was suddenly restored or all of our losses resolved, but because we could once again gather in a place that holds so many of our stories.

I hope we can pause to give thanks for that gift. Home is never only a building, and yet the places where we worship, pray, laugh, and weep together matter deeply. Our sanctuary has welcomed us back, and we continue to make it a home through the grace we share with one another.

As we move through these autumn weeks, I find myself thinking about all the ways we are invited to come home to St. Matthew’s.

We are also in our stewardship season, reflecting on the grace we have received and the generosity through which we share it. Week after week, we gather at the altar to receive bread and wine, gifts we have not earned and cannot purchase. God’s love is not something we must buy or repay. We give because we have received, helping set a table where newcomers are welcomed, families find support, children grow in faith, and anyone returning after years away can discover that there is still a place for them.

Perhaps the question this season is not only, “What can I afford to give?” but also, “What kind of table do I want to help set?” I hope we will continue setting a table marked by welcome, compassion, generosity, and belonging — where there is always room for one more.

And because coming home is not always a serious business, I hope we will also make room for delight. There is something wonderfully life-giving about blessing costumes this upcoming Sunday, celebrating the imagination and silliness of the season, and delighting in the joy children bring into our midst. These moments remind us that faith is not only something we profess. It is something we practice through laughter, play, and the joy of being together.

All Saints’ Day takes place soon after, on November 1st, continuing this season that invites us to consider another dimension of coming home.

We remember the saints who have gone before us, those whose faithfulness helped shape the Church, and those whose lives have shaped our own. We are stewards of their memories and lessons, including both the beautiful and the complicated parts of their stories. We honor them not by pretending they were perfect, but by remembering how their lives taught us, challenged us, and helped make us who we are.

For many of us, All Saints’ is also a tender time. Grief has a way of making the distance between past and present feel both immense and impossibly small. A familiar voice, a favorite song, or a particular quality of sunlight can bring someone we miss startlingly close.

I suspect this All Saints’ will be especially tender for us as a parish family and staff as we continue to grieve our beloved Bruce. We miss him. We carry his laughter, his wisdom, his holy irreverence, and his deep love for this community. And yet, there are moments when the veil between those we can see and those we cannot seems wonderfully thin. In the birdsong that catches our attention, the cackle of a loud guffaw, and in the familiar strains of the Grateful Dead and other songs strummed by the Sultans, we find ourselves remembering Bruce with gratitude — sometimes through tears and sometimes with laughter.

Perhaps that is one of the gifts of All Saints’. We are reminded that love does not simply disappear when someone dies. Their lives continue to shape ours, and the communion of saints reminds us that we belong to a story much larger than ourselves. We gather in the presence of God, surrounded by those beside us and held in love with those who have gone before us.

I invite you to stop by one of our services in the coming weeks to add the name or names of those you would like remembered in our Reading of the Necrology on All Saints’ morning, for there is always room to remember them here.

And on that morning, we will bask in Dwayne’s glorious requiem, music that gives voice to the mystery of grief, hope, and the promise of life in God. Through the beauty of that music, we will be reminded again of the thinness of the veil and the love that holds us across every boundary we cannot cross on our own.

A couple of weeks later, on November 19th, another familiar welcome will be extended for us: our beloved Christmas Faire!

There is a particular joy in coming home to this tradition. The gathering, the preparations, the familiar faces, the laughter, the tables filled with treasures and treats, and the many hands that make it all possible. After all that we have lived through together, there is something meaningful about creating these moments of connection again. We come home not because everything is as it once was, but because we continue to make a home for one another.

And through the Faire, we extend that welcome beyond our campus, supporting our Outreach Partners and the people and communities they serve. Once again, we help set the table for someone else.

My friends, home is not always a building or a particular season of life. Sometimes it is a community that keeps showing up. Sometimes it is a memory that makes us laugh. Sometimes it is the music that carries us or the quiet assurance that we are held in a love greater than death.

At St. Matthew’s, we are learning again and again how to receive that love and share it. Through our worship, our generosity, our remembrance, our laughter, and our traditions, we make room for grace to take root.

May this season bring you moments of delight and places of rest. May it give you room to remember those you miss, with tenderness for whatever their absence brings. And may we continue to be a community where people can come home in all the ways that matter, welcomed by God’s grace and held by one another.

There is a place for you here. There is a place for the stories you carry, the people you remember, and the hope you are still discovering.

And by God’s grace, there is always room to welcome one more.

In Joy, KC 

St. Matthew’s 2027 Stewardship Pledge Campaign is underway!

The Pledge Campaign Team is working hard to deliver for the Parish of St. Matthew, so please answer their call. Every pledge makes a difference, and together we look forward to our recovery with hope for the future.

Don’t miss our final Stewardship Speakers, Pete and Pam Mann, this Sunday, October 25, and if you didn’t hear the previous speakers, you can read their Stewardship Talks through the link below.

Don’t forget to return your pledge cards by November 8, when St. Matthew’s will bless the generous gifts during our Sunday services!

If you have any questions about stewardship, please don’t hesitate to reach out to St. Matthew’s Director of Development, Andrea Bostick via Giving@stmatthews.com or Stewardship Chair, Kathy Bitting  via KBitting@stmatthews.com.

1026 Bienveneda Ave.
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272

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