The coordinator of the World Council of Churches’ Jerusalem Liaison Office is the 2025 recipient of the Menno Simons Sermon Award.

Yusef Daher will receive the award June 29 from the University of Ham­burg’s Center for Peace Church Theology and Mennonite Church Hamburg-Altona in Germany after delivering the sermon during the church’s worship service.

“The Escape to Egypt and Back,” delivered originally in October, begins in the story of Joseph’s escape to Egypt with his family in Matthew 2. Daher interprets this through the current ­situation of refugees in the Middle East, particularly Palestinian Christians.

He reflects on the challenges and hopes associated with flight, displacement and return. He highlights the im­portance of welcoming refugees and the necessity of return to their homeland. He emphasizes that the return and reconciliation of refugees — regardless of their religion or nationality — are central elements of a just future and coexistence of all groups.

Daher was born in Jerusalem in 1966 and has been the coordinator of the WCC’s office there since 2021. ­Prior to that, he was executive secretary of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Center of the Heads of Churches of Jerusalem and secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Church.

He is co-author of numerous publications on the situation and theology of Palestinian Christians and Jerusalem, including the “Kairos Palestine Document.” He holds a master’s degree in pilgrimage and tourism from London Metropolitan University and has taught at Bethlehem University for over a decade.

The Menno Simons International Sermon Award is intended to encourage and recognize sermons that express the biblical witness in light of the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition.