Remembrance Sunday sermon
9 November 2025, Austwick, Clapham, Keasden
Those of you with good memories, who were at this service last year, may have noticed that the prayer on the cover of our Newsletter, by the Right Reverend Hosam Naoum, the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, was also included in last year’s Newsletter. I deliberately chose to do this, of course, and I don’t think you need me to explain why. He says:
“We pray without ceasing for justice, reconciliation, peace, and an end to hatred and war. We also pray for God to change the hearts of all leaders and decision-makers in our countries and around the world. For we are in dire need of hearts that love, show mercy, and are willing to live in unity with others – hearts that respect human dignity and choose life rather than death.” [1]
It’s a sobering truth to consider, that in our world this prayer will always be valid, these words will always be current.
Just two weeks ago Archbishop Naoum, following a service at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York City, again entreated Christians to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem”. [2]
He spoke about the word resilience, or samud in Arabic, “a quiet, active and strong will to stay to the last”. “It teaches us how to hold on and to hope,” he said. “Justice and life and love have the last word, and not oppression and death and darkness.”
This is no “naïve concept of trying to romanticise the situation”, but a way of facing these challenges and confronting them face to face; of learning to stand up again and to recover and to rebuild, reshape and reimagine.”
“Beyond being pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian,” he said. “There are people who are not sure and don’t know what to do. It’s complex, but the one safe way in which we can always engage ourselves is by promoting peace through promoting reconciliation and bringing people together. No one can challenge you for that.”
He reflected: “How do you do mission in a place where you have lived for thousands of years, hundreds of centuries, with your Muslim and Jewish neighbours? The answer is faith in action, presenting our faith through healthcare and education and reaching out to the poor and needy. And people will say, ‘That is the Church. That is Jesus among us.’ That is God’s presence in the midst of God’s people, whether they are Christians, Muslims, Jews, or people of no affiliation.”
We gather in our Remembrance services to pray for peace. And part of our task today is to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem”. Because Jerusalem is a place of significance and gathering for all peoples, when we “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” we are praying for the peace of the whole world.
When we “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” we are not just praying for ourselves, our own clan, our own nation; we are praying for all people with whom we share this earth, with whom we are called to build fellowship and understanding.
When we “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” we pray remembering those who have died in wars past and present: whether those in active military service or those civilians caught in the crossfire or deliberately targeted.
As we think of them, our faith offers us the hope of the resurrection of the dead, a remarkable hope, expressed by Jesus who spoke of his Father saying, “He is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”
All of them are alive: and from heaven they stand as witnesses to the way we conduct ourselves in this world, we who have been given the gift of growing old on this earth.
Our faith asks of us that we “choose life rather than death”; that we prayerfully purge our hearts of fear, distrust, and enmity, and devote ourselves towards acts of love and mercy.
In a world which seems intent on dividing us from one another, may God give us the grace to actively resist the forces of darkness, and to keep on giving ourselves to the life-giving task of living in unity with others.
Notes
[1] Hosam E. Naoum, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” [PDF]. Episcopal Letter, 14 October 2023.
[2] Pat Ashworth, Pray for us, Archbishop in Jerusalem tells New York congregation. Church Times, 24 October 2025.
