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Bishop Iraj addressed this letter to the Friends of the Diocese of Iran, the Jerusalem and Middle East Church Association, and all who read ‘Bible Lands’ and care for the Anglican Church in Iran.

Farewell letter

This is the last letter I write for you as a bishop still in office. My term of office ends 30th April 2004 so this will be a farewell address. Therefore, I would like to start with words of thanksgiving. I thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for offering himself in Jesus and for the gift of his spirit, for his call and his faithfulness.

Then I thank you for your fervent prayers offered daily on our behalf, and for the practical support you graciously gave us, especially during the past 25 years. The constancy of your caring love for what the Psalmist calls ‘a dove threatened by a wild beast’ is much appreciated. We look back with gratitude, even with wonder, for the resourcefulness of your charity, always active, so that we may remain faithful in fulfilling the commission entrusted to us.

In such an engagement, even the tragic ends do not impair the privilege that is given, or frustrate the joy that is offered. For precisely it is in the course of engagement in the divine commission that our trust is tested and renewed, and the riches of God’s grace are daily enjoyed. How else could the human capacity or resources in a resolved manner have coped under the given situation?

As ever near and tenderly intimate friends, each and all of you helped and encouraged us (Minoo and myself) and our companion pilgrims to be faithful to our Lord and remain true to his calling. Due to the forces at work surpassing human capacities, no further we can go. Thanks to the generosity of your hearts and your attentive souls sustaining us through and through.

Loss of the last minister

For reasons you well know, the ‘little dove’ is about to lose the last ministerial resource she has in store. The combatant forces that scatter and destroy want her downfall. Having robbed her of all the resources that make a community, they are ready now to celebrate her defeat. It is hard to think the vacuum that our ministerial vacancy causes sooner or later will not suck up whatever is left behind. What other reason can be behind the recent tightening-up that has blocked even the most natural and personal relationships at all levels? What else can be said of the late sanctions banning every expression of service to communal life?

Here then I stand at the end of a road, long, stormy, dark and dangerous all along. I leave a community behind, distressed and dispersed, bewildered and fearful to meet what future has in store for her!

God is able

St Paul’s words of farewell, addressed to the Ephesian elders, serve the situation I have portrayed here. As he commends them to God and to the words of his grace, he reminds them of what God is able to do for, in, through and among them. The mission we are commissioned to is a joint venture, God’s initiative meeting man’s response. It never is an individual enterprise either. Where a partner in mission fails or falls, love’s compulsion recruits and renews others who are faithful, and works with them to gather all things into himself. The divine venture, in union with human response, may retreat a while, but never retire. Even tragic ends, borne in love’s patience, triumph over the forces that hinder or breathe despair.

Farewells are inevitable. They are inbuilt health parameters, set in physical, social and ecclesial set-ups, for the welfare of all. Either we quit quietly, or else far-reaching consequences emerge. Human constitutions exert enormous powers. One miserably breaks if their domain is trespassed. Evasions or vetoes are not tolerated within their domain. Sound minds therefore, honour and submit to their demand. What ultimately counts are honesty and faithfulness, integrity and perseverance, while the course is run. Once authority is withdrawn, a logical as well as graceful response would be, “Lord, redeemer and judge of all, have mercy”.

The agony of farewell

Farewells are not always festive. How can we depart from those who are part of us? The agony of departure is descriptively described by Saadi of Shiraz. A rough translation could be, “When beloveds part, tears gush as the rush of Spring rains, yea, even the stones cry out.”

Then how can a parting be a party? It all depends on the nature of the departure. Hence, the words of our Lord to his chosen ones. “It is in your interest that I am leaving you.” The ‘interest’ rests in what is to come – the Promised One, ever present and creatively active, in spite and on behalf of the absentee Lord. The Spirit that moves ever over the mess that is called life, matched at times with a leaping and at another even with a limping faith, is all that matters.

And on the human level, the call to trust is where our hearts should rest. “Trust in God, trust also in me”. Trusting in God as he sacrificially entrusted his Son to the world. He so loved that he gave. Giving all without reserve. And trusting in Jesus in the manner of his costly trust in the Father, is a sure base for the promised Spirit. Resting on our trust, the Spirit is able to renew, to inform and to empower the personal and the social in us.

What then do we make of the recent distressing events that sanction effectively all activity in the life and the fellowship? What shall we say, now that our lawful services in the fellowship are vetoed or withdrawn?

The current events, calculated and timely, seem just and fair to the imposer. To the imposed, they feel painful and perplexing, unacceptable and unjust. Yet to faith’s eyes, pain and pressure borne in love’s response are no novelties. They are borne to bear away the wrong in personhood. What matters most is not things taken in, but what comes out of man when pressed.

With best wishes for you all,

Iraj