|
HOME>
Qurbana >> Part I/VI <<<YOU ARE HERE.
|
|
|
Explanation (Qurbana) - A Syriac
Perspective
|
Page 1/6
The word
"Offering" (Qurbana in Syriac) was first used to describe
the worship of the Christian Church in the earliest
Christian communities. It describes what is done when
believers are gathered together for the worship of God. I
stress the word "done" because both the Syriac word "teshmeshta"
(service, or ministry) and the Greek word "leitourgia"
(literally, "work of the people") suggest doing something.
You may sometimes hear people say that they go to church
to observe the Qurbana, or that they go to hear the
Qurbana, or that they go to receive the Qurbana. In the
modern day there are few who feel that they, personally,
go to Church to offer the Qurbana. They think this is the
priest's job, and in thinking this way they are not so
much wrong as they are limited in their understanding of
what is going on. Watching or hearing--or even simply
receiving--the Qurbana suggests a person is detached from
the experience of offering it--from experiencing the full
satisfaction of membership in the living "Body of Christ"
which is doing the offering. Of course, different people
have understood the Qurbana in different ways at different
times and in different circumstances throughout its long
history. Believers in Apostolic times met together in the
house of one of their fellow-Christians for a common meal,
at which they broke bread and shared a cup of wine mixed
with water in obedience to our Lord's command, “Do this
for my memorial.” (1 Corinthians. 11:24; Luke. 24:19) Like
the Passover meal of the Jews, in which the participants
remembered the experience of the Exodus and made it their
own, the breaking of bread and the recitation of the
saving acts of God in the passion, death, burial, and
resurrection of Christ made the participants in the
Qurbana participants as well in the reality of those acts.
By recalling that gracious intervention of God in time and
among men, they considered themselves one with their Lord,
and with one another, participating mysteriously in the
most decisive moment of history. This whole experience of
oneness with Christ and with one another in the power of
his saving acts fortified the faithful, who were a
minority in a hostile world, and gave them courage to bear
witness to Christ in the face of sometimes brutal
opposition. It is instructive to remember how some of
these early Christians provided for this common meal--or,
to be more specific, how they provided for the "Offering."
Each family would bring its loaf of bread and flask of
wine to the meeting and give it to the deacons. The
deacons in turn presented the gifts of the faithful to the
presbyter (or bishop) who then led the congregation in
presenting them to God as an "offering." In presenting
them he offered, on their behalf, thanksgiving for God's
creative acts and for the new creation brought about
through the Incarnation of his Son. He recounted the
events of the passion, death, burial, and resurrection of
Christ, and proclaimed their relevance to mankind. He
prayed for God's blessing upon the offering of bread and
wine, and for the benefits that came to those who had
fellowship in faith in the Body and Blood--that is, in the
very person and life-of his Son, Jesus Christ. At the
conclusion of his prayer, which the people affirmed with
their "Amen," the presbyter and deacons distributed the
broken bread and mixed wine to the faithful.
As the Church grew and eventually prospered, the
arrangement I have just recounted became unwieldy and
impractical. Houses were inadequate for the crowds of
worshipers; in those areas where the faithful brought
their own bread and wine, this also became impractical;
and because of the size and diversity of the people,
different forms had to be devised to accommodate the
changes. But despite any development that the Qurbana went
through, the basic concept of the Offering remained at the
core. The people came to offer Christ's own offering as
members of his mystical body, to recall the saving acts of
God in Christ, and to participate in his life (and their
own shared life together as his bodily members) through
their common offering. Today there are some who feel they
have no significant personal part in the Offering of the
Qurbana. The clergy are doing that, and they are the
audience, looking on and singing psalms and hymns to pass
the time until the Communion is distributed. People with
this experience and viewpoint often devise their own
private devotions, which they engage in simultaneously
with the great drama being played out before them. This is
the viewpoint that, until recently, had predominated in
the West since the Middle Ages, but it is not unknown in
the East. Others view the Qurbana as a public ritual,
necessary for preserving the cultural identity and
traditional heritage of a people steeped in Christian
values. To such people the Qurbana is an important
cultural tool, providing unity and helping to preserve the
integrity of the Christian (or local) community in the
face of a hostile and often aggressive world. This view of
the Qurbana as a necessary public ritual is widespread in
our time. The two viewpoints listed above are by no means
the only ways people view the Qurbana. And they are not
necessarily wrong so much as they are incomplete. The
Church's own understanding of its "Offering," its Qurbana,
is rooted in Scripture and in the memory of those first
Christian believers gathering together for their common
meal and sacred "breaking of bread." It is rooted in the
promise of Christ, that “where two or three are gathered
together in my name, I am there among them.” (Mt. 18:20)
It is given even more dramatic shape by the words of the
Apostle Paul: “Now you are the body of Christ, and members
in your own place.” (1 Corinthians 12:27) When we gather
for our Offering Christ is present--not only among us, as
he promised, but within us, binding us together as his own
body. Each of us functions as a member in his own place.
Christ is present to us and in us in the congregation
assembled in his name. This dramatic insight is Paul's
closing thought in a dissertation on the Body of Christ
that begins, “I speak as to the wise. Judge for yourselves
what I say: The cup of thanksgiving which we bless, is it
not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread
which we break, is it not a participation in the body of
Christ? As there is one loaf, so all of us are one body,
for all of us take from the one loaf.” (1 Corinthians
10:15-18) Between this declaration and the announcement,
“You are the body of Christ,” Paul discusses a number of
issues with this as the central insight. Among these
issues is one concerning how the believers in Corinth
treated one another when they gathered for their common
meal and breaking of bread. Weaving together the two
images of the Body of Christ in the loaf of bread and the
one body in the congregation, it becomes impossible to
separate them when at last he declares, “Whoever eats and
drinks of it unworthily eats and drinks condemnation upon
himself, for he does not discern the body of the Lord.” (1
Corinthians 11:29) By this time the reader of the epistle
cannot locate the Body of Christ only in the "loaf of
bread," but the "body of the Lord" which we discern must
also be located in the assembled believers as well. This
was the standard for judging the rightness or wrongness of
the Corinthians' behavior toward their fellow Christians:
in their assembly did they discern the body of the Lord in
the men and women who surrounded them as well as in the
loaf? It all comes round to the words of Christ himself:
“Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of
these, my brothers, you have done it to me.” (Mt. 25:40)
So those early Christians who assembled brought their
Offering to God as the Body of Christ. It was quite
literally an offering of themselves under the symbols of
bread and wine, in imitation of his own self-sacrifice on
the Cross, as he had commanded them: “Do this for my
memorial.” In this Offering they affirmed--and
experienced--their own oneness with their Lord and his
self-sacrifice, and their oneness with each other, having
participation in his life and in one another's lives. In
it they learned the meaning of his words, “Whoever eats my
body and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.”
(John. 6:54) In the bread and wine they discerned through
faith the power and presence of the Lord himself: in one
another they discerned through faith the gracious presence
of the same Lord, as well as the opportunity to serve him
and share in his life. The Mystery of the Qurbana, then,
is the mystery of Christ present with us: present in the
bread and wine which is offered, and present in the
assembled faithful, his body, who do the offering--the
mystery of Emmanuel, "God with us." When we fully discern
the body of the Lord, then we experience the fullness of
the Mystery, “the mystery which was hidden from ages and
generations, but now is revealed to his saints, those to
whom God was pleased to make known what are the riches of
the glory of this mystery among the nations, that is, the
Christ who is in you, the hope of our glory.” (Col.
1:26-27) |
| |
|
Previous (Qurbana Home) |
Next |
| |
|
|
|
|
Wait...Sign Guestbook |
Tell A friend |
View Member Articles |
Give
Feedback |
| Please note that the views posted on
this site are solely as presented by the members of the
MGOCSM-ANDHERI and has no bearing with the Church's official stand
on issues of doctrine or church relations. Nobody may be held
responsible for any misrepresentation of data and we apologize for
the same. Please feel free to contact us. Help us provide quality
and accurate information. For any comments or suggestions about the
layout and content mail the
webmaster@andherimgocsm.cjb.net.
|
|
